Philadelphia -
Just two games into the Flyers OTHL season, the ownership made the difficult decision to pull the plug on one management group in favour of new face to the OTHL. Matthew MacInnis, a hockey man who has ties to another organization which many OTHL GM's are familiar with, the SICHL, has been brought in by the organization to try to stir things up. RUmour has it that the Flyers ownership was unable with the low level of activity that the previous management was displaying.
MacInnis is an odd choice for the job. Over his three years in hockey management, MacInnis has gained a well-deserved reputation for a man who will take the franchise in the most dire straights, and begin a very slow rebuilding process. Where a rebuild may not be immediately apparent, he has been known to entirely gut a team to the point that it was among the worst professional franchises in hockey history, and to build from within with a group of his own draft picks and acquired prospects through trades.
However, in the OTHL, MacInnis has already stated that he will be taking a different approach. In his first press conference earlier this evening, MacInnis made it clear that ownership has told him they expect a competitive team from the Flyers. However, the team needs to be under the league salary cap by the end of the season, which could present a problem for a team currently well over 10 million above the cap.
In his first day at the office, MacInnis instructed Head Coach Ken Hitchcock to make some difficult decisions, including sending veterans Claude Lapointe and Todd Fedoruk to the farm team in order to clear up some of the salary cap issues.
Expect to hear much more from the new GM in Philadelphia over the coming weeks as he looks to retool his franchise. Parties interested in any Flyer should contact GM MacInnis on ICQ, and check the message boards for more details.