By Terry VanDeWalker -
Bill Guerin has to do a job and deliver results to groups in different tax brackets.
He wakes up every morning like everyone else does – with his pantaloons firmly in place. After all, he wears the proverbial pants in the Minnesota Wild’s front office, acting as Director of Player Personnel and GM. Umm, a couple of softball questions: Does he get double the salary? Twice as many sick days? Two corporate cars? 99 problems?
That’s part of the absurdity that swirls around Illy B.
The more dynamic but much less heralded part of his job as Wild GM: Kiss as many asses as you can. Not the normal social gravitas for a guy who grew up in hardscrabble Worcester, Mass. (Woosta, say it right) and who admittedly has taken the road less traveled to get here. Not in his journey as a player nor in the mind-numbing minutiae of his executive career. He can’t. Not with the current state of affairs the Wild are up against with seemingly daily player personnel decisions mixed with significant financial constraints.
Guerin has to give feedback to different people within the Wild metaverse and justify his decisions. The shareholders, the individuals and groups that own portions of the Wild business did not get into this business to lose money. As any savvy investor would, they expect a decent ROI.
Teams that make the playoffs have cash incentives with profit sharing built-in. Making the playoffs is critical to a team's fiscal year-end profitability because the financial ramifications are tangible and real. But as Guerin has said, it’s not about getting into the playoffs; it's about “making some noise” once there. Given the realities of this current team, I would argue that from the shareholders' perspective, making the playoffs could be painted as a successful season.
Don’t want to be greedy now, do we?
On one hand, the metric for business success is profitability. Conversely, creating a business model (the kids would call it vision) scalable for long-term success is equally important to an investor. Making the playoffs is part of that scalability, using short-term gains to build into long-term success. It’s leverage Guerin can use against the shareholders to maintain their piece of the pie for promises of future money. Not a bad bet, eh?
Then, there are the financial constraints the Wild face right now. The shareholders have only themselves to blame for their situation. Rarely does an NHL team pay $100 million to one player, let alone two. That’s on them, and they know it. But so does Bill. And don’t tell me it was only $99 million per guy — it’s the same thing. But I digress.
Let’s face it: The Wild has a dismal history of accumulating and developing in-house talent through the draft. Their approach has not been a strength in years past. Draft choices, trades, free agent signings, and long-term signings get an intense, close-up look by all parties. That comes with the territory.
However, the stakeholders are on the other side of the coin. The average Joes who make a few games a year, pay for parking, buy a jersey, and a couple of beers. Average they are not, however. They are the main financial driver that impacts the overall fiscal picture of an organization. That’s why the fans are celebrated as much as they are: No one would be employed if the team of 18,000 or whatever the hell didn’t show up and spend their hard-earned money.
This GM's job is to balance putting a winning product on the ice and selling that to – how shall I say this? – some persnickety Minny hockey fans. Indeed, fans who know the difference between icing at the rink and, let’s say, icing on a cake. They are an intelligent fanbase that understands the game and knows how good players should look, act, and, most importantly, skate. Despite the average Joe's complete devotion to the franchise, this GM can’t tank a season or at least appear to be tanking. That’s bad for business.
Shareholders can’t print more money, and neither can stakeholders. Both are bound by the consolidated power that Billy has erected around himself. He is the end-stop for all hockey-related decisions and the lead designer of the principle product both groups are beholden to. That’s a Napoleonic amount of power, and we all know what happened with that. Napoleon attempted to conquer half of the world with his own pair of firmly placed pantaloons.
Guerin has to balance the realities of this current team and be honest with himself and, frankly, everyone around him to a certain degree. Alas, the tightrope. This year's team is not a Cup contender. Yet he has to grin, bear it, and say the right things at the right time to the right people.
As Guerin says, “Hockey is full of character, and characters.” Now, I’m not sure if he’s full of character or just a character. However, he is playing the role of a solid GM as good as anyone could have expected.
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