Lonie Glieberman may no longer be most loathed sports official in Ottawa

On Wednesday, a proposal for a new downtown arena for the Senators was nixed after the National Capital Commission announced mediation had failed in an effort to resolve a dispute between Melnyk and project partners. And it that wasn’t enough, Ottawa fired head coach Guy Boucher, who led the franchise to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final in 2017, on Friday.

For months, there has been a #MelnykOut hashtag on Twitter.

This week, Rogers Sportsnet reporter Arash Madani took to Twitter to address the sad state of the Senators.

“It has come to this,” Madani tweeted. “The 1-2 punch of Eugene Melnyk and (Senators GM) Pierre Dorion have surpassed Lonie Glieberman and (former Renegades vice president of football operations) Forrest Gregg in greatness, amazement and utter brilliance in Ottawa’s sports landscape.

“And let’s remember: Forrest forgot the name of the franchise QB on live radio.”

That was following the 2005 campaign when Gregg couldn’t remember that Kerry Joseph was his starter. Madani experienced it first-hand, serving as the Renegades’ media relations director in 2005.

Glieberman, 51, who’s now running Mount Bohemia ski resort in Mohawk, Mich., was disappointed to hear he may no longer be the most loathed sports figure in Ottawa.

“It’s a badge of honour and now they’ve taken that badge of honour away,” Glieberman said during a telephone interview. “I know people never liked me, so Eugene Melnyk must have really done some stuff to cause him to surpass me.

“It’s kind of like he better do some good things. I need to be loathed some more.”

And Glieberman didn’t necessarily see being dropped to public enemy No. 2 as a good thing.

“It’s kind of fun being public enemy No. 1,” he said. “It’s always good to be No. 1 in something.”

Glieberman’s father, Bernie, a Detroit real-estate mogul, purchased the Riders in 1991 for $1 while assuming a $1-million debt. He installed Lonie, who was 23 at the time, as club president.

Ottawa posted a 9-9 record in 1992 but fell to 4-14 the following year. The Gliebermans then left to start up an expansion CFL franchise in Shreveport, La. The Pirates operated for two seasons, folding after the ’95 campaign.

The Gliebermans returned to Ottawa in 2005 by taking ownership of the Renegades, but that lasted for just one season as the franchise folded prior to the ’06 campaign.

Bernie Glieberman, 79, continues to live in Detroit.

On a more serious note, Lonie Glieberman said he’s good with many of the decisions he made while running CFL franchises in Ottawa. One regret he has, though, was firing GM Dan Rambo in 1993.

“I’ll acknowledge mistakes, the firing of Dan Rambo was a mistake,” Glieberman said. “I’ll agree with the decisions we made. … I think they were the right decisions in the long run.

“My ideas were a little different. Never be middle of the pack, never be boring. I think in our time we were never boring. We didn’t succeed, I take full responsibility, I was president. I really think if I had 10 years in the CFL I’d still be loathed by many people, but I also might have been liked as well.”

Glieberman said taking an unconventional approach has worked well at Bohemia Ski Resort, which doesn’t offer groomed trails and is tailored to hard-core ski enthusiasts.

“In some ways I’m loathed in my industry by those who like groomed runs but those who like the back-country feel love Bohemia,” Glieberman said. “The first seven years people really made fun of that, but now we actually got chosen as the No. 2 ski resort in North America by USA Today readers (2018).

“We have a really defined plan and it’s very unusual, but the people who like us love us and the people who don’t hate us.”

Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Lonie Glieberman may no longer be most loathed sports official in Ottawa

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