Let's Try Door #2

Boy, you go away for a weekend and you figure things can't get any worse than they were when you left. Then you come home and find out this: The Philadelphia Flyers named Paul Holmgren as general manager through the remainder of the 2006-07 season, according to Flyers Chairman Ed Snider. "Paul has been working very hard and I felt that it was important at this time to provide him with some stability in his position which will help him with the tasks at hand," said Snider. So, let me get this straight to make sure I understand it. You publicly ask an old friend and colleague who just happens to hold a visible job in the league's front office to be your team's general manager. That person says no. After another week and a half, you decide to make the interim general manager the pseudo-permanent general manager by just removing the interim tag from his title and telling him he'll have the job for the rest of the season. In a season that has been thrown completely upside-down, this is yet another move that makes no sense. Snider, in effect, is telling Holmgren that he wasn't good enough to be hired outright as the team's general manager, but since the guy he really wanted passed on the job than Holmgren might as well do it -- but only for this season. Once this season is over, then we'll take another look at things. And to think, all these years I thought it was Clarke who was ruining the team. It turns out I was probably wrong.