Photo: Jean Levac / Postmedia News

Move over New York Knicks because the Ottawa Senators are trying to take over as the most dysfunctional sports franchise.

After bringing him in less than two months ago as of their “long-term strategy,” the Ottawa Senators announced that they had fired CEO Jim Little. According to the National Post, Little was fired because “his conduct was ‘inconsistent’ with the core values of the NHL and the Senators hockey organization.”

The Senators didn’t expand upon what exactly was inconsistent with his conduct but Little released a statement and claimed it was due to a heated disagreement with owner Eugene Melnyk that resulted in Little swearing at Melnyk on Valentine’s Day. Little later apologized.

The National Post revealed that a source acknowledged the disagreement but that wasn’t the sole reason of Little’s firing. The source said, “It was a pattern of behavior, not just one incident, among other things.”

I understand that the Senators would prefer to keep things private in order to protect Little but are they really protecting him? Every time someone gets fired under unusual circumstances where details are light, people seem to think of the worst case scenario, even if that isn’t usually the case. Given how the sport has recently had a history of coaches and team personnel accused and fired for abuse, people are naturally going to think this was what happened.

So if Little was fired for something less serious than this, then reveal what that was so Little isn’t perceived as being something worse. If Little was fired for something like this (something I’m not accusing him of) then why protect him because it winds up making the team look bad? I guess more info will inevitably come out at some point that we’ll figure out more about the situation.

[National Post/Photo: Jean Levac / Postmedia News]

About Phillip Bupp

Producer/editor of the Awful Announcing Podcast and Short and to the Point. News editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. Highlight consultant for Major League Soccer as well as a freelance writer for hire. Opinions are my own but feel free to agree with them.

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