'I'd never been fired before': Kyle Dubas reflects on Leafs departure at Brock University convocation

Kyle Dubas says that being let go by the Toronto Maple Leafs last month after five seasons as the team’s general manager was something he’d never experienced before.

“I’d never been fired before,” Dubas told this year’s graduates of his alma mater, Brock University, on Wednesday.

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“That was my first time, hopefully my last, but I’ll probably get that same conversation again at some point. That’s life and the way that it goes.”

Dubas, who has since been named the Pittsburgh Penguins’ President of Hockey Operations, said that Wednesday’s speaking engagement at Brock had been organized months in advance, and it wasn’t until after he’d been fired that he realized what he wanted to say.

“Though I felt honoured, I felt a great deal of imposter syndrome as well. But, on May 19, I was fired from my job with the Toronto Maple Leafs,” he said, laughing with the crowd of graduates.

“After I was fired, in the ensuing days between the end of my time with Toronto and the beginning of my time with Pittsburgh, it became crystal clear to me what I wanted to impart today and what I wanted to share with everybody.”

Dubas, who graduated from Brock’s Sports Management program in 2007, says that after his first year of university, he was offered a scouting job with his hometown OHL team, the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds.

“At the end of my first year at Brock, it was 2004, in the spring,” Dubas said. Prior to this past season, that was the last year the Maple Leafs had won a first-round playoff series.

Kyle Dubas speaking at Brock University in St. Catharines on Wednesday, June 14, 2023. (Brock University)

“I had been working for the Greyhounds since I had been in Grade 7. And so every summer I was leaving Brock and I was going back to work in the office. It wasn’t a high paying job.”

Dubas said the team’s scout abruptly quit before the OHL draft, and he was offered the job. But in order to take it, he’d need to buy a car and pay for insurance on his own as an 18-year-old.

The scouting job wasn’t high paying either, Dubas said, and with all the expenses he would incur, he’d lose money if he decided to take it.

Dubas said many of his friends and family members tried to talk him out of it, but his grandfather, Walter, gave him some different advice.

“Everyone is looking at it as a cost,” Dubas’ grandfather told him. “Look at it as a bet.”

From then on, Dubas said he never questioned the cost of doing what he loved, and he says that advice was what led him to where he is today.

“When things come up and they don’t seem perfect and you think there may be a cost to them, either a toll on you, or in terms of making less money somewhere, if you think it’s the right opportunity, don’t look at it as a cost, look at it as an investment in yourself,” he said.

“Find something that you still love when it gets incredibly hard. That’s really what you’re probably meant to be doing.”

Dubas went on to tell the graduates that after his firing, it was the same people who were at his own graduation from university who helped support him during a difficult period, adding that he met his wife at Brock.

Before delivering his remarks, Dubas was given an honorary doctorate from the university.

“In closing, always invest in yourself when you can. Always be there for your fellow graduates along the way, especially when they stumble and fall, and always be proud that you graduated from Brock University,” he said.

The 37-year-old now takes the helm in Pittsburgh, where he’ll oversee a roster that includes aging stars Sydney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. Dubas was replaced by former Calgary Flames GM Brad Treliving.