Following up on the announcement yesterday, I wanted to be a little bit more specific to this audience. We are not good enough; at identifying, signing, preparing or playing. We need that to change and change quickly. When we purchased the team our expectations were to develop something special in this league. To date, we have not done that, and that is largely my responsibility. None of what has transpired is do to a lack of effort or commitment. Our principal owners, Mr. Patterson and Illig are extremely dedicated to the high-performance success of this organization and are as disappointed as anyone in the results of the team this past season.
Our plan is to build something that wins and wins consistently. And the plan is to win now; we are not rebuilding. This offseason is critical to the organization and we are going to provide the resources necessary to go in to next season with a full quiver.
- As such, we will be adding an additional assistant coach, as well as a full time scouting director.
- Physically, we want to make sure our players have every opportunity to showcase themselves in the best light and we are adding additional fitness and nutritional personnel to the effort.
- We need to be more broad in our approach and have trips scheduled or in process to Africa, Central and South America and Europe to identify players. If it makes sense to sign a designated player, we will.
- Our player development program needs to be much more vertically integrated and we need to start building a pipeline of local players to support this team in the future. This isn't something that will produce results today, but it is a key part of the long-term strategy. Additionally, we need Rideout, Parry and all of our Juniors coaches to be more involved in the Senior team so there is a better connection.
- We need to keep key players on this roster for the long-term and do everything we can to develop them in to front line players, or enhance their skills if they are already at that level.
- We need to build a world class stadium and promote it and the team in such a way that our brand resonates in the region - that one's completely on me.
Will the plan work? - it's sports and it's never that clear; but I will let you know that I believe that Peter is the right leader, and I commit that we'll do everything we can strategically and financially to support the plan. Thanks for all your comments and supporting the club.
rh