Chapter 1: Who is Pierre Dorion and why is he a candidate for the Canucks GM position?
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What's up? Welcome to another week of Canucks Talk here on Sportsnet 650. I'm Jamie Dodd. My co-host is Thomas Drance. Drance covers the team for the Athletic as well. We're broadcasting live from the Kintec studio. Step strong with orthotics and footwear from Kintec. 650-650 is the Dunbar Lumber text line. This hour of the show is presented by Waffle House Diner.
Enjoy chicken and waffles, the Waffle House special classic, full breakfast, and more. Dine in or order on your favorite delivery app. Breakfast done right. What's going on, Drance?
Well, I would love to be enjoying the schadenfreude of Toronto Maple Leafs introductory presser. Because, whoa, boy, what an all-time uncomfortable sequence that was. You know what it reminded me of? Not to mow Halford and Brough's lawn, but you know that press conference from the Simpsons? where the first reporter asks, is this a joke?
And when that reporter is assured that, in fact, no, it is not a joke, the follow-up question from the second reporter is, no, but seriously, is this a joke? And I'd very much like to revel in that.
or the other simpsons press conference or just like it's not really a press conference but i'm thinking of um george hw bush when he moved and he's giving the speech and he had to shave the clown hair off and it's like does anyone have questions that aren't about my hair like no we don't the i mean you're gonna be asked for references like you're gonna be you gotta be prepared when you make a controversial hire and this might be
something that the Canucks want to write down. Have a couple people that you've talked to that are ready to vouch for a guy. You know, you got to be able to cite a couple people, like, especially if you're talking about the due diligence. I mean, you didn't think you'd be asked. Granted, you don't expect Steve Simmons to necessarily bring his, you know, Gatling gun to the presser.
Kudos to him, by the way.
Jim Waller, Associated Press.
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Chapter 2: What are the comparisons between Pierre Dorion and other GM candidates?
Is there any color you can add to hearing his name in the mix? Any reporting you can add?
I can. I would love to be on here to pour cold water on this possibility.
Yeah.
But I heard from a league source this morning that Pierre Dorian is a strong possibility at this point in the process. So I'm taking this very seriously and I'm mortified. I mean, I'm terrified. Yeah. Like, and mortified. I'm embarrassed for the Canucks and I'm mortified or terrified for myself and our fans. Like, we can't be doing this, right?
We can't be... He can't have put me through and our listeners through the last five, six years and then... force me to do it again, surely, right? Like we're not doing this. And so Dorian has that issue where it's like, and this is my least favorite type of candidate.
And I think one of the reasons why all of these searches, certainly the one in Toronto, certainly the Nashville pulled up whatever's going on there. And ultimately we'll see if Pierre Dorian is a finalist here, but at least they ducked Or the Canucks appear to have ducked the Bergevin buzz. Yes. But we'll see if that returns too. But there's the type of general manager candidate where it's like,
There are disqualifying leadership questions as a result of performance malfeasance that necessitated discipline from the league and or suspension and or what have you. This is your Bowman bucket. This is your Chayka bucket. Joel Quenville, although obviously his hockey work, he doesn't actually quite fit in this bucket because his hockey work is obviously-
Because the other part of what you're talking about is it's like they've made these massive judgment, like non-hockey judgment errors that have required discipline. And then the hockey record is also uninspiring.
It's also bad. Yeah. So I'm getting the am I willing to dance with the devil? Yeah. Willing to sacrifice my own moral code in order to win. It's like this guy can't help you win. And there's.
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Chapter 3: How does the interview process impact the Canucks' GM search?
Seriously.
Like you couldn't even let us enjoy this Canucks. Like I'm Larry David here. I'm Larry David in the meme. I'm like on the one hand, that's hilarious. On the other hand, oh my God. Like this is, and so let's get into the hockey moves too.
Okay, hold on. Before we do, I have a couple of points that are not directly related to his hockey resume that I do want to bring up. And some people are texting in along these lines as well, right? Because, okay, I can't help but wonder, hearing his name surface, how it relates to...
Some of the things we've heard about the process already, right, specifically the three lists, you know, up to five people on these interviews, at least four. And we've heard I think PJ surfaced Dax Aquilini, who I believe is Francesco's nephew as another representative of ownership who's in on some of these some of these Zoom interviews.
And so it does make me wonder, like, it's hard for me to imagine that you've got a group of four or five people and the consensus among them was Pierre Dorian should be on the shortlist. You know, Pierre Dorian, we're all on board. Everyone agrees. We want to give Pierre Dorian another interview and really strongly consider him.
It makes me wonder, is this like how are they deciding on the shortlist? Is it a case of, OK, we're all going to pick two or three guys and then we're going to interview them. Right. And this is one person pushing Pierre Dorian as opposed to the group, because if it's the group coming together and saying we love this guy, that is truly, truly terrifying.
And so I do wonder how much this tells us and just in general, how much the ultimate GM hire will kind of tell us about the power dynamics behind the scenes here. I also wonder and look far be it for me to suggest that NHL teams would ever engage in, you know, any sort of PR sleight of hand here. But who's been seen as the favorite from the start to get this job? Ryan Johnson, right?
And Lance, would you say that the market seems really excited about the possibility of Ryan Johnson?
I think the market is insufficiently excited about the possibility of Brian Johnson.
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Chapter 4: What concerns are raised about Pierre Dorion's past performance?
but I think that's like a specific situational thing. And again, I haven't been able to confirm it directly. The other thing that I heard over the weekend was just, this isn't happening before the draft lottery. I think there's patience. The club recognizes that they have a couple of weeks even, The Maple Leafs started the search weeks before they did.
And there's no hard deadlines coming up for the Canucks to navigate or manage here. I think there's two, three weeks left in this process before you get to the point where it's like, you probably need someone in charge here, the buck to stop with somebody. Or certain decisions are going to get a bit crunchy.
If you're not done... by the end of next week would be the latest that I would put on it. I'd start to be like, like if we're sitting here, so what would that be? That would be May 15th. I'd start to be like, yeah, we're getting like, well, come on, let's wrap this up here.
But May 15th, if it's like, and their preferred candidate said, no, like it depends what the reports are. If the reports are, you know, they're taking the weekend to think about it and we're all pretty confident that it's going to leak out on Sunday. Yeah.
And we're going to get it on Monday or whatever. Sure.
That's different. But you got to be wrapping it up. My point is you have 10 more days. Like you really have 10 more days before it's a concern. Now, I don't know that they'll use all that clock, but I do think that this process is going to stretch at least till later this week. And I wouldn't be shocked at this point if it goes a little bit beyond that even.
You know, the draft lottery was a soft target always. And I think this is mostly proceeded at pace. I'll be with an absolutely terrifying. I see dead people twist with Dorian sort of, you know, popping out. Yeah. Dorian, we didn't even get into the hockey moves.
You know, when we will though, don't worry. You know, when like in a video game, when you kill the final boss and you're like, that was pretty easy. That was Mark Bergevin. And then Dorian's like, no, no, no. I'm actually the final boss. There was a secret final boss. Who's way more difficult.
Man, do you remember like Pierre Dorian always used to talk about his girlfriend? He was like constantly dropping references to his girlfriend. It was so crazy. And then like the hot Pierre Summers, every year Senators fans were convinced that they'd fixed the team and that they were going to compete. And they never did because they were awful evaluating depth points.
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