Fansided

Edmonton Oilers Fired Head Coach Ralph Krueger Via Skype

By Josh Hill

April 19 2013; Denver, CO, USA; Edmonton Oilers head coach Ralph Krueger on his bench in the first period against the Colorado Avalanche at the Pepsi Center. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
April 19 2013; Denver, CO, USA; Edmonton Oilers head coach Ralph Krueger on his bench in the first period against the Colorado Avalanche at the Pepsi Center. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports /
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April 19 2013; Denver, CO, USA; Edmonton Oilers head coach Ralph Krueger on his bench in the first period against the Colorado Avalanche at the Pepsi Center. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
April 19 2013; Denver, CO, USA; Edmonton Oilers head coach Ralph Krueger on his bench in the first period against the Colorado Avalanche at the Pepsi Center. Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports /

When you’re dating a crazy guy or gal and you just don’t want the confrontation of breaking up with them in person, you do it over text. I’d find a better way to do it and it’s not the classiest way of doing things, but according to hockey guru Terry Jones, that’s the way the Edmonton Oilers roll when they’re firing head coaches. Jones reports that when the Oilers fired Ralph Krueger on Saturday they did so over a Skype video chat.

That’s cold.

According to TSN’s Ryan Rishaug, Krueger was asked to join a Skype video call and he was quickly informed that he was no longer the Oilers head coach soon after that.

“This past Thursday he requested that I accept him on Skype so he could Skype me,” Krueger said, via TSN.com. “When the conversation began he got right to the message that he felt it was necessary to hire a new head coach. That’s the way it went. The conversation was short.”

That’s even colder.

It’s not easy to be professional head coach but apparently it’s harder to fire them in person. But the Edmonton Journal states that Krueger took the firing better than others would have if they’d been axed in such a heartless way and he even wished the Oilers luck moving forward. The Oilers made a move to hire Dallas Eakins a day after firing Krueger and plan on announcing him as his official replacement on Monday.

The New York Rangers probably would have liked to know you could fire a head coach from hundreds of miles away when they axed the very unpleasant John Tortorella.

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