re nhl team captains anna matyas am x andrew cmu edu wrote wasn t ron francis captain of the whalers when he was traded to pittsburgh no in what still imho ranks as the all time greatest pr blunder not to mention on ice blunder the whalers ever committed gm eddie johnston and coach rick ley decided that francis was incapable as a leader and stripped him of the captain s c in december of the whole organization read ej and ley and by default owner richard gordon because he was too much of a dupe to know how much he was being blind sided by ej dumped on francis all season starting with refusing to sign him to a new contract publicly humiliating him stripping him of the c and then trading him that spring to the penguins classy guy that ej the loss of francis and too a lesser extent ulf was one of a series of decimating player moves by ej which stripped the personality and fan awareness from the team that has put them in the precarious position they are in today gratuitous good ej note he did preside over the organization when it acquired verbeek cassels sanderson poulin nylander etc he stripped the roster but he did lay a foundation sg a real live hartford whalers season ticket holder steveg cadkey com
