Does the president and general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs care about winning the Stanley Cup?
Of course he bloody well does.
But he also cares a lot about being a successful businessman and corporate leader. So maybe it wasn't such a surprise that Brian Burke packed the lobby of the Rotman School of Management at U of T yesterday, for a Q&A on management.
Burke was helping promote a new book "Behind the Moves," by Jason Farris, executive vice-president of business operations and development for the Dallas Stars. Farris is a U of T grad. Burke wrote the forward to the book and contributed his ideas as well, in part because he wanted to know what his fellow GMs thought about running their teams.
"I've been at this awhile, but the day you think you've got nothing more to learn is the day you're going to get beat," Burke said.
One of the more interesting revelations Burke shared was the notion that he's not in the sports business.
"I'm in the entertainment business. I need to have you leave saying, 'that was fun,' even when we lose. That's why my teams don't trap, we trade chances, and we occasionally fight. My teams are never dull and never will be."
Burke is #29 on the all-time list of GMs with NHL experience. He's managed 1,100 games, but probably missed out on 400 more games, when he left managing, to join the NHL's head office for several seasons.
He won a Stanley Cup with the Anaheim Ducks in 2007, and put together most of the Vancouver Canuck team that went to Game 7 of last year's Stanley Cup Final, before losing to the Boston Bruins.
And yet, Burke says the management philosophy he used to put the Ducks together was "obsolete within 12 months. And if you're the last guy to realize that in the league, then you're screwed."
To non-sports fans, this may not sound like much of a change, but five years ago, the conventional wisdom managers used when putting their teams together was to make their clubs "top 6, bottom 6."
That meant finding six highly skilled players for the top two lines, and six checkers, tough guys, or pluggers for the next two lines, or as Burke calls them, "artists and carpenters."
Now, it's more like "top 8, bottom 4," given how the game now focuses more on players with "footspeed," and even less on fighters.
One of Burke's most complicated and successful trades centred on all the wheeling and dealing he did as GM of the Canucks in 1999. He made three trades in order to get the second and third picks of that draft, so he could draft the Sedin twins (Henrik and Daniel).
"I did that because I didn't want to go up there (on the podium) twice, and besides that, I couldn't tell the sons of bitches apart," Burke said to huge laughs.
Some of the best deals are the ones you don't make. Burke recalled the current New York Rangers' GM Glen Sather inquiring about a player named Geoff Sanderson, who showed flashes of brilliance in scoring 14 goals when Sather called, but at the beginning of his career, was on the bubble. When Sather inquired about Sanderson's availability, Burke called another GM, Cliff Fletcher, for advice.
"Have a cold drink, walk around the block, and forget you got the call," Fletcher said. Burke didn't make the deal. Sanderson scored 48 goals that year.
Burke says most GMs wouldn't hesistate to screw each other to better their team.
"Mike Keenan used to intentionally mispronounce the names of players he was interested in, to give the impression he didn't really know them," Burke recalled. "It's a den of thieves out there, even though there is honour in the game."
The reality is, being a GM is a lonely business.
"You've got to trade guys whose wives are pregnant or whose fathers are dying of cancer," Burke says. "You need to be ruthless. I'll do what I have to, to make my team better, and if that ruins someone's family life, well, tough. That's why people love sitting in the front seat of this bus. But they don't want their hand on the wheel."
The best question to come from the floor was the simplest: "Mr. Burke, did you see the movie or read the book, Moneyball, and if so, what did you think?"
"I say, have a friggin' parade before you write a book like that," Burke said. "No team ever won a title with Moneyball."
And he went on.
"Moneyball is horseshit baseball," he said. "That's what I think of Moneyball. It's boring. Look at Kevin Youkilis of the Red Sox. He fouls off a ton of pitches, takes pitches, works the count. You need a second beer before this asshole's done batting!"
One thing they'll never be able to say about Brian Burke: he was on the fence about that one.
