RIP Eugene Melnyk

[Deebo]

It is with great sadness that the family of Eugene Melnyk and the Ottawa Senators hockey organization announce his passing on March 28, 2022 after an illness he faced with determination and courage. https://t.co/MrHsTvu7sz pic.twitter.com/DOZrJcD26e

— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) March 29, 2022

[Nik]

Surprising, I suppose, despite the transplant stuff from a while back. You have to wonder how this affects the Senators ownership situation long term. If they can't get a downtown arena built you have to wonder how many people there are who want to own them in their current financial situation. Say what you want to about Melnyk as a person, he did seem dedicated to trying to make it work in Ottawa.

[herman]

Eugene during covid did a lot of good. Sending food to hospitals and front line workers. Offering up the CTC for Vaccination centers. Hell he even paid employees at the sens store downtown for shifts even though they closed during the convoy BS.

— Dogmatic Zealot Bosty (@MattBosty) March 29, 2022

[Peter D.]

I know he's been ill for a while, but his passing still feels like it came out of nowhere.  Only 62.  Sad.

He was an odd cat in terms of his ownership, but you can't say he wasn't passionate about the team.

[Bender]

Younger than my dad. Brutal. I didn't know he was sick. I know we all made fun of his sometimes questionable ownership but this is awful news to hear.

[Guilt Trip]

Sad to hear.

[Zee]

I know he's been ill for a while, but his passing still feels like it came out of nowhere.  Only 62.  Sad.

He was an odd cat in terms of his ownership, but you can't say he wasn't passionate about the team.

I had the same reaction, felt like it came out of nowhere as they didn't realize publicize that he was seriously ill.  62 is way too young, RIP.

[herman]

In one of his final acts, Eugene Melnyk wired cash to an ex-employee to help him flee Ukraine. It’s the same man Melnyk accused of stealing $12,000.

We unearthed complicated stories investigating his time as Sens owner. @KatieJStrang ⁦@RobsonDan⁩ https://t.co/Ctpx0OOVEV

— Ian Mendes (@ian_mendes) April 14, 2022

This is a lot.

Edit: reading more now. Hoooollllllyyyyyyy HR nightmare

[Heroic Shrimp]

In one of his final acts, Eugene Melnyk wired cash to an ex-employee to help him flee Ukraine. It’s the same man Melnyk accused of stealing $12,000.

We unearthed complicated stories investigating his time as Sens owner. @KatieJStrang ⁦@RobsonDan⁩ https://t.co/Ctpx0OOVEV

— Ian Mendes (@ian_mendes) April 14, 2022

This is a lot.

Edit: reading more now. Hoooollllllyyyyyyy HR nightmare

Quite the read! Melnyk was way more Ballard-like an owner than I’d thought. It’s darkly funny watching a rival franchise suffer for a long time, but the people of Ottawa deserve proper ownership of a franchise that that Canadian hockey landscape benefits from having around.

[Nik]

Quite the read! Melnyk was way more Ballard-like an owner than I’d thought. It’s darkly funny watching a rival franchise suffer for a long time, but the people of Ottawa deserve proper ownership of a franchise that that Canadian hockey landscape benefits from having around.

The tricky thing is that there are basically two types of ownership these days. There's the cold, faceless corporate ownership that only sees the team as a way to generate a ROI(like we're lucky enough to have) and there's the idiosyncratic billionaires who own teams for whatever mix of financial or ego-driven reasons they manage to come up with. The first kind, which tends towards the stable and sane, is probably off the table for Ottawa because it's unlikely that such a group would ever see a franchise in Ottawa as the best use of their money and so they're relying on the prospect of a billionaire who, for whatever reason, is willing to look past the financial drawbacks in heavily investing in what is at best probably a marginally profitable hockey team.

Is there really a "good" version of that guy around? The sort that won't be an ego driven tyrant but is instead more of a hands-off, civic minded sort? Maybe. The Jets seem to have gotten a little lucky in that regard. But it certainly seems like a tricky thing to depend on.

[Zee]

In one of his final acts, Eugene Melnyk wired cash to an ex-employee to help him flee Ukraine. It’s the same man Melnyk accused of stealing $12,000.

We unearthed complicated stories investigating his time as Sens owner. @KatieJStrang ⁦@RobsonDan⁩ https://t.co/Ctpx0OOVEV

— Ian Mendes (@ian_mendes) April 14, 2022

This is a lot.

Edit: reading more now. Hoooollllllyyyyyyy HR nightmare

Quite the read! Melnyk was way more Ballard-like an owner than I’d thought. It’s darkly funny watching a rival franchise suffer for a long time, but the people of Ottawa deserve proper ownership of a franchise that that Canadian hockey landscape benefits from having around.

Yeah, I thought he was a bad owner to be sure but I never thought he had those Ballard like issues until reading that article. Yikes if those stories are true.

[bustaheims]

Quite the read! Melnyk was way more Ballard-like an owner than I’d thought. It’s darkly funny watching a rival franchise suffer for a long time, but the people of Ottawa deserve proper ownership of a franchise that that Canadian hockey landscape benefits from having around.

The tricky thing is that there are basically two types of ownership these days. There's the cold, faceless corporate ownership that only sees the team as a way to generate a ROI(like we're lucky enough to have) and there's the idiosyncratic billionaires who own teams for whatever mix of financial or ego-driven reasons they manage to come up with. The first kind, which tends towards the stable and sane, is probably off the table for Ottawa because it's unlikely that such a group would ever see a franchise in Ottawa as the best use of their money and so they're relying on the prospect of a billionaire who, for whatever reason, is willing to look past the financial drawbacks in heavily investing in what is at best probably a marginally profitable hockey team.

Is there really a "good" version of that guy around? The sort that won't be an ego driven tyrant but is instead more of a hands-off, civic minded sort? Maybe. The Jets seem to have gotten a little lucky in that regard. But it certainly seems like a tricky thing to depend on.

It seems to me there’s a strong correlation between how rich ownership is and their desire to be involved at the micro level. The more an ownership group has, the more content they seem to be being involved mostly or solely at the macro level. It’s obviously not a perfect correlation, but it does feel true more often than not.

[Nik]

It seems to me there’s a strong correlation between how rich ownership is and their desire to be involved at the micro level. The more an ownership group has, the more content they seem to be being involved mostly or solely at the macro level. It’s obviously not a perfect correlation, but it does feel true more often than not.

Well, I certainly think that's true in the case of Corporate ownership where Rogers or Bell will see MLSE as just another facet of their much larger business without emotional attachment to wins and losses. Likewise, it's going to be very different for teams like the Lakers or Cowboys or Yankees where owning the team is not just ownership's main business but also how those families got as ridiculously wealthy as they are.

Which is to say I think it's less about money and more about why someone owns a team. Steve Ballmer is as wealthy as individual owners come and he seems to be a bit of a meddling lunatic while Paul Allen before him seemed to barely know he owned teams.