New contracts all around

From The Daily News of Wednesday, July 18:

The Kamloops Blazers, their coaching staff and the WHL team's marketing
director have agreed to terms on contracts that will be announced today at
an afternoon news conference.
Dean Clark, the WHL team's general manager and head coach, Shane Zulyniak,
the assistant GM/assistant coach, and assistant coach Andrew Milne had one
year left on their contracts. They have agreed on three-year extensions that
will take them through 2009-10.
Dave Chyzowski, the former Blazers star who joined the front office as
director of marketing midway through last season, has agreed to a three-year
deal.
Clark, Zulyniak and Milne worked together for the first time last season
when they guided the team to a 40-26-4-2 record and second place in the B.C.
Division. That was a 13-point improvement over the previous season when the
Blazers missed the playoffs for the first time in franchise history. Last
season's Blazers went on to be swept from a first-round playoff series by
the Prince George Cougars.
The signing of Clark to an extension has caused some consternation within
River City Hockey Inc., the group headed by Vancouver businessman Tom
Gaglardi that for a second straight summer is attempting to purchase the
Blazers.
Sources have told The Daily News that a letter from RCH, which has yet to
present what Gaglardi has said will be a $6-million offer to purchase, was
delivered to the Blazers' office at Interior Savings Centre late Tuesday
morning. That letter is said to have expressed concern over the deal with
Clark.
One source told The Daily News the letter stated that RCH was looking
forward to working with Clark and his staff but expressed concern over Clark
receiving a contract extension when he already was under contract. The
letter, according to the source, also claimed that giving Clark an extension
could jeopardize a potential sale.
"We have a hockey club to run," Murray Owen, the president of the Kamloops
Blazers Sports Society's nine-man board of directors, said Tuesday, "and we
are doing our job."
With three WHL teams in the market for head coaches and a few others looking
for assistant coaches, Owen said the Blazers have to look after their own.
"Absolutely," he said, adding that "we have lots of things to announce (at
today's news conference). We will tell everything that has happened and all
the developments in the hockey club and where we are going to go with it.
"We are doing the best we can under the circumstances and we don't really
need this disruption right now. But we have to deal with it."
With RCH expected to present an offer to purchase later this week or early
next week, Owen was asked if he could see the society selling the franchise
without making a public request for offers.
"It's a hypothetical question and my personal opinion would be," he replied,
"that it makes good business sense for us to do that because last year there
was other interest."
RCH offered $6 million for the franchise last season, an offer that was
rebuffed on July 11, 2006, when the society's members voted that its assets
weren't for sale.
In the first week of July 2006, there were unconfirmed rumours of the
society's board of directors having received a $7-million offer from an
undisclosed businessman said to be an oilman with Medicine Hat connections.
By the time the members voted on July 11, no offers, other than the one from
RCH, had been publicly confirmed.