The Edmonton Oilers will hold a press conference at 10 AM today to announce that former Hockey Canada President Bob Nicholson will be joining the Katz Sports Group. The speculation was rampant on Wednesday night, and hit a new level on Thursday when Terry Jones revealed there would be a press conference Friday morning.
According to many, Oilers brass, including owner Daryl Katz, will be flying in for the press conference. David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period and John Shannon of Sportsnet chimed in with tweets regarding Nicholson’s possible role with the team on Thursday night.
@JSportsnet: Speculation has Nicholson being named Vice-Chairman of Katz Group. Looks like he will be responsible for all KG Sports properties.
@TheFourthPeriod: Oilers are expected to name Bob Nicholson as CEO at a presser tmrw morning
Elliotte Friedman of Hockey Night in Canada also chimed in, saying only that the press conference would be “revealing Nicholson’s future” so there could be something more than just taking over as CEO of the Oilers. Some are speculating that he’ll be taking over as CEO of The Katz Group, which obviously is the owning group of the Edmonton Oilers, and the group that will run the new downtown area.
Some in the Edmonton media are also suggesting that Nicholson will mainly be joining up on the business side of things, and not the hockey operations side of things, although speculation when Nicholson left Hockey Canada was that he wanted a Hockey Ops job in the NHL. Again, we don’t know his role yet, and don’t exactly know what he’ll be doing in Edmonton.
There is also speculation on social media, although at this point baseless, that current President of Hockey Ops Kevin Lowe could be stepping down and leaving the organization in conjunction with the hiring of Nicholson, which makes some sense considering Lowe offered to step away from the club in January of this past year.
Personally, I don’t see Lowe stepping away from the Oilers any time soon.
What exactly will happen no one is sure. All we do know is that Bob Nicholson’s retirement will last a total of 13 days, and later on this morning he will be named a member of the Edmonton Oilers front office.
If I had to guess, he’ll be taking on a role like Tim Leiweke in Toronto, which is what I mentioned on Wednesday night. I’ll have more after the press conference right here.
UPDATED 12:20 PM est: The Oilers have named Bob Nicholson the Vice-Chairman of the newly formed Oilers Entertainment Group. He’ll be part of the group that manages all of the Katz Group’s sports and entertainment assets.
Nicholson will serve with Kevin Lowe as Vice-Chairmen to Daryl Katz, and he’ll be mainly working on the business side of things. The role that Nicholson is taking is similar to that of Tim Leiweke in Toronto.
As for the hockey side of things, it appears that there will be no real front office changes in Edmonton, and the Nicholson will work on the business side. Kevin Lowe confirmed that he will be working on the hockey side and that his role there will not change.
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