NOT DONE YET! O'C Says Burkie "Fabricated" Jumbo-To-Ducks Offer; Burkie Says O'C "Knows He Made A Bad Deal...And I Guess He's Taking It Out On Me"
Live look at two former NHL GMs:
Nothing like a quality "he said, he said" pissing match between a couple of 64-year-old guys to liven up a suspended hockey season.
When we last checked in, then Ducks GM Brian Burke let us know that he had made a much better offer to then-Bruins GM Mike O'Connell for Joe Thornton. Of course, we all know O'C opted to send the big center to the Bay for 28 cents on the dollar after barely shopping him around.
But "au contraire" said O'C to Joey Mac at The Athletic.
“The details surrounding this story are fabricated and I can confirm that no such offer was made to me as I never informed Anaheim of my intentions to trade Joe Thornton,” O’Connell said. “Unfortunately, certain personalities never let the truth get in the way of their ultimate goal, self-promotion.”
Tell us how you really feel, Mike. He didn't just deny it, he took shots at Burkie.
Burkie, never one to shy away from a confrontation, verbal or barn, retorted on Wysh and Emily Kaplan's podcast.
"Mike and I were friends once." Ouch.
"If you're calling me a liar, I wish we were in the same room." Burkie is -500 and O'Connell is +350 by the way.
To his credit, O'C did at least call Burkie and essentially call him a liar directly, asserting that a call was never made (if a call was made, that's some crazy ex shit right there). But Burkie said Bob Murray was there too and was even a part of the deal talk (Murray could also, presumably, cut the legs this story has right off at the knees were he so inclined). And the idea of Burkie just making up such specific fake trade details for a Twitter Q & A would be pretty bizarre behavior for him.
Somebody is full of shit here*. Either the guy with the encyclopedic knowledge of seemingly every deal he made and didn't make or the guy who made what is often called the worst trade in NHL history. I have no dog in this fight other than the content dog so I'm hoping O'C barks back soon. If he wants to come on Spittin' Chiclets to give his side of the story, he has an open invite.
This is still more fighting than we get in the playoffs.
(*---One caveat I did mention on Chiclets today is that these guys are both in their mid-60s which means there is a possibility that one or both of them is, as Roger Clemens would say, "misremembering". It's not deliberate or to be a dick but as you get older, your memory plays tricks on you where you genuinely recall something differently than the way it actually went down. Just a reminder that there's a chance that could be at play here.)
Tune into the latest ep right here...
