Wang's Committee Under Fire

Many were shocked to find out Neil Smith was swiftly fired after 40 days as GM on the Island. Many more were shocked to find out that inexperienced backup goaltender Garth Snow was hired to take his place. Soon after the bombardment came news that Pat LaFontaine would resign from his post as Senior Adviser and after the dust settled, journalists were making fun of the once proud franchise yet again.

But, was all of the mockery really needed? Owner Charles Wang fired Neil Smith because he did not go along with the committee plan that was intact. Neil, hungry to get back to hockey, knew very well what he was in for when he took the job. He thought that a few weeks into the job he would gain all power and act in the familiar GM role. Wang however, wanted no such thing. He was committed to his committee idea and he hired Neil because he thought he would be part of the system.

When Neil didn’t act the role he was assigned to, and the role he promised he would do, Wang had no choice but to let him go.
After all, it is Wang’s team. He bought the franchise, he saved it from other buyers which could of potentially moved the team or kept the payroll at minimum. He was the one who turned the team from a bottom feeder to a contender. Wang made the Islanders a respectable franchise yet again.

After five years, however, and seeing that Mike Milbury had little success to turn the team into a Stanley Cup winning team, he wanted to do things his way--the Wang way. He decided to run the team like he did his company CA (formally known as Computer Associates). He wanted to do this by not having one person in charge, but by having a group of minds in charge; planning, crafting, feeding from each other’s ideas.

The hockey world sure wasn’t happy about it, but that’s to be expected. Anything new introduced is usually pressed with some sort of opposition and changing the structure of command was surely going to cause an uproar from traditionalists. Uproar from those same traditionalists from hockey teams who haven’t won the Cup in years or even decades.

Pat LaFontaine was not happy with the hiring of Garth Snow and wanted to get out of the (media) “mess” that was about to happen. This is understandable. To those who question Garth however, need to realize that he doesn’t have that same role General Managers before him had. He isn’t the Commander In Chief of the Islanders. His word isn’t above all. He is part of a system, of a committee, where him along with a select others decide how to shape the team. He himself is part of a team.