Burke was on the Bill Watters show at the beginning of the week and he must have had a bad day as well. Steve Simmons had a column in which he had the following quote from Burke :
” ‘The overwhelming commentary I get (around Toronto) is, do it right,’ he said. ‘If that means we have another tough year, that’s fine. People are sick of the Band-Aids, so we’re going to do it right.’ ”
Watters and Brady asked Burke about the quote. They read the quote as implying that perhaps making the playoffs wasn’t necessarily the endgame for Burke for this season which would have been in contrast to what Burke has said in the past.
Burke got pretty nasty. He said that he don’t know what they were talking about- Doesn’t know what Steve wrote- and that is not all that he said- Burke told Simmons and is saying now that he intends to make the playoffs- but as long as making the playoffs is consistent with the long term plan. Burke said that he could have traded Schenn and made the playoffs this year. However, everyone would know that would be another bandaid and we aren’t going to do that…but our goal is to make the playoffs.After he blew up there was silence for almost 10 seconds. Radio hates dead air. Watters thought he had hung up but he was still on the line.
They tried changing the subject. Burke was asked if he was still trying to move up in the draft- he was clearly pissed and answered with:
“yes, nothing to report”
He was then asked if there was anything on Gustavsson. Again, he was very short with his answers.“nothing to report”
Before the interview ended they once again tried to clear the air, Burke sternly said, “There was no misunderstanding, you guys got it wrong-and you should say so after I am gone. He told them to read it again and then said “We done”
This is a classic folks, well worth listening to, you can hear it here.
Simmons’ article is here
