Chris Snow - New director of hockey operations for the Minnesota Wild

This continues the Globe's rather remarkable knack of getting burned by their hand-picked young stars. Smith bailed on them right on the eve of Patriots season; Holley, they took back and let him burn them again; now Snow's leaving during baseball season.

No way the Globe was paying Snow anywhere near what he was worth, not with their knack for cost-cutting and stringing along their union.

 

John Jones, president and COO of the Packers, is a former Times-Picayune sports writer and journalism teacher.

 

What this sounds to me, from Risebrough's perspective, is the following: "Guy has no clue what he's doing, but he's young and keen and I can make him my slave, make him do whatever I want him to do. Plus, because he has no idea what he's doing, I don't have to pay him that much."

Without reading his mind, it seems Snow has Epstein-like ambitions, wants to be a front-office executive playa. It's like a step back for five future steps forward, something you are free to do when you're young and unencumbered, if the opportunity presents itself.

Since he's already familiar with this organization, it's a great place to set that plan in motion. If he has playa aspirations, it's a much, much better place to get going than in media relations.

Good for him for seeing the big picture, for having a career plan and not being afraid to take a chance. And I suspect he'll surprise ol' Dougie with how quickly he becomes indispensable.

 

Cynic.

 

The thought of a player not liking a writer because he was full of himself... pot.kettle.black

Doesn't surprise me one bit that Ortiz wouldn't speak to someone for months.

 

Good to see someone using the MAN to get over instead of the other way around!

 

call me an optimist but what this sounds like to me is the following: "yeah i admit he has no experience and this seems like a weird move to a lot of people, but guess what? just because you didn't spend seven years bumbling around the american hockey league with a couple of cups of coffee in the NHL doesn't mean you're not perfectly capable of being a big player in running our hockey operations department. maybe his outsider's perspective will help the stuffy old guys who've been in NHL front offices for their entire working lives see things in a different light."

 

That's MRS. Cynic to you, Canuck.

 

First of all I think this is a fabulous opportunity but based on the information from the press release, I think a more accurate job title would be Manager of Hockey Operations or Assistant General Manager. It douesn't sound like he'll be running the operational side of things, sounds more like he's managing it.  

 

Many congrats to Chris, whom I've read frequently, but never met.

However, what does it say about our business that a guy leaves what many would consider a dream job at 24 to help run a franchise in a league where the championship round gets smaller television ratings than the women's NCAA softball finale airing opposite it on another network?

Sigh.

Least he didn't leave to start his own blog.

 

I don't think it says anything about your business. Maybe he just found this more challenging--sounds like an ambitious guy.

Lots of people would consider this a dream job.

And I'm not sure what TV ratings have to do with a decision to take a job.

 

Well, we can ascertain that he didn't piss off too many people when he worked the Wild beat.