The Loop
Hockey Twitter has some absurd theories about the firing of Dallas Stars coach Jim Montgomery
Glenn James
On Tuesday, Dallas Stars General Manager Jim Nill announced the firing of head coach Jim Montgomery, which came as a huge shock to the hockey world for a number of reasons. Not only is Dallas is off to a decent start to the season, but Montgomery had taken the Stars to the second round of the playoffs a year ago, his first season has the head coach. All in all, not a bad year and change at the pro level for the former University of Denver head man.
But the most shocking aspect of the firing were the accusations Nill made against Montgomery, stating that it was for "unprofessional conduct," and that the alleged conduct went against the organization's "core values." What Nill meant specifically is unclear, which has only added to the mysterious nature of Montgomery's dismissal.
As SB Nation's Taylor Baird and Logan Stark astutely pointed out in this blog, this is the first of the recent head coach firings in the NHL that is not performance-based. As stated above, the Stars were off to a good start, but apparently not even that could save Montgomery from whatever he did. Naturally, Stars fans, and hockey fans in general, want answers about EXACTLY what Montgomery did.
Judging by some of the recent happenings in the NHL (See: Mike Babcock and Bill Peters), many have simply assumed that its abuse-related. NHL insider Darren Dreger tweeted that was not the case on Tuesday, but also mentioned that the Stars had "no choice":
This has only made folks on Twitter strap on their tin foil hats even tighter, and some of the conspiracy theories are absolutely absurd. We should point out that they are obviously jokes, and these were some of our favorites:
There you have it, folks. Jim Montgomery was sacked for betting on games, ripping the tag off a mattress, cutting the crust off his PB&J sandwiches, etc., etc. Got to love the internet.