Marco Shane is a tall, but mild-mannered man. He plays with his wedding ring as he sits across from me, and strokes a long, strawberry blonde beard.
A sneer at the "old boys club" of EHEC GMs, he is young, tattooed and does not give a...

"Watch your language!" Marco playfully scolds me, looking down at my laptop.

I had the opportunity to steal the new General Manager of Calgary Flames from his duties at the EHEC Entry Draft for a brief chat about his moves so far in the EHEC, where he came from, and where he intends to go.

We are sitting in a small caf?? across the street from the arena where so many dreams are coming true. Marco gets a black coffee, and takes a sip as we begin.

"So, Marco Shane," I start. "You???ve been a General Manager in the EHEC for about 3 weeks now. You???ve inherited the most controversial franchise in the league, and have already started putting your stamp on things. Tell me about your past 3 weeks?"

Marco laughs. "Busy." He replies.

"I knew when I took the job that I had to do damage control, before anything else. I did a sweep through all of the employees, top to bottom, to see who was involved in the controversy, if any. Luckily, all the bad apples were gone."

"So, you didn???t have to fire anyone else?" I ask.

"Nope." He says, with a slicing gesture of his free hand. "It was all clear. I could get to work."

"And your work was to...do what?"

"Well, I did a top-to-bottom investigation, but none of it was hockey-related. I interviewed every single player in the organization, signed and unsigned, and most of the players were stunned to hear all the details."

"It certainly rocked the EHEC..." I say quietly, remembering the day the news broke. "Seemed surreal."

"Right?" he asks rhetorically. "Anyway, I was able to start talking to the players about hockey."

"Yes, much more pleasant topic!" I say, jokingly.

"I knew I had some contracts coming up, and it???s no secret there was a cap crunch impending." Our server fills our coffee cups. Marco is sure to say thank you, with eye contact. "Matthews, Rielly, Hischier, just to name a few. And then a swath of veterans too."

"Speaking of veterans, you made a few trades early on as well." I inquire.

"Yeah, once all the teams got in one room, the conversations were flowing. Seabs and Schneider are great veterans that are going to make their new teams even better. But honestly, we needed to clear some money and some roster spots."

Marco looks down, seeming to recall something.

"When I talked to Brent about the future of the team, I told him straight out that I was looking for a deal for him." He says, finally. "There were some young defensemen knocking on the door, and I needed the space for upcoming contracts. With him, Burnsie and Kulikov all on the team, we had a lot of money tied up. The cap isn???t going up, and he gets that it???s a business."

I nod, typing his answers.

"He was fine with it." Marco says. "Him and his family are going to love it in Pittsburgh."

"When the trade went down, you allegedly said "the cost of dumping the contract was to move down in the draft" is that true?" I ask, looking up.

Marco chuckles and shakes his head slightly. "Yep. Slip of the tongue on that one. Seabs is a good player and a good dude. Let???s leave it at that."

I nod. "OK, so Marco, now what? You have a bunch of veteran contracts coming off the books, and Matthews and Rielly due for raises."

"Well, those two aren???t going anywhere. I???ve identified the core, and I will be keeping intact. As for the vets, I will see if I can make the math work; no promises. A lot of those guys are professionals and know what has to be done in a cap world. After this draft, we???ve got another influx of young talent in every position to further bolster the roster. I???m pretty excited about our team going forward."

I write down the last answer and turn back to my coffee.

"And with that, Marco Shane," I say "Let???s have a coffee."

--- Ollie Barlow, Calgary News Times Weekly.