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Season Predictions and Owner expectation
Before we left our sunny spring training facility, our owner the ever so moody Gregory Bocquet Jr stopped into my office to spread a ray of sunshine.
Mr Bocquet - (basically shouting) I’ll get right to the point Martin, you have put this club in a financial bind…..(I look astonished and tried to figure out if he had gotten the Thunder Bay financial projections instead of ours). Last year, you made the playoffs after overspending even though I only put the pressure on you to play 500 ball. Now I know I said 500 ball again earlier, but after reviewing this the only way you will dig yourself out of this mess is if you make the playoffs again. (I’m thinking to myself isn’t that the goal every year). So if you don’t make a profit in the regular season, you must make the playoffs again this year. Only then will I be truly happy. Do I make myself clear?......(I was listening with a look of bewilderment) I SAID DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR!!!!!!!!
Me - Yes sir, we will make the playoffs or else we will have serious cost cutting happening so that we are profitable sir.
Mr. Bocquet - Not just profitable, extreme profit Martin……Extreme! Now let’s go get some lunch before we head back North.
For some reason I felt like this could be my last supper in Florida.
Fortunately for Mr. Bocquet, the prognosticators had us winning the USA division by a comfortable margin over the team that spoiled our fun in my first 2 seasons Duluth. The Sea Gulls under-performed last year and added the top young free agent slugger in the league in Jorge Rangel. The question was where would they play him. If their pitching could keep them in games, then they are going to be trouble.
While I thought that 82-62 was a bit light for our win total, it was far off from the 85 wins I was thinking we could achieve. For my sake and Jose Cedeno’s Chicago future, we had better make the playoffs.
Based on the pre-season predictions they had the Canadian clubs beating up on the American clubs again by +20. The budget fearless Thunder Bay Caribou were once again predicted to win Canada with Toronto edging out Owen Sound (who might be the best club in the league).
Next stop Detroit and our season opening series against the Thunderbirds and then the Milwaukee Eagles. Both series will be on the road against the two teams that were the bottom of the USA Division last season.
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