Mike Milbury

How on earth does Mike Milbury have a job in hockey?  Scratch that.  How does he have a job period?  Not only was he a terrible NHL player (238 points in 754 games) but he was also the worst GM in hockey history, at least in my lifetime anyways.  His lack of success at both these occupations some how landed him a job with both TSN and CBC doing broadcasting and analysis.

As a player Milbury is best known for being one of the many Bruins to go into the stands and start fighting fans.  That's right this isn't just a basketball thing.  The Malace at the Palace happened 25 years after Milbury and his Bruins teammates went into the stands to attack fans.  Milbury himself took the shoe off one man and proceeded to beat him with it.  Hilarious but overall not the kind of thing employers look upon favorably.

He then became a coach for the Bruins and had one year of success in 1989 when he lead the Bruins to the Presidents Trophy.  However when he was selected to coach the All-star team he selected enforcer Chris Nilan and checker Brian Skrudland ahead of players such as Kirk Muller and Guy Lafleur.  Because of this idiocy the NHL made a new rule that roster selections for the teams would be a committee decision rather than just the coach.

Now we get to the good part.  His career as a GM.  Miulbury was the GM of the New York Islanders from 1999 to 2006.  During his time with the Islanders he traded away the following players.  Zdeno Chara, Wade Redden, Bryan Berard, Eric Brewer, Darius Kasparaitis, and Bryan McCabe; goalies Roberto Luongo and Tommy Salo, as well as forwards Olli Jokinen, Todd Bertuzzi, Raffi Torres.

Here are two of Milbury's trades that turned out to be two of the worst trades in NHL history:

Vancouver Canucks trade Trevor Linden to New York Islanders for Todd Bertuzzi, Bryan McCabe, and a first-round pick

 New York Islanders trade Roberto Luongo and Olli Jokinen to the Florida Panthers for Mark Parrish and Oleg Kvasha

He was also responsible for picking Rick DiPietro 1st overall in the 2000 draft over players such as Danny Heatley and Marion Gaborik.  He is also the man responsible for trading for Alexei Yashin, a trade in which he included the 2nd overall draft pick, and then signed Yashin to a 10 year $87.5 million dollar contract.

After seeing his impressive resume it blows my mind that this guy gets paid to give advice and analysis on the game of hockey.  How can anything that he says be taken seriously when he has proven that he can't judge talent, can't draft well, and is a goon with no conscience? 

I guess I shouldn't be surprised as the TSN, CBC, and Sportsnet panel are littered with career losers.  Guys like Darren Pang aka Panger, Kelly Hrudey, Nick Kypreos, and JP Stock all have posistions with the above mentioned networks and all sucked.  I mean honestly Kelly Hrudey is best known for wearing a bandana.  That is what he is remembered for and is his greatest achievement.

How come there are no good former players in the booth or on TV?  Oh that's right they all get real jobs either coaching or in the front office.  Guys like Steve Yzerman and Patrick Roy both have careers still in hockey because their input is actually valuable to the people still involved in the game.

I guess that I should take this as a postive sign though because if these scrubs can get a job in broadcasting then it shouldn't be too hard for me.

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