Melynk sets record straight on chats with Senators players

Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melynk was on TSN 1200 radio Tuesday afternoon. One of the topics he addressed was something which had set Twitter abuzz earlier in the day, with the notion from his earlier presser in the day that he sat in on exit meetings with Senators players:

"(Laughs) Okay, let's call it an exit meeting or... why don't we do this - next time you see me having a beer with a player, is that going to be an 'interview'? Come on.

"When I ran a billion dollar company, I would talk to the assistant to the sales coordinator up to the top scientists in the company. This is five, six guys that I bumped into on a day and I said, 'hey come in, let's just shoot the breeze and so what do you think happened.'

"I didn't sit in on the actual meetings. Oh no, that's a hockey op thing. That's what Bryan does. That's what Bryan does with the coaches, he does that with the players. That's me walking around bumping into players and I chat with these guys. I've had social events with them. I know many of their families and wives. It's just sitting down and saying, 'hey, what do you think?'

"These are guys that I trust and I've been around for a long, long time and it's kind of blown out of proportion.

"But let me just talk about that for one second. I heard something about meddling and stuff like that... I don't expect everyone that got an 'A' in English to understand what the word 'meddle' means versus 'an interest in.'

"I actually looked up the definition for fun in the Webster's dictionary... 'to interest oneself in what is not one's concern. Interfere without right or propriety.'

"That's in Webster's. So a) it is my concern, b) I do have an interest and c) I have a right and propriety to interfere if I want to (laughs). At the end of the day, you want to scout these days and say 'what happened.' At the beginning of the year, we were golfing together, we talked and I asked you whether we could hit the Cup this year and you know, now look where we are and they just gave me their honest opinions. Nothing more than that. (Laughs)"