VANCOUVER – Four months after a titanic change at the top of the hockey operations department, Francesco Aquilini and the family that owns the Vancouver Canucks are also changing their top employee on the business side.
Jeff Stipec is out as the Canucks’ chief operating officer after just 2 ½ years and will be replaced by Trent Carroll, who has been with the National Hockey League organization since 2011 and is being promoted from his current role of executive vice-president of revenue.
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President of hockey operations Trevor Linden left the Canucks in July after an ideological class with the Aquilinis made the sides’ relationship untenable. Unlike with that earth-shaking move, managing owner Francesco Aquilini has so far offered no social-media explanation for changing his COO, and the Canucks are issuing no formal statements about the change.
Executive T.C. Carling, a close friend of Linden who was the former hockey-ops president’s right-hand man, appears to be a victim of collateral damage in the executive changes. His position of vice-president of arena operations at Rogers Arena has been eliminated.
Carling left hockey operations for that role last spring, a move that seemed especially prudent when Linden was forced out a couple of months later.
The executive changes are expected to have no effect on hockey operations, which are overseen by general manager Jim Benning, who was hired by Linden and now reports directly to the Aquilinis.
Any functional ties between business and hockey operations ended when former team president and general manager Mike Gillis was fired in 2014.
He was replaced at the top of hockey operations pyramid by Linden, whose title was unconnected to business ops. Stipec ran those the last two years after long-time Canuck executive Victor de Bonis was promoted by the Aquilinis to run their parent company.
De Bonis is now a senior member of the Seattle group planning to bring an NHL expansion franchise to that city.
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