I feel that it’s time for an alternative article when it comes to Sharks owner Hasso Plattner whose been the secondary target of the wrath of Sharks fan’s behind only Doug Wilson. However if you look past some of the narrative a lot of fans complaints with Mr. Plattner are downright disproven at this point. This article is not going to tell you that the way the Sharks run over the last year has perfect there has certainly been missteps along the way and in some places I will definitely have to take the role of devil’s advocate. Everything I’m going to cover below ranges from repeated themes of fellow Sharks writers and just comments I have seen fans make in social media all of whom I have no personal issues with.
He is an absentee owner:
To me this is a serious time when you really want to be careful what you wish for. Personally I am happy that the hockey people in San Jose are the ones making the hockey decisions. Do I wish it was different hockey people making those decisions? Sure. The one thing you are probably not going to see from San Jose this summer is Devan Dubnyk get a 7 year, 42 million dollar contract under ownership’s order for one good season of play. There are plenty of examples of owners meddling in hockey decisions that ended up being for the worst for their teams. You can go back to the DiPietro contract in Long Island orchestrated by Charles Wong. How about Kovalchuk in New Jersey, Bryzgalov in Philadelphia, Tyler Seguin to Dallas because he wasn’t “Bruin” enough for Boston… I could probably do this all day. The point is that while we’d like to see and hear more from Mr. Plattner we don’t want him making knee jerk decisions or catering to every fan whim.
He only cares about his profits and not the team or his fans:
First, all smart business people care about their profits. That said despite all the chicken little stories we have been subjected to all year about the bad TV deal and the Sharks probably getting moved out of the market or at least out of SAP Center where all proven to be false in this last week. Despite a horrific TV deal and falling attendance he got a new lease agreement that ensures the Sharks will stay in San Jose for the next 10 years as well as an annual option for the 15 years following that. Is it a crappy thing to do to use your fan base as a bargaining chip in these kinds of negotiations? Of course it is but that’s a common practice in this business. The facts are that Hasso Plattner has to write a check every year to cover the teams losses, and this year he’s going to write a big one. He got arena upgrades to the arena that hosts the team and where the fans watch the teams. I have never heard a player past or present complain about any of the Sharks facilities. He moved the AHL team to San Jose which does not only benefit the team but saves the players from 3 time zone red eye trips.
He is stopping better ownership from owning this team:
Who is this better ownership that wants to own the Sharks? Would another ownership group keep this as a team that keep this as a cap spending team most years while writing loss checks? Do they stay in San Jose or move to greener pastures for a better TV deal?
He does not know enough about Hockey:
I guess I should start this by addressing the obvious elephant in the room, and that is the fact that Doug Wilson still has a job with the San Jose Sharks. Lots of Sharks fans obviously do not like this and I feel that Plattner is the whipping boy mostly over this issue alone. But to be fair Doug Wilson has an overall good track record with this team. Sure there are no Stanley Cup Banners in San Jose but aside from the last year particularly Doug Wilson has not made many egregious mistakes in comparison to his counterparts around the league. Again as much as would like to see fresh eyes look at this team I cannot judge Plattner to harshly for seeing if Doug Wilson can dig out of the mess he has made based on his previous track record. Should Wilson’s leash be very long? No. Then of course there is the issue of the Remenda firing another move where I personally am not a fan at all. and frankly this is one area where he should have realized this was a bad move for the image of the team. Finally we come to the issue of adding ice girls which has been very divisive among the fan base but as much as a misstep as I thought this was I thought their current apparel is a great happy medium and the continued outrage is to me overblown.
In closing the ownership situation in San Jose may not be perfect but when you take a rational look at our ownership group vs. others in the league you should find that we are fortunate to have a team that is backed by the 3rd richest owner in the entire league who seems to be fine writing loss checks to keep the Sharks where they are. Sharks fans are more fortunate for some of the things that they see as minuses for this ownership group than they realize.
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