Waddell asked to step aside: ESPN

Blogs from Kukala’s Korner to Hockey Ape are reporting that Don Waddell either asked to step down or was asked to step aside, but still in management, at the Atlanta Thrashers. Kukala’s quotes Scott Burnside of ESPN: “GM Don Waddell has been asked by the Atlanta Thrashers to give up his duties and accept another management position.”

The assumption, according to ESPN, is that if the doesn’t accept the new position, he will leave the Atlanta Spirit.

AJC: still stirring the pot

The Atlanta Journal Constitution continues to stir the pot, saying the Atlanta Thrashers/ Chicago Wolves alliance was fatally flawed in a Craig Custance article, and now in a blog entry by Jeff Shultz, who follows the Atlanta Hawks. Both the Hawks and the Thrashers are owned by the Atlanta Spirit.

“It's difficult to make a convincing argument after you introduce yourself to the public as "an all-star team of owners, but then you can't stop suing each other,” Schultz says in Hawksquawk here.

“Waddell's latest bit of amusing scrambling came in Craig Custance's examination of the dysfunctional relationship between the Thrashers and their affiliate, the AHL's Chicago Wolves. At one point, Waddell suggested the Thrashers were in an advantageous position over the Detroit Red Wings because Atlanta's prospects were in the AHL playoffs and the Wings' prospects weren't. The problem: The Thrashers' prospects are in the playoffs every year and it doesn't seem to make a difference in the Thrashers' season. The Red Wings? They win Stanley Cups,” the blog says.