Subject: Articles

I know that a lot of us are always looking for new ways to get different ideas through to play or drive home a point, or provide examples of points of emphasis. We use a lot of articles, stories, handouts others have given, etc. that we either hang in the locker room or discuss during team meetings. I thought we could use this thread to post these in so we could all use them. Searching for them individually can usually take a long time and not always provide fruitful results.

Re: Articles

I'll get things started with a couple examples:


From the Toronto Star

Talent not the only thing NHL scouts look for


October 03, 2010

Kevin McGran

Toronto Maple Leafs Tim Brent during Leafs pre-game warm-up Monday September 27, 2010 at the Toronto Air Canada Centre.
Tara Walton/Toronto Star



Jack Ferguson always knew Tim Brent would make the NHL. But Brent’s not the fastest skater, the hardest hitter or the best shooter, and he’s not particularly big.

But Ferguson, recently retired after 38 years of scouting, saw something in Brent that can’t be judged on a report card. Ferguson saw character.

“He’s probably got more character than ability,” Ferguson says. “In this day and age, character is almost as important as playing ability.”

This is not a story about Brent, who appears to have shed the label of journeyman AHLer by emerging from anonymity to stand on the cusp of making the Maple Leafs after a stellar training camp. Nor is it a story about Nazem Kadri, the Leafs highly touted prospect, who appears to have failed to make the team out of camp. Kadri has all the tools teams crave — speed, skill, creativity and confidence. He just needs more time to develop that talent.

This is a story about what scouts are looking for when they try to project what a 17-year-old will do in the NHL. Maybe at 19, maybe at 20, or maybe, in Brent’s case, 26. He made it because of his character, the kind of person he is, the student of the game in him who wanted to get better every shift, every game, every season. He didn’t quit. He continued to develop his skills. That’s what Ferguson saw when he first noticed him and had urged the St. Mike’s Majors to take him in the midget draft.

“I’m just looking for the kid who just seems to want it more than anybody else,” says Ferguson. “Tim Brent is my idea of a hockey player, a guy that comes to play every shift, doesn’t play dirty but plays hard.”

Scouting is partly objective and partly subjective.

When scouts sit on their perches in junior hockey arenas this winter, they’ll compile all kinds of data, using checklists and spreadsheets. Teams run computer programs to correlate that data regarding players — who’s the fastest skater? Who’s got the hardest shot?

They’ll break it down even further.

If he’s a scorer, does he score on the road? At even strength? In the playoffs? Or is it all at home on the power play?

If he’s a skater, does he skate at one speed? Can he change speeds? Dictate the flow of the game with speed? Can he skate backwards?

Is he a leader? Does he communicate with the coach and his teammates? How does he talk to the officials?

The Maple Leafs run spread-sheet based programs to generate draft lists based on objectively-rated skills. But Dave Morrison, the Leafs’ director of amateur scouting, said his staff spends a great deal of time debating “intangibles” — the subjective side — when it comes to a player.

“Things like the work ethic, the character, the strength of commitment. So many different things. It may not be obvious,” says Morrison. “The background of the player, where did he come from? Where is that potential? Can we work with this player? Can we make him better?”

The belief is if a player works hard every shift and every practice — a sign of character — he has more upside, more chances to improve. Background checks play a vital role.

“We do different assessments with sports psychologists, by talking to the coaches, by talking to the billets if necessary, the parents, getting to know the player,” says Morrison. “If the going gets rough does he get going? You try to ask as many questions as possible and get as much information as possible. Do they compete shift in and shift out?

“You’re talking about 17 and 18 year old kids, some days are just not going to be as good as others. If they’re having a bad day, are they still trying to make it a good day?”

Tyler Seguin was listed by NHL Central Scouting as the No. 1 prospect heading into the draft because when the league’s scouts compiled their data — skating, puck skills, competitiveness, physical play, hockey sense, defensive play and lumped in some psychological factors— he beat Taylor Hall for the honour. But Hall went first overall because Edmonton’s scouts saw things differently.

“We would all like to drop a dime into a machine and have the answer spit out: ‘Player A: Hall of Famer or Ordinary Player or AHL Player,” says E.J. McGuire, the NHL’s director of central scouting.

But it’s not as easy as that.

“Psychological factors are one of the hardest factors to determine,” says McGuire. “We can determine whether a slapshot is hard or soft by observing. Psychology, that’s where the team scouts have to really do their work.

“These are valuable picks and you only get seven of them,” McGuire adds. “It’s the first rounders that get the ink. But if you are better than other teams at drafting fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-rounders, then you’re going to come out smelling like a Detroit Red Wings scouting staff.”

Re: Articles

They don't need to be about hockey... this might be good to use for a team meeting or speech of some kind...


Inspirational Story Of Jackie Chan


Jackie Chan’s parents could not afford to feed him when he was a baby. They considered selling him for US$26 to the English obstetrician who delivered him. At the tender age of 7, Jackie was apprenticed at the infamous Academy of Chinese Opera. For more than 10 years from 5am to midnight, seven days a week, he endured a brutal program of music, dance and traditional martial arts training.

The training he received was particularly harsh and cruel. The students was beaten and starved for not performing up to par. Later he appeared in some early Hong Kong films as a stunt man and worked his way up to stunt coordinator, then to director.

When Bruce Lee died, Jackie, along with many others were picked to filled the vacuum. Jackie failed miserably.
“Very hard, very hard,” he said, “So instead of trying to be Bruce Lee, I decided to be myself.”

Jackie was born to be “Steve” who was later changed to Jack Chan. Later, Raymond Chow, a director changed it to “Jackie Chan”. His first big break came in 1978 with the movie “Snake In Eagle’s Shadow”.

Today, Jackie is indisputably Hong Kong’s biggest movie star and is currently making big in US too. Jackie’s fees are up to US$50 million a year!

Jackie Chan childhood was tough and inspirational

Re: Articles

I collect a lot of articles that talk about players being cut from youth hockey as the theme and their story of sticking with it and working hard to overcome obstacles. Im not quite sure what I am going to do with them all, but something will come of them



Doubters always there for Jackets' Dorsett
Scrappy winger willed his way to hockey success

Saturday, March 7, 2009 3:09 AM
By Tom Reed
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

NEAL C. LAURON | DISPATCH
Derek Dorsett, 22, is one of four rookies to see regular time with the Blue Jackets this season.

The scrapes were multiplying and the welts on his back were turning an angry shade of red, but 12-year-old Derek Dorsett would not submit.
Another ball hockey game had gone wrong -- sticks dropped, punches thrown and Derek's mouth running as usual. He was giving up 10 to 15 pounds to his older brothers, Michael and Chad.

But he was not giving in an inch.

In an effort to silence Derek, they did what older siblings sometimes do: They rammed his back against the inside of the garage door, slamming him into the jagged screws and metal ridges.

"I kept (talking back) and they kept throwing me into the door," said Dorsett, now a winger for the Blue Jackets. "They probably threw me into the door 15 times. I was always the smallest kid, but I never backed down."

Blue Jackets fans get to see Dorsett channeling his inner 12-year-old almost every game. He is 5 feet 11, 185 pounds of attitude. He agitates, he disrupts, he fights opponents he has no business fighting.

Dorsett, 22, is one of four rookies to see regular time with the Jackets this season, and his rise to the NHL is the most unlikely. Goaltender Steve Mason and forwards Jake Voracek and Derick Brassard had the amateur pedigree. Dorsett, of Kindersley, Saskatchewan, was the 189th player selected in the 2006 draft, in the seventh round.

At age 14, he was cut in tryouts from eight Midget AAA teams. The reason became a weary refrain for the 5-4, 90-pound Dorsett: too small, not strong enough.

Seven years later, the energetic Dorsett is in the NHL, a veteran of 42 games, drawing a regular shift.

"All of their life, players like Derek have been told they won't make it and they have used that motivation to prove people wrong," Jackets development coach Tyler Wright said.

'Couldn't sit still'

Dorsett is a product of his environment, a town of 4,400 residents in western Saskatchewan fighting to become a city, but lacking the population to earn the title. Kindersley and neighboring Brock are known for oil and hockey.

Small in stature, they boast three current NHL players, Dorsett, Steve MacIntyre (Edmonton) and former Jacket Curtis Glencross (Calgary).

Donna Dorsett is probably the only mother in Kindersley wishing her son had spent more time in front of a television.

"I was the first person he lipped off," said Donna, who ran a restaurant with her husband. "He would come to me and say, 'Mom, I'm bored.' He couldn't sit still. He never played video games; he still doesn't."

Dorsett rode dirt bikes, got in schoolyard scraps and played hockey.

He dreamed of being a goaltender until the day the Brothers Dorsett got hold of a tennis ball machine and cranked it to Al MacInnis speed.

"They pelted me with tennis balls," Dorsett said. "At the time, it was tough having older brothers, but looking back, it was the best thing for me."

The low point was being cut from Midget teams. He had broken a bone in his right hand from numerous brawls in tryouts and thought about giving up, but his father, a former coach, encouraged him to keep plugging.

Dorsett grew slowly, and his skill began catching up to his desire. When he was 17, Dorsett led the Swift Current Legionnaires (Midget AAA) in goals and penalty minutes. Over the next few years, he combined with Blue Jackets defenseman Kris Russell to help make the Medicine Hat Tigers a junior-league power.

The season after the Jackets drafted Dorsett, the Tigers reached the Memorial Cup final. He scored eight goals in 17 playoff games.

"He has the heart of a lion," Jackets defenseman Mike Commodore said. "But you know what? He's also a good player and he's only going to get better."

'It's the only way'

Dorsett spent last season with minor-league Syracuse, which served as a finishing school for agitators. Under the tutelage of teammates Jon Mirasty and Zenon Konopka, Dorsett thrived in the chaos.

He scored 10 goals and racked up 289 penalty minutes in 64 games, sometimes fighting tough guys nearly a foot taller.

"Konopka was always trying to get me to test my limits," Dorsett said. "Mirasty taught me how to fight bigger players."

He credits Wright, a fellow native of Saskatchewan, for prodding him to develop his skating and skills. Dorsett has 12 fights this season, including a memorable Oct. 30 drubbing of Colorado's Darcy Tucker, but he plays well enough to earn consistent ice time.

Lately, Dorsett and left winger Andrew Murray have teamed up to form an effective energy line.

For a grinder who lives by the motto, "Every game is a Game 7 for guys like me," Dorsett knows his back is always against a garage door of some kind.

"I'm going to have to prove myself," he said. "It's the only way I'll stay here."

Re: Articles

Eric - great idea about having articles as their own thread. I have posted some in other threads and will begin by posting more here. I might re-post a few of the older ones that I think are good - or other people can cut and paste them too!

I love using articles to help generate discussion with my skill academies.

Thanks!

Re: Articles

Maxims of John Wooden

John Wooden is the former coach of the record-setting UCLA basketball team, winning 10 National Championships in 12 years

Re: Articles

Competition is Everything

(Partial transcript from a TV interview…)

“Competition is everything. If you ask me, "What am I?" I am a competitor. I battle at everything. Every single day at practice is competitive. Every day, somebody wins and loses.”

- Pete Carroll, Head Football Coach – USC Trojans -

----------

“What’s inside of kids and makes them different is the inner feeling that I am not going to let one day go by without getting better.”

“You are constantly in game prep. That never changes throughout the whole year. You are preparing for that moment – even in January.”

“What I look for in a recruit is a kid that can move… and so I want to see a kid that can jump, that can run, that can move after the fact. It’s not about how much you can bench, or what time you can run in the 40 – no that’s not it! The weight room is a facilitator to movement. Football is about going from A to B to C and then back to D and making a play… and making an impact when you get there!”

The X factor between two kids with the same ability is ‘want to.’ How much does he ‘want to’ do it every time. Not every place – that’s easy - you see Saturday’s, 92,000 people in the coliseum – that’s easy to ‘want to’ – but how about January 16th? Do you want to go hard that day? Do you want to train at the highest levels? Do you want to go ahead and keep pushing that envelope on how good you can be? Coach Carroll said, ‘I want to prepare at the highest level; so we can practice at the highest level; so we can play at the highest level.’ You gotta make them understand that everything that what we are doing right today, is gonna make us better in September.”

“I always watch these programs where a kid goes less than full speed and I am thinking, ‘what are you preparing for?’ How can you prepare for less than full speed unless you are going to play that way? If you don’t prepare these kids at full speed; if they don’t work every time they put their hand down full speed; their not getting ready! You know what they are getting ready to do? They are getting ready to get beat.

- Chris Carlyle, Head Strength and Conditioning Coach – USC Trojans -

Re: Articles

Life of Reilly

There are some games in which cheering for the other side feels better than winning.

by Rick Reilly

Re: Articles

BC Soccer - PARENT EDUCATION

Re: Articles

KEEPING GAME FUN FOR KIDS A MAJOR CONCERN

BY SHAWN P. ROARKE, NHL.com Managing Editor, Molson Hockey Summit, Aug 24, 2010

TORONTO -- The development of skilled hockey players at the youth level is the lifeblood of the pro game. While many esoteric and cutting-edge topics were discussed, the undeniable theme that the game must remain fun for today's youth players quickly and clearly took center stage.

All of the skill development schemes in the world will fall on deaf ears if the players those schemes target aren't having fun playing the game.

In a sobering stat, USA Hockey's Bob Mancini, a regional manager of its American Development Model, said that 44 percent of USA Hockey's youth players stop playing the game before they reach the age of nine.

That, he says, is an unacceptable attrition rate and while there are many reasons for it -- the quality of coaching, the fear of injury and the cost of participation to name three -- the main reason for the dropouts, according to him, is that the players stop having fun and become casualties of a hockey culture that has become too rigid at even the introductory levels.

"It has to be fun first," Mancini said of youth hockey's mandate. "We have to change the introduction kids get to hockey. Every decision we make in youth hockey has to be about the player first."

Brendan Shanahan, now the NHL's Vice President of Hockey and Business Development, spent more than two decades playing the game at the highest level, but still remembers how he first fell in love with it as a boy growing up in the suburbs of Toronto.

He says it happened more playing neighbourhood shinny games on the closest natural-ice surface and racing around the municipal rink -- sans pads and stick -- playing tag with whatever kids were handy.

Today, his seven-year-old son is just starting to play the game and Shanahan knows he needs to pass on those lessons that shaped his love of the game.

"I just wanted to play tag and I wanted to skate," Shanahan told NHL.com. "Looking back on that now, I would encourage my son to do that. I just think it is a great way to develop.

"Anytime you can get a kid out on the ice and just make it fun and he is developing and improving without knowing he's developing and improving, and all he cares about is that he is having a great deal of fun out there, that's when you have really locked onto something valuable."

The question Tuesday morning for the World Hockey Summit was how exactly does organized youth hockey lock onto those moments that hook initiates on the sport for good?

Virtually all agreed that one of the best ways to keep players interested is to introduce body checking as late as possible to the game.

"The later we introduce body hitting, the more we will be able to develop skill," Mancini said.

Mancini's assertion came just minutes after Dr. Marc Aubrey, the International Ice Hockey Federation's chief medical officer, presented a compelling study of the links between a rise in injuries -- particularly incidents of concussions -- in youth leagues that allow body checking as opposed to those that do not.

But numbers are one thing. Personal experience is another.

Peter Laviolette, the current coach of the Philadelphia Flyers, played a hard-nosed, hitting style throughout a pro career spent largely in the minor leagues. He understands the ability to play physical hockey is a meal ticket for many players, but that doesn't mean it has to be taught at the youth levels.

Tuesday, he told a poignant story about taking his sons, 12 and 11, onto the ice this summer to teach them the art of body checking. The older son, who has a 60-pound advantage on the younger son, got the better of the hitting session to the point that the younger son became more concerned in an ensuing scrimmage about being hit than enjoying the game.

He also says his oldest son has already suffered a concussion playing the game.

For those reasons, he would rather see the introduction of body checking reserved for older players.

Shanahan, one of the toughest players of his generation, grew up without the opportunity to body check as a youth player. At the time, body checking was illegal in Toronto-area youth leagues.

"I tend to agree with doctors and Peter Laviolette that think we should really put the body checking off," Shanahan said. "I think that it is a skill you can adopt at a later age.

"I didn't have body checking when I was a kid, my teammate was Bryan Marchment and he didn't have body checking as a kid, and he turned out to be a great body checker."

Marchment, an NHL defenseman for almost two decades, evolved into one of the most intimidating and effective body checkers the NHL has ever known.

Shanahan also believes youth players can follow a similar blueprint: enjoy the game and develop skills as a youth player. The physicality can always come at a later date when it is a more natural evolution, he argues.

"Again, a very small percentage of these kids are going to make it to the NHL or even play at collegiate level, so I think that player safety and skill development is more important," he said.

Great articles and philosophy of this site

Dean, great articles. I started this site to help coaches run effective and enjoyable practices so that the young players would look forward to coming to the rink and enjoy the experience.

There are two themes to the ABC's of International Hockey. "Enjoy the Game" and "The Game is the Greatest Coach."

I have been putting on a drill a day because when the site was hacked I wasn't finished doing diagrams for every video; so my efforts have been more technical. I am trying to have material for every level of coach from the guy or girl who works every day and has no coaching background but needs help to organize practice and understand team play to the advanced coach who is looking for some new ideas to change up practice a bit.

The emphasis is that players learn by drills but more through simulating game situations. Study after study has shown that a drill practice has the players moving from 7-12 minutes and the rest of the time standing in line or listening to instructions. Is it a mystery why 80% quit organized sport by 14. Small area, full ice and transition games change the activity time around 180 degrees. So the players move more, play in realistic situations and have fun. We ARE teaching a Game after all. Not a series of individual movements.

Anyway I am very happy to see more discussion here.

Dean I can't find my dvd of the NHL practices so I can't break them down unless I get a copy of the dvd I gave you.

Re: Articles

Tom,

It is indeed great to see some more conversation starting up. I try to get on the site once / day of possible but the kids keep me busy! Not always do I have time to post responses...

I will see if I can burn a copy of the DVD you made for me and then try to get it to you in the next day or two... I have a few days off coming up with the holidays.

Dean
I am replying inside the post. Thanks for bringing the dvd. I think I have converted it to a format that I can take out the drills from the pro practices. I think the coaches are interested in seeing what the pro's do at practice. It is the same game; they just do things faster and better.

Re: Articles

Here's a nice collection of articles on a wide array of topics.
http://www.dphockey.com/articles.htm

and another (scroll to bottom of page).....
http://www.letsplayhockey.com/

I'm a big fan of the Jack Blatherwick articles myself.

Re: Articles

The power of perspective and privilege

Players skip morning skate to honour those who paid the ultimate price for their luxuries

By Iain Macintyre, Vancouver Sun November 11, 2010


From rooms on the west side of the hotel where the Vancouver Canucks stay in Canada's capital, players can see from their windows the National War Memorial, although it is easy to miss.

Parliament Hill looms iconically behind it, home to the Senate and House of Commons and the Peace Tower clock. Next door, the Chateau Laurier hotel gleams at night like a castle palace. Across Wellington Street, between the Canucks' hotel and the War Memorial, is the Government Conference Centre, formerly Union Station and still magnificent in everything but name.

Amid this glorious triangle of Beaux-Arts and Gothic Revival architecture, the War Memorial stands humbly. But it is there. Players have looked at it. Few have probably really seen it.

They will today.

Believing there are things more important than hockey -- yes, even Tuesday's 2-0 loss to the Montreal Canadiens -- Canuck general manager Mike Gillis and coach Alain Vigneault have cancelled the usual morning skate in Ottawa and instead will walk with staff and players to the War Memorial to observe Remembrance Day.

For once, these National Hockey League millionaires have no special privileges. They'll merely gather in the hotel lobby, and walk solemnly with their poppies and thoughts to the cenotaph, joining the crowd of thousands who gather annually at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

They'll watch and listen, see wreaths laid near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, see the faces of war's survivors and ponder the millions of lives sacrificed for freedom.

Perspective, Gillis believes, is a powerful thing.

"When you participate in the NHL, it's easy to lose sight of other things that are very important," he explained Wednesday. "It's good for everyone to have some perspective about life. If these guys can go and see the emotions and the interaction of veterans, it will be a healthy and lasting memory."

"We were all for it," associate coach Rick Bowness said. "Some things in life are more important than a morning skate."

The decision to attend today's ceremony was made during the Canucks' long flight Sunday between Vancouver and Montreal.

Bowness coached in Ottawa for four years but said the NHL schedule never allowed him to take the Senators, then an expansion team, to a Remembrance Day ceremony in the 1990s.

He did, however, take players to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington and once ordered the Senators' bus to stop in the forlorn neighbourhood around old Miami Arena so players, who had everything, could see on the streets people who had nothing.

"I still tell these kids today that every day in this league is a blessing and never take it for granted," he said. "Appreciate how lucky we are, how fortunate we are, how well we're treated.

"We're here in Ottawa and it's Remembrance Day. Why not take advantage of this opportunity and let players share in the Canadian experience? It kind of puts things in perspective for everybody."

After their poorest game in three weeks, the Canucks play the Senators tonight in suburban Kanata, Ont. Attending an emotional Remembrance Day ceremony is highly unorthodox preparation.

Yet, players who were asked after Wednesday's practice seemed genuinely eager to attend.

"I think it's a special opportunity," centre Manny Malhotra, who is from Toronto, said as blood trickled from his lip due to a deflected puck.

"You go through it in school, study it in history: What is Remembrance Day? But I don't think we can really grasp what those men and women went through.

"Compared to the rest of the world, we live in an incredible country. We had good childhoods without hardship. We live an incredible life. We should remember the men and women who gave their lives so we could have this life."

Winger Tanner Glass, who is from Craven, Sask., said: "Hopefully, we'll come back to the rink with a sense of all the things we have, how lucky we are.

"For me, when I think about the Second World War, I think about all the young men who were sent there. If there was a war today, that would be us. We would be the ones on the front line."

Canuck centre Ryan Kesler, who is from the Detroit area, has a better understanding than most players about war and what is at risk.

His brother-in-law, Derek Evans, is preparing to be deployed to Afghanistan with U.S. Forces. Kesler said it will be Evans' third tour in the Middle East.

He said his grandfathers fought in the Second World War, but neither talks about the experience, even to Kesler's parents.

"I think it's important that we're doing this," Kesler said.

"Hockey is not life and death. Some things are more important."

imacintyre@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Re: Articles

Ken Holland has an easy formula for winning in the NHL, and will tell anyone who wants to listen.

Mark Spector on NHL - Sportsnet.ca
11 November 2010


EDMONTON -- Ken Holland is poking my colleague Jim Matheson in the chest, just below left collarbone. And he keeps poking him: "This is what's important. Right here," he says, tap, tap, tapping, without ever uttering the word, "heart."

Inside Rexall Place, the home of the latest major Canadian rebuild, the theme of the conversation is: Rebuilding Once, Then Staying On Top For 15 years. You climb the mountain on that one, and you'll find Holland sitting up there, cross legged, dolling out the answers on the meaning of hockey.

You want to talk building? You couldn't get closer to the source if you got 15 minutes with Ron Popeil talking kitchen gadgets.

"In 2001 when we lost to L.A. (in the first round), there were some people saying, 'The Red Wings run is over.' We're too old," said Holland, the Wings' GM for 13 seasons now. "We're just about in 2011, 10 years later, and we're having the same conversation."

It's a conversation that should have Toronto listening. Calgary might want to hang around for this chat too. Edmonton, no doubt.

Vancouver is good, real good. But can they stay that way if, like Holland's Red Wings, they get one Top 20 draft pick in 19 drafts? (And even that came by way of lottery, in 2005).

A minute later, Holland has found a new, key principle to winning. "Environment," he says. "Everything is about the environment."

The "environment" is a multi-faceted, moving target however.

Edmonton is in Joe Louis Arena Thursday night. If you watch the game, think about the options Holland's winning "environment" affords him today, that aren't even in Edmonton's five-year plan yet.

Compare Taylor Hall and Henrik Zetterberg.

"Zetterberg was rookie of the Year in Swedish Elite League (SEL) at 19," said Holland, who ultimately decided to give Zetterberg one more year in Sweden. "The next year he was the MVP of the SEL, and the only Swede to play in Salt Lake City Olympics who wasn't an NHL player.

"We had a really good player. We just left him be."

Holland was a scout when Detroit, known as The Dead Things in the 70's and 80's, missed the playoffs in 1983. It was their 15th miss in 17 years, and that June they drafted Steve Yzerman.

Two more misses ensued, but this April Detroit will compete in the post-season for an incredible 20th consecutive springs.

"Two things," says Holland, when asked he's kept this thing rolling. "One, we still have the best defenceman (Nicklas Lidstrom) in the world. And two . we had a great one-two punch down the middle in (Sergei) Fedorov and Yzerman. One retired, one left, and our scouts found Zetterberg and (Pavel) Datsyuk.

"Ultimately it's about a foundation," he continues, finding yet another pillar on which to build his platform. "Our foundation in the late 90s was (Vladimir) Konstantinov and Lidstrom on the back end, and Fedorov and Yzerman up front. When we lost Konstantinov, we brought in Chris Chelios. Now it's Lidstrom and Rafalski, Zetterberg and Datsyuk. There are other really good players there, but we've got two premier defencemen and two premier forwards."

Oh. There is one more element he almost forgot.

"Let's put luck in there too," Holland says. "To find Zetterberg and Datsyuk in the sixth and seventh round? That's luck."

Truly, the Wings drafted seven players ahead of Datsyuk in '98. The first was Jiri Fischer, who was forced into retirement with a heart condition. The next six combined to play two NHL games. Datsyuk was selected at No. 171. In '94, Tomas Holmstrom was picked 257th .

Lidstrom was 53rd overall in '89, the year Toronto selected three Belleville Bulls in the Top 21 picks. Vancouver bagged Jason Herter and Rob Woodward in the Top 29 that June, while Calgary built around Kent Manderville, Ted Drury and Veli-Pekka Kautonen, all before the Sting look-alike Lidstrom's name was called.

Of course, once Detroit built its core, it had the proper environment for young players to walk into. But players don't just walk into that experienced, winning dressing room the way do in so many other cities, at 18 and 19 years old.

The way Hall and Eberle are walking into an Oilers room that was poisonous at the end of last season.

"We've got (defenceman) Brendan Smith. I think he could play in the NHL today. He could play 15 minutes (tonight), but he's playing 25-27 in Grand Rapids. He's on the powerplay, he's on the ice all night long against the other team's best players.

"I can't tell you what he's going to be. But he's an elite prospect."

No, he's an elite Detroit Red Wings prospect. That means the chances of him playing are better than good.

And better than if he were a member of any other organization in hockey.



FAST FACTS

* Holland was drafted as a goaltender 88th overall in 1975 by Toronto Maple Leafs
* Stanley Cup Champion in 1997 (Assistant GM), 1998, 2002, 2008 (GM)

Re: Articles

Willie Desjardins could be key component behind Stars' hot start

11:06 PM CST on Wednesday, November 10, 2010

By MIKE HEIKA / The Dallas Morning News
mheika@dallasnews.com

If you try to get too complicated in defining the role new associate coach Willie Desjardins holds with the Stars, you might miss the point.

Yes, an associate coach is ranked higher than an assistant coach, and Desjardins jumped over the current Stars assistants on the ladder of authority when he was hired in the summer. No, he has never coached at the NHL level before and has done most of his training in junior hockey.

And no, he doesn't run any specific part of the Stars (the way former associate coach Rick Wilson was clearly the head of the defensemen).

That might lead you ask: What's the big deal about the new guy? But again, then you'd miss the beauty of what Desjardins offers to the team.

"You know what he is," Stars general manager Joe Nieuwendyk said. "He's a great hockey guy. He loves to study the game, he loves to talk about the game, he loves everything about the game. And that's a great guy to have around."

Desjardins, 53, is one of the components Nieuwendyk has been seeking since being named GM in 2009 – and he could be one of the key reasons for the Stars' 8-5-0 start this season. But the former head coach of the Medicine Hat Tigers doesn't see it that way. A low-key guy, Desjardins simply likes to do whatever he can to help in any area he can – and he certainly doesn't want to seem like a guy who needs any credit.

"Honestly, I'm just trying to fit in and find my place, and that's all," said Desjardins, who was added in the summer to a staff that included head coach Marc Crawford and assistant coaches Stu Barnes and Charlie Huddy. "I think we learn every day, and we'll continue to learn. We're all just trying to make this team as good as it can be, and that's what I'm trying to do."

In forming his coaching staff last season, Crawford decided to take a lot of the responsibility. A veteran of more than a 1,000 NHL games as a head coach, Crawford has been in charge of a lot in stops in Colorado, Vancouver and Los Angeles . Of course, he's also worked with such strong assistant coaches as Jacques Martin, Joel Quenneville and Mike Johnston, so it's not like he doesn't know how to delegate duty.

Still, when Desjardins was hired in August, there was a question of how he would fit. Huddy coaches the defensemen, but Crawford picks the pairs during the game. Crawford runs the forwards, and that's typically a must for every head coach.

So where does that leave Desjardins?

Well, officially, he helps on the penalty kill and helps a lot with pre-scouting and opponent preparation. Unofficially, he helps with everything.

"I think he's aptly titled as associate coach, because he is more involved in the overall day-to-day operations and involved in all aspects of the team," Crawford said. "The fact that he has been a head coach before, that really helps me in that he knows what I'm dealing with and maybe what I'm thinking. To have a person who has done that before, who knows what it requires, it's just a good thing for me."

Desjardins has an interesting mix of experiences that seem to mesh well with the Stars. First off, he was a talented offensive forward as a youngster and understands the skill side of the game that the Nieuwendyk administration seems to be embracing.

Second, he has coached in several situations, including at the Canadian collegiate level, in the pro level in Japan and in Canadian major junior hockey. He also served as a coach with Canada's World Junior team in 2009 and 2010.

"He coached me in World Juniors, and he was great. Plus, I had friends in Medicine Hat, and they loved him too," said Stars winger Jamie Benn. "He's a players' coach, he's really calm, and he does a really good job of getting the team to play well together. He believes in you, so you have confidence in him."

Although it was thought Desjardins' lack of interaction with professional athletes might be a detriment, it actually has worked out well for the native of Saskatchewan. His ability to communicate with younger players has been a great addition to a Stars team that is trending young.

"He's great with video and getting the guys to understand what we're doing," Barnes said. "Guys nowadays are so visual that I do think it helps them, especially the younger players. You can tell them, but it only goes so far. But if you show them, you can see that they're getting it."

Crawford said Desjardins will go so far as to show video of drills to players so they're more ready for practice and things can get done more quickly and efficiently.

"He's a detail guy, and that's always been his strength," said Les Jackson, the Stars director of scouting and player development who, along with Western scout Shane Churla, helped make the Stars aware of Desjardins. "Churls has known him forever, and he was the guy who knew the most about him. What he did in Medicine Hat was pretty impressive."

Desjardins took over the Tigers in 2002 and immediately repaired a sinking ship. Medicine Hat had missed the playoffs for five straight seasons before Desjardins' hiring, but the Tigers went 333-182-61 in his time there, made eight consecutive playoff appearances and won two Western Hockey League championships.

In fact, one of the reasons he was given the title of associate coach was because so many teams wanted to talk to him after his work in junior hockey. However, he liked Nieuwendyk and the Stars, and his presence is already being felt.

"I like having him around, just because he's a guy who always wants to talk about hockey and coaching," Nieuwendyk said. "I think you can see already that he sparks conversations and dialogue, and out of that talk come solutions. It might not have always been his idea, but the idea maybe came out because he was there. To me, that's a pretty important thing to have in your coaching staff."

The Willie Desjardins file:

Born: Feb. 11, 1957 in Climax, Saskatchewan

Hired: By Stars as associate coach July 13, 2010

Notable: Played for Lethbridge in the WHL and tallied 61 goals and 79 assists for 140 points in 129 games. ... Played at the University of Saskatchewan and was an assistant coach at the University of Calgary. ... Coached briefly in Japan and helped the Seibu Bears win a league championship. ... Returned to Canada to coach with the national program and took over the Medicine Hat Tigers in 2002. Led Medicine Hat to eight straight playoff appearances and two WHL championships. ... Was an assistant coach on the 2009 gold medal World Junior team from Canada and head coach of the 2010 silver medal World Junior team from Canada.
----------------
Not that it makes a lot of difference but Willie was head coach at the U of Calgary for at least 6 years before going to Japan and Tim Bothwell taking over. I was an asst. coach on his staff for 6 years. Willie was supposed to come back after 2 years leave but won the Japan championship and got a big contract and stayed. Tim Bothwell stayed on. What is really sad for the U of Calgary hockey team is that when Tim went to the NHL with Atlanta Willie applied to coach there again and they hired another coach and they program has gone down hill and hasn't won Canada West since the last year I was there in 96. They went about 50 games in a row in one stretch without beating the U of Alberta. They got a new coaching staff last year but so far the same result in the middle of the pack and losing in the first round of playoffs. Willie was a great recruiter as well as great at getting a team ready to compete and those skills will help him in the NHL.
Tom

Re: Articles

Red sweaters not responsible for black and blue players


By Misty Harris, Postmedia News November 17, 2010



The theory that red or black uniforms give athletes an aggressive edge has long been claimed in sports research, with most of it citing the hues' evolutionary and cultural associations with such things as dominance and power.

But Team Canada might want to hold the high-fives, with a comprehensive new study putting that theory on thin ice — at least in the context of professional hockey.

Reporting in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, researchers say no matter how they measured — penalty minutes, number of severe penalties, team wins — there wasn't a shred of meaningful evidence that black or red jerseys lead to a spike in aggressive behaviour, or even perceived aggression, among National Hockey League players.

"For more than 20 years, people have been talking about this idea that wearing black causes athletes to act more aggressively. Then, more recently, there's been talk that red might have the same effect," says co-author Jerry Burger.

"But when we actually do a controlled study, we don't find any evidence for those claims at all — which is kind of too bad, since it's a really interesting suggestion."

Between 2008 and 2010, 326 NHL games were identified in which the home team played the same opponent within a single season: once wearing a black or red uniform, once wearing a uniform of another colour. This naturally occurring experiment was made possible by the NHL's decision to let teams wear a third jersey design for a limited number of home games.

For each pair of games, researchers compared total penalty minutes, number of severe penalties (a composite of such violent infractions as roughing, fighting and game misconduct), number of games that became atypically aggressive, and team success.

Across all categories, Burger says the differences between the two jersey conditions were "so small that we can't draw any conclusions."

The study is thought to be the first to eliminate or control for what researchers describe as the "severe limitations that plagued earlier investigations."

"It's not that previous findings about colour and aggression weren't real. Being able to say that one caused the other is the hang-up," says Burger, a psychology professor at Santa Clara University.

With black, the speculation has been that athletes pick up on cultural associations between the hue and badness, subconsciously altering their behaviour accordingly. With red, an evolutionary angle has been proposed, with scientists noting links in the animal kingdom between crimson and male dominance.

That one of the most high-profile of these earlier studies drew its data from the 1970s and early '80s may be a factor, suggests a Canadian hockey historian, noting that the game has since seen sharp declines in major brawling.

"Intimidation in the NHL used to be a much larger factor than it is today," says Earl Zukerman of McGill University in Montreal. "I think if you applied the (current) study to NHL fight data from the 1970s and earlier, you may come up with entirely different findings, as that was arguably an era where fighting and other roughhouse tactics were almost encouraged."

Nicholas Holt, a University of Alberta sports psychologist, suggests the study is a call to accountability. Although it's easy to pin aggression on uniform colour, he says it makes more sense to take a hard look at team leadership.

"If a coach encourages very physical and aggressive play, then athletes will likely follow his or her instructions," says Holt, associate professor in the faculty of physical education. "We really need to think about the messages conveyed by coaches, and in youth sport parents, in order to understand athletes' behaviours."

mharris@postmedia.com


Read more: http://www.canada.com/sports/sweaters+responsible+black+blue+players/3843314/story.html#ixzz15bFIBLLS

Re: Articles

There is a great article that I couldn't copy/paste properly. Here is the link. It is to the US Olympic Coach magazine. It has a lot of great archieved articles as well but the most recent one, "2009 Winter" has a great article by Carol S. Dweck "Mindsets: Developing Talent through a Growth Mindset". I believe she has been mentioned on here before for her book "Mindset."

http://www.teamusa.org/resources/usoc-sport-performance/coaching-education/olympic-coach-e-magazine


If anyone figures out how to copy/paste it, that would be great.

Re: Articles

Eric,

Great link! I will have to go back and read all the issues...

Here is the article from Dweck:

MINDSETS: Developing Talent Through a Growth Mindset

Coaches are often frustrated and puzzled. They look back over their careers and realize that some of their most talented athletes—athletes who seemed to have everything-- never achieved success. Why? The answer is that these athletes didn’t have everything. They didn’t have the right mindset.

In my research, I have identified two mindsets that people can have about their talents and abilities. Those with a fixed mindset believe that their talents and abilities are simply fixed. They have a certain amount and that’s that. In this mindset athletes may become so concerned with being and looking talented that they never fulfill their potential.

People with a growth mindset, on the other hand, think of talents and abilities as things they can develop—as potentials that come to fruition through effort, practice, and instruction. They don’t believe that everyone has the same potential or that anyone can be Michael Phelps, but they understand that even Michael Phelps wouldn’t be Michael Phelps without years of passionate and dedicated practice. In the growth mindset, talent is something you build on and develop, not something you simply display to the world and try to coast to success on.

Almost every truly great athlete-- Michael Jordan, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Tiger Woods, Mia Hamm, Pete Sampras-- has had a growth mindset. Not one of these athletes rested on their talent; they constantly stretched themselves, analyzed their performance, and addressed their weaknesses. In the recent Olympics, silver-medal swimmer Dara Torres (age 41) and gold-medal marathoner Constantina Tomescu-Dita (age 38) defied myths about age through their training and dedication.

Research has repeatedly shown that a growth mindset fosters a healthier attitude toward practice and learning, a hunger for feedback, a greater ability to deal setbacks, and significantly better performance over time. How do the mindsets work and what can coaches do to promote a growth mindset? Before addressing these issues, let me first answer some other questions that I am often asked about the mindsets.

Questions About the Mindsets

Which mindset is correct? Although abilities are always a product of nature and nurture, a great deal of exciting work is emerging in support of the growth mindset. New work in psychology and neuroscience is demonstrating the tremendous plasticity of the brain—its capacity to change and even reorganize itself when people put serious labor into developing a set of skills. Other groundbreaking work (for example, by Anders Ericsson) is showing that in virtually every field—sports, science, or the arts—only one thing seems to distinguish the people we later call geniuses from their other talented peers. This one thing is called practice.
Are people’s mindsets related to their level of ability in the area? No, at least not at first. People with all levels of ability can hold either mindset, but over time those with the growth mindset appear to gain the advantage and begin to outperform their peers with a fixed mindset.

Are mindsets fixed or can they be changed? Mindsets can be fairly stable, but they are beliefs, and beliefs can be changed. Later on, I will describe workshops that have altered people’s mindsets and had a real effect on their motivation and performance.

How Do The Mindsets Work? The Mindset Rules

The two mindsets work by creating entire psychological worlds, and each world operates by different rules.

Rule #1.

In a fixed mindset the cardinal rule is: Look talented at all costs. In a growth mindset, the cardinal rule is: Learn, learn, learn!

In our work with adolescents and college students, those with a fixed mindset say, “The main thing I want when I do my school work is to show how good I am at it.” When we give them a choice between a challenging task they can learn from and a task that will make them look smart, most of them choose to look smart. Because they believe that their intelligence is fixed and they have only a certain amount, they have to look good at all times. Those with a growth mindset, on the other hand, say “It’s much more important for me to learn things in my classes than it is to get the best grades.” They care about grades, just as athletes care about winning the game, but they care first and foremost about learning. As a group, these are the students who end up earning higher grades, even when they may not have had greater aptitude originally.

Our studies show that it is precisely because of their focus on learning that growth mindset students end up with higher performance. They take charge of the learning process. For example, they study more deeply, manage their time better, and keep up their motivation. If they do poorly at first, they find out why and fix it.

We have found that mindsets play a key role in how students adjust when they are facing major transitions. Do they try to take advantage of all the resources and instruction available, or do they try to act as though they don’t care or already know it all? In a study of students entering an elite university, we found that students with a fixed mindset preferred to hide their deficiencies, rather than take an opportunity to remedy them—even when the deficiency put their future success at risk.

Rule #2.

In a fixed mindset, the second rule is: Don’t work too hard or practice too much. In a growth mindset, the rule is: Work with passion and dedication—effort is the key.

Those with a fixed mindset believe that if you have natural talent, you shouldn’t need much effort. In fact, having to work hard casts doubt on your ability. I believe that this is why so many enormously talented athletes never fulfill their potential. They are often the ones who have coasted along, winning with little effort, while the other athletes were sweating, struggling, and practicing. The fixed mindset “naturals” never learn to work, so that when they later reach their limits, they cannot cope. From Michael Lewis’ wonderful book, Moneyball, we all know the story of the super-talented Billy Beane, who was a colossal failure in the major leagues because he didn’t think he should have to learn or try.

Those with a growth mindset know they have to work hard, and they enjoy it. They understand that effort is what ignites their ability and causes it to grow over time.

I get letters from former child prodigies in many fields. They were led to expect that because of their talent, success would automatically come their way. It didn’t. In the world of Olympic sports, we do not do our young athletes a favor by allowing them to believe that great talent alone will transport them to the medal stand.

Recently we conducted a small study of college soccer players. We found that the more a player believed athletic ability was a result of effort and practice rather than just natural ability the better that player performed over the next season. What they believed about their coaches’ values was even more important. The athletes who believe that their coaches prized effort and practice over natural ability were even more likely to have a superior season.

Rule #3.

In a fixed mindset, the third rule is: When faced with setbacks, run away or conceal your deficiencies. In a growth mindset, the rule is: Embrace your mistakes and confront your deficiencies.

We have found over and over that a fixed mindset does not give people a good way to recover from setbacks. After a failure, fixed-mindset students say things like “I’d spend less time on this subject from now on” or “I would try to cheat on the next test.” They make excuses, they blame others, and they make themselves feel better by looking down on those who have done worse. Everything but face the setback and learn from it.

It was so interesting to see in the last Olympics how many champions prevailed in events that were at some point not their strong suit. Chris Hoy, the Scottish gold medal cyclist saw his specialty eliminated from the Olympics and had to reinvent himself. He did not sit and lament his fate or blame others; he got to work.

How Are Mindsets Communicated?

Mindsets can be taught by the way we praise. In many studies, we have gotten a very surprising result. Praising children’s or adolescents’ intelligence or talent puts them into a fixed mindset with all of its defensiveness and vulnerability. Instead of instilling confidence, it tells them that we can read their intelligence or talent from their performance and that this what we value them for. After praising their intelligence or talent, we found that students wanted a safe, easy task not a challenging one they could learn from. They didn’t want to risk their “gifted” label. Then, after a series of difficult problems, they lost their confidence and enjoyment, their performance plummeted, and almost 40% of them later lied about their scores. What should we praise?

We found that praising students’ effort or strategies (the process they engaged in, the way they did something) put students into a growth mindset, in which they sought and enjoyed challenges and remained highly motivated even after prolonged difficulty. Thus coaches might do well to focus their athletes on the process of learning and improvement and to remove the emphasis from natural talent. A focus on learning and improvement tells athletes not only what they did to bring about their success, but also what they can do to recover from setbacks. A focus on talent does not.

We have also directly taught students the growth mindset. We have been developing a software program, called Brainology, in which students learn all about the brain and how to make it work better. Further, they learn that every time they stretch themselves and learn something new, their brain forms new connections, and over time they increase their intellectual ability. Research has shown repeatedly that teaching students the growth mindset strongly enhances their motivation and their achievement.

Coaches can identify their fixed mindset athletes by asking them to agree or disagree with statements like this: “You have a certain level of athletic ability, and you cannot really do much to change that;” “Your core athletic ability cannot really be changed;” and “You can learn new things, but you can’t really change your basic athletic ability.” They can also ask their athletes to complete this equation: Athletic ability is ____% natural talent and ____% effort/practice. They can then work on fostering a growth mindset in their players who place an undue emphasis on fixed ability.

What About Coaches’ Mindsets?

Of course, coaches themselves can have a fixed mindset. These coaches may convey to their teams that they value natural talent above all, they may spend little time with the athletes they deem less talented, and they may be intolerant of feedback from others (since they may see feedback as impugning their own ability). Research by Peter Heslin and his colleagues shows that business managers with a fixed mindset have qualities like this. However, after workshops that teach them a growth mindset, these same managers are more eager to help their employees develop and become more receptive to feedback from others.

A growth mindset coach is also more likely to foster teamwork and team spirit. When a coach has a fixed mindset, players will be eager to impress the coach with their talent and will vie to be the superstar in the coaches’ eyes. However, if athletes know that their coach values passion, learning, and improvement, these are things that players can work together to produce.

Conclusion

At the level of the player, a growth mindset allows each individual to embrace learning, to welcome challenges, mistakes, and feedback, and to understand the role of effort in creating talent.

At the organizational level, a growth mindset is fostered when coaching staffs present athletic skills as acquirable, value passion, effort, improvement (and teamwork), not simply natural talent, and present themselves as mentors and not just talent judges.
When coaching staffs have a fixed mindset, their job is simply to find the talent. When they have a growth mindset, their job is to inspire and promote the development of talent. It is in this mindset, I believe, that they will nurture a new generation full of Olympic athletes the likes of Michael Phelps and Nastia Liukin, athletes who love their sport and bring it to the highest level.


Carol S. Dweck is Professor of Psychology at Stanford University and author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.
– Olympic Coach eMagazine Winter 2009-
http://www.teamusa.org/resources/usoc-sport-performance/coaching-education/olympic-coach-e-magazine

Tarasov on hockey training

This is a pdf. translated from the Russian great Tarasov on how to coach hockey.

Re: Articles

Junior hockey concussions an 'epidemic'

London doctor's study during games leads him to see a sport in denial

By JONATHAN SHER, QMI Agency 22 November 2010

Concussions in junior hockey are epidemic, says a London doctor who also claims there are concerted efforts to suppress the problem’s scope.

For half a season last year, Dr. Paul Echlin led a team of doctors who monitored players on two unidentified junior teams a couple of rungs below the Ontario Hockey League, producing a study published this month in a medical journal.

The doctors observed games from high vantage points and immediately tested players who left the ice with possible concussions.
In just 52 games, 17 of 67 players suffered concussions, four of them twice. The problem was most acute among forwards: 12 suffered concussions.

“It’s at epidemic proportions,” Echlin said.

The prevalence was seven times higher than had been found in previous studies — a disparity Echlin attributes to his use of doctors to assess the injuries and to efforts by those in organized hockey to not acknowledge a concussion that could sideline a player.

“These athletes are suffering in silence,” he said.

There’s a culture in organized hockey that puts pressure on players to play through pain and not admit they’re injured, he said.
Officials with the Ontario Hockey Association couldn’t immediately be reached Sunday night for comment.

Echlin said that pressure led one of the two teams in the study to stop allowing the study’s doctors to examine players during games — something that was critical to the study and had been agreed to by the teams before the season.

“The reluctance to report concussion symptoms and to follow such protocols likely results from certain cultural factors such as athletes asserting their masculinity by playing through the discomfort of an injury, and the belief that winning is more important than the athlete’s long-term health,” Echlin wrote in the study published in Neurosurgical Focus, a peer-reviewed publication of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons.

The results didn’t surprise ex-NHLer Eric Lindros, whose career and that of his brother Brett were cut short by concussions.
“It’s amazing a team turned (Echlin) down halfway through his study. They didn’t want him to continue on — which is fundamentally wrong.” Eric Lindros said.

Echlin is no stranger to sports injuries — he’s worked as a team doctor in hockey for the OHL’s Plymouth Whalers and in football.
Those in both sports underestimate the prevalence and harm of concussions, he said.

“There should not be fear of having players evaluated by specialists in order to protect them,” he said. “Having an evaluation is much more important than the next period or the next practice or the next game.”

Echlin hopes to change the culture of hockey, starting from the grassroots.

He’s planning a second study that would track concussions among men’s and women’s teams across Canada — he hopes to do it during the 2011-12 season.

During a concussion, the brain is subjected to trauma and a player can suffer from confusion, memory loss and sometimes loss of consciousness. Symptoms include headache, dizziness, lack of co-ordination or weakness and amnesia about events just before the blow.

Concussions can have chronic effects, too, damaging memory, judgment, social conduct, reflexes, speech, balance and co-ordination.

In January 2009, Echlin led a London conference on head injuries in hockey.

Figures published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal say 10% to 12% of male and female hockey players will sustain a head injury.
- - -
The study

Two Tier-4 junior teams (Jr. C and D levels) agreed to be tracked during part of the 2009-10 season.

Players were tested for cognitive function before the season.

Each game was watched in person by a doctor and up to three others from a pool that included kinesiologists, hockey coaches, hockey executives, a former junior player and health-care providers.

Players who suffered a suspected concussion were evaluated by the doctor during the game.

In 52 observed games, 17 players suffered concussions, four of them twice or more often.

Head shots led to 69% of the concussions; intentional hits to the head or body checks were responsible for 80%

jonathan.sher@sunmedia.ca

RSS Feeds

Couple feeds that I follow through google reader that I think people on here might enjoy.



http://gringosnotes.blogspot.com/


This blog is written by Chuck Grillo. He is a scout for the Pitt. Penguins and has been an NHL scout for 30+ years. His blog is about everything but mostly relates to mentoring, hockey players, and excellence in people.


thetalentcode.com


Obviously this is written by Daniel Coyle, author of the book that has been discussed on here recently, "The Talent Code." He covers stories and ideas that back up is book and thoughts behind it. Great video links and articles.


http://blog.coachswen.com/


Written by Swen Nater, a basketball coach who played under legendary coach John Wooden. He writes a lot of stories from his playing days under coach wooden and they are great reads.


http://www.functionalpathtrainingblog.com/


Writes about strength training. Always has fantastic thoughts.

Re: Articles

I dislike composite sticks - except for the couple of NHL players per team who are CAPABLE of using them (according to NHL coaches!) - for everyone else (especially for the parents having to WASTE (pay) the big money to "keep up with the Jonses" - falling into the marketing trap of the manufacturers) and kids learning how to control the puck... composites are a big waste of money in my opinion! Yes, if you have proper technique (and strength), they can increase the velocity of the shot. But kids today CANNOT receive a pass to save their souls; where wood helps (ed?) cushion the puck and provide a better 'feel', the puck bounces off of composites.

I am going to load up on wood...!
-----

Hockey's composite revolution has caused wood to vanish from NHL arenas

Extinction of the wooden stick

By Ian Walker, Vancouver Sun November 23, 2010

One is as sophisticated and advanced as Charlton Heston's chariot. The other built from space-age materials developed in laboratories by scientists in white coats.

One is as heavy and clunky as a workman's boots. The other as light and dainty as a ballerina's pointe shoes.

One is soaked with tradition. The other oozes style.

One is as outdated as a Polaroid camera. The other has the all the substance of Snooki.

I know, I know, get to the point already.

But first a quick story. It was 2004 and then-Red Deer Rebels owner/general manager/head coach Brent Sutter was so frustrated with his team's production during a four-game road trip -- in which his team went 1-3 and were outscored 16-7 -- that he made his players resort to using wooden sticks for a pair of weekend games upon their return. The Rebels went undefeated in the two-game set, out-scoring their opposition 5-4. Talk about a blow for technical progress.

Yet it was the last time wooden sticks were used in the Western Hockey League.

At least there's the National Hockey League though, right? The last bastion of hope for a world fixated on progress.

Actually, not so much. There is no longer a single NHL player wielding the true meaning of the word twig. Like zero. Zilch. Zip.

Even more upsetting is there probably will never be again.

"It's the end of an era," said Phoenix Coyotes defenceman Adrian Aucoin, one of the last holdouts, who switched last season. "In my case, Reebok changed factories with their shaft and the wood stick they produce now is a completely different stick. It was just not close to what I was used to. I wasn't so thrilled about it, but times change and you have to move on."

The same thing happened to Ottawa Senators centre Jason Spezza when his brand of choice, Sherwood-Drolet, decided to farm out the mass production of wooden sticks to such far-flung places as Estonia and China in order to concentrate on the production of composite sticks.

Same goes for 24-year-old Paul Stastny, the last of the wooden Luddites. The Colorado Avalanche centre switched from a Sherwood wooden to a Sherwood one-piece at the start of this season.

"Last season I went through a lot of wood sticks -- I think what happened was they were being made at different factories so they were never quite the same although they said they were," said Stastny. "It was still the same company, but in my mind they were completely different sticks than the ones I was using before. The average person may not notice, but when you've used the same stick since bantam and you get something a little different you can tell right away. So that also played a factor in me switching over. That and technology is always getting better so it's a case of evolving with the times."

Aucoin's first game with a composite stick was on Dec. 19, 2009 against the Anaheim Ducks.

"I'd been using the new Reebok wooden ones and the shot wasn't right and something wasn't working so I grabbed a Shane Doan pattern, a Robert Lang pattern, a Peter Mueller pattern and one Warrior had made for me when I was in Chicago," said Aucoin, a former Vancouver Canuck. "I used all four sticks in a game and I scored with the Shane Doan pattern and it just felt better so basically my stick is a Shane Doan pattern with my name on it."

Until then, Aucoin had basically used the same pattern of wooden stick since college, when it was known as a Koho PP29. To put that in perspective, if you went to your doctor and he got a jar of leaches out, you'll begin to understand.

"It was true -- it was the same stick from the knob to the blade," said Aucoin, who won the 2004 NHL team skills competition with a slap shot of 102.3 m.p.h. using a wooden stick while a member of the Calgary Flames. "Now with the technology there's different kick points, there's different flex points, there's different thicknesses. It really is a science. I still like my shot better with wood, but my passing and quickness is better with the one piece just because it's lighter and [because of] the technology that's there."

As recently as 25 years ago every NHL player used all-wood sticks. Things started to change with aluminum shafts in the 1980s before things evolved to today's one-piece models made of graphite, Kevlar, carbon, titanium and fiberglass.

So there you have it. Comparing all-wooden and composites sticks is like comparing Lyle Odelein and Patrick Kane. Who is better? Hmmm.

But when it comes right down to it, one of them is just too manufactured. Composite sticks are sort of like an iPod that way. Brilliant, clean, easy to use, great sound, but just not quite the same as seeing the band live.

iwalker@vancouversun.comwww.twitter.com/WalkerBigTalker
-----------------------
Dean, the only thing I want to know is what kind of Stick Dennis Polonich was using against us today. He got at least 5 on us. I just spent about an hour shovelling the snow in our -30 weather to clear my deck for the 0 degrees C that will be here by Friday. Then a few beer outside. Barbequing tonight but it is really steaming in the cold.

Re: Articles

Quote by: Eric

Couple feeds that I follow through google reader that I think people on here might enjoy.



http://gringosnotes.blogspot.com/


This blog is written by Chuck Grillo. He is a scout for the Pitt. Penguins and has been an NHL scout for 30+ years. His blog is about everything but mostly relates to mentoring, hockey players, and excellence in people.


thetalentcode.com


Obviously this is written by Daniel Coyle, author of the book that has been discussed on here recently, "The Talent Code." He covers stories and ideas that back up is book and thoughts behind it. Great video links and articles.


http://blog.coachswen.com/


Written by Swen Nater, a basketball coach who played under legendary coach John Wooden. He writes a lot of stories from his playing days under coach wooden and they are great reads.


http://www.functionalpathtrainingblog.com/


Writes about strength training. Always has fantastic thoughts.

Sweet! Thanks Eric. More stuff to check out. Where does all the time in the day go??!!

Re: Articles

Hmmm.... kind of a BIG contrast to the concussion articles I have posted. I didn't mind fighting when I played - especially if I wasn't fighting! (It was part of the game and "the code" permeated the culture... to which I suscribed; otherwise, I wouldn't have played (I was young and dumb and went along with the masses.) Now that I am free of the grip of the pro dream that most young players have, (I no longer have tunnel vision, have matured and can see the big picture), I coach kids and now have kids... I am considering steering them AWAY from hockey as I see so many thing wrong with the culture of the game. It is still perpetuated as former players, even minor hockey players, go back and coach they way they were coaches. Bullying, hazing, etc still occurs. Not all coaches are bad, but it does make me worry... I realize I will need to coach minor hockey again, so I can have a positive influence, if my kids play.)

Big George was on TV last night and although I missed it, I heard that he came across as a very intelligent, thoughtful guy who didn't like his "job" - he didn't want to fight. The best fighters are those guys who truly like it - but they are far and few between. They are a bit "off" - personal experience leads me to believe that if they weren't fighting in hockey, they would be fighting off the ice and in trouble with the law (ie: Link Gaetz.) The tough guys I played with got pretty worked up (inside) and didn't like it - you ask most of them and they wished they could score goals or play another role... but the money is better than working a 9-5 job, so they steel themselves to it. Eventually, they lose their will to fight and they get replaced by younger, hungrier tough guys. I have yet to read Probert's book, but the early reviews are good.


The Rock's last word



EDITOR'S NOTE: Former Montreal Canadiens tough guy Georges Laraque will be a guest on Hockeycentral Tonight Tuesday (8 p.m. ET, Sportsnet Ontario & East), where he will talk with Sportsnet's Nick Kypreos about the difficulties of being an NHL enforcer. The following is a blog written by Laraque for sportsnet.ca and originally published in January, 2009.

Fighting is not just the toughest job in hockey, but in all professional sports. Fighting is not easy, not easy physically nor mentally. During a fight, you pretty much fight for your life because as you know, many things can happen and on top of that, you are being watched by millions of people. And whether or not someone watches your game live, your fight will end up on YouTube forever.

In fighting you risk many injuries; the broken nose is an obvious one, but a broken orbital bone is something else and the thing people have to realize is that there is a life after hockey. So while you do this job, you have to make sure you take care of yourself.

I don't want to look like the Elephant Man when I retire if you know what I mean.

What might surprise some people is that the mental part of fighting can sometimes be tougher than the physical part. A lot of the time, fighting starts a couple days before the actual game. You look at the schedule and get really worked up because you have a game against a team that has a top tough guy and mentally that's tough. You think about the guy, you watch his fight on YouTube, you try to tell yourself it's going to be okay but it's not. No one can ever understand this pressure unless you're a fighter yourself.

I used to feel that way in my first couple years. I used to not be able to sleep before games and I would sweat in the afternoon. It was not a good feeling. Sometimes I was even praying that the other guy -- or even me -- would be scratched so the fight wouldn't happen. It was like this for me for about three years, but after a while you gain a reputation, you do well and get confident, and things turn around.

Now I laugh about it and I'm not nervous at all. I just know how the other guy feels before, let's say, facing me and this reassures me that it's no big deal. My old coach, Craig MacTavish in Edmonton, used to even say that when I was fighting, my heart rate wouldn't change. He couldn't be more right about that. Now I smile and I'm really calm, but it takes a lot of years to get there, and a lot of wins to be that confident.

The way it all started for me is actually quite ironic considering the type of job I have today in the NHL. All through my youth I had to fight and defend myself because of racism, and now that I'm in the NHL, it's kind of just natural for me. But don't get me wrong -- I would love to be a skilled guy, make $10 million a year and ask my team to get me a guy to defend me that makes 10 times less, but unfortunately I was not talented enough and will never be! lol!

I fight because it's my job, not because I like it. How many fighters like fighting anyway? I've talked to many tough guys and I can't even name you one. We do it because it's our job; that's it.

I never talk about fights; I never look at my fights or get revved up about it. I often wish my opponent good luck and always talk to the guy in the penalty box after the fight to ask him if he's okay or say good job. I never fight mad and maybe that's an advantage in a way because you're more in control of what you're doing. I also never wish for anyone to get hurt in a fight because I respect all my fellow brothers and when did winning a fight become not enough? You don't need to embarrass the guy and if you want respect from your peers, there is a lot of stuff you have to do.

THE CODE

Which brings me to the next subject: The Code. The Code is unwritten -- everyone knows it, but not everyone follows it, and those who don't are not respected. When you retire, respect is all you have left, and you want people to say that you were honourable at all times. At least I do.

The Code says things like:

*** not fighting a guy at the end of his shift

*** not jumping guys to get a head start

*** never punch a guy when he's down (that's the most important thing for me; players -- and referees -- know I never do)

*** and, especially, don't celebrate after a fight. You see that stuff a lot in junior hockey, but for guys who do it in the NHL, it's embarrassing and shows no respect for the other guy. Remember that everything you do comes back to you; you do that, it will happen to you because everyone is watching and talking!

You have to have a strong character to be a fighter. By that I mean when you're a tough guy, you're always an easy target. When your team loses a few games and they have to make a change, they scratch the fighter. A lot of fighters skate in the warmups all the time just so the coaches can see if the other tough guy is playing. Otherwise you're scratched. You fight for your team all season long but come playoff time, your season is done and that's the toughest thing to take because playoff hockey is the best part of hockey.

One of the best stories that I will never forget is when the Oilers won the Stanley Cup in 1990 and the first guy Mark Messier gave the Cup to was Dave Brown, even though he hadn't played one playoff game. But all season long Brown made sure guys like Mark had all the room they needed, and trust me they did. That was just another reason why Mark Messier will always be my all-time favourite player.

Another story about Dave Brown that I will never forget is during my first Oilers training camp when I was a rookie, I played my first exhibition game and Brown was facing me. All I could think about is when he broke Stu Grimson's face and I was terrified. I looked down so much that I could see my goalie between my legs, lol! So I did one of the smartest things I have ever done -- I fought some other guy they had so I can still be alive today!

I also remember my first two fights in the American Hockey League didn't go so well. I lost to Rocky Thompson and Sasha Lakovic one after another. I was just coming out of the Quebec junior league with a big reputation, which just shows you a junior reputation doesn't mean a thing. But since then I have fought legends like Tony Twist, Jim McKenzie, Stu Grimson, Rob Ray, Tie Domi, and the all-time best Bob Probert. Again, against those guys I was just hoping to come out alive! lol! Then my reputation was established. That's also another reason why when an up-and-coming fighter asks a guy to fight to make a name for himself, you kind of have to agree because if guys didn't do it to you, you wouldn't have that respect. It has to be like a turning wheel.

FIGHTING HAS CHANGED

Fighting has changed a lot over the years. A lot of guys are lucky they weren't in the league 15 years ago. In those days, everyone was tough, everyone fought, and everyone was held accountable. Now, there's no policing, players are getting slashed in the face, guys are getting elbowed and hit in the head, and more and more guys are getting hit from behind.

Speaking of which, it's a real joke now how guys are turning their back to checks. For a physical player, it makes the job harder because you always have to be ready to stop in case the player turns his back to you. It's a joke how some players turn around at the last moment to draw a penalty. In the past, nobody turned and if you did, too bad. But hitting from behind wasn't a problem then. Guys were always ready, so there's simple way to fix it by taking away the instigator rule. Let's do an experiment and take it out for a year and see how many fewer cheap shots we would see. Of course, there would be more fights but hey, isn't fighting popular? Who are the most loved players of every team in general? Fighters! We want to grow the game; fighting would certainly help.

I remember back in the day, people would show up three hours before the game because they knew that Probert and Domi were going to get into a fight. Isn't that excitement? Now times have changed. My theory was always that the fan who worked 9 to 5, who worked his ass off and got dirty at work, identified more with a fighter because just like them we don't have it easy and have to get dirty too. Interesting theory, huh? And in blue-collar towns, it's definitely the case!

Now the big question: do we need a heavyweight? Yes, and here's tons of reasons why: The top team in the West is San Jose, leading the charge with Jody Shelley. They have a team to go to war with if you look at their lineup and also with all the skills they have. I think they skated quite freely out there. And the top team in the East is Boston, leading the charge with Shawn Thornton, Milan Lucic and Zdeno Chara. Those teams are not just doing great this year but are built for the physicality of the playoffs. We can talk about the Ducks that won the Cup and led the league in fighting. When you have a heavyweight on your team, that presence makes the other team accountable and could save your star player from getting hurt.

So many teams and many examples have happened in the past where teams had been suffering because they didn't have a tough guy and if some of you are still not convinced and still think I don't know what I'm talking about, ask the guys who sweat and play the game. Ask them how big of a difference they see when they play on a team that has a heavyweight compared to a team that does not have one. You'll get your response there and that from quite elite players!

For example, we can talk about how last summer, all the tough guys were signed quite quickly and before any other player, other than the obvious nine or 10 megastars. Who is the first player Pittsburgh signed this summer? Eric Goddard, three-year contract, figure it out. As much as you need a fighter, a good one that can play is hard to find and the teams that have them won't let them go, in general! lol! A sniper is easy to get: you wait for the trading deadline when pending unrestricted guys will be available and you take your pick. But at that time, all the tough guys are taken and not available, also probably because a lot of us are not making big money and are easy on the salary cap! lol!

For the fighter himself, well there are tons of different types of fighters and that's normal considering the size of some of these guys. Some guys are 6-foot-8 and some guys weigh 275 pounds. I can't complain too much since I'm 6-foot-3, 260 pounds, but for some other guys, it's another story. So when you see a guy hanging on a bit more than others, that's normal also; fighting toe-to-toe is exciting to watch but it's not necessarily the best thing for you and will give you a short career when you fight a guy with a bigger reach. Guys need to get on the inside. Showing up is what's important, not always the result.

FIGHTING IS POPULAR

A lot of people hate hockey but love the fights, so really a heavyweight also helps to sell the game. Fighting is so popular they made a fighting league in Quebec. lol! Even when you have a heavyweight who doesn't play every game, it makes a difference with your team. Guys will respect the team and won't do anything cheap, otherwise they know that even if the guy isn't playing, he will the next game and you will have to account for your actions. The only bad thing about getting a guy who doesn't play every game in the season is that he won't play in the playoffs and since it's more physical, they will miss that guy's presence.

For big guys like Brash or Boogaard, if they get in a fight and don't beat the guy, automatically people assume that they're done. But people are just smarter about how they fight and sometimes a Riley Cote fighting a bigger guy, even if he loses he gives a bigger boost to his team because of his courage, because everyone always expects the bigger guy to win. That's why showing up is the key; that you were there for your team is what matters.

There are lots of different types of tough guys. There are the ones who love to initiate and others who just get in there if they have to, and I'm one of those. When you're younger and want to prove yourself you might start more stuff, but when you get older this stuff gets old and you don't want to fight just for fun anymore. But we do if the team needs it or if, of course, the other teams are starting to take liberties. And also the tougher you are, the less you have to fight. Do you think you would ever see one of the toughest fighters in the NHL at the end of a season with 25 fights? No chance; teams respect you even more and leave you alone.

So if you're a big fan of fighting and you have one of those guys, well, sorry buddy but your guy is just too tough so you won't see many fights! lol! But hey, that's good for your team. A lot of times it depends on who you are, anyway. The coach could tell his fighters to leave certain guys alone so they don't change the momentum. Sometimes when you play on the road and fight a top guy, the crowd gets into it and that can really lift a team -- momentum in a hockey game is everything. Smart coaches know how to use it! A coach will never tell you to fight someone -- you should know your job and know when to do it. But they will tell you when NOT to fight, and sometimes that's a smart decision. Trust me on that! lol!

WHO ARE THE TOUGHEST GUYS?

OK, so to finish (because I can really go on and on with this blog -- I will have write a book when I retire about all this) but here's the answer to the question people ask me all the time: Who are the toughest guys in the league? I'll go by conference.

The toughest guy in the East is Donald Brashear, hands down. He's the king and has been for years. Pound for pound the toughest guys are Riley Cote and Chris Neil.

And in the West, the toughest guy is Derek Boogaard and the toughest pound for pound is hands down Cam Janssen. When I'm mentioning pound-for-pound guys, I've always been impressed with those guys who weigh around 210 pounds and are fighting monsters and doing pretty well, winning their fair share of fights. Any close fight is a win for them since they're giving inches and weight. Talking about pound-for-pound guys, Tie Domi was the ultimate pound-for-pound fighter in my time with great consideration to Darren Langdon. That guy was tough and didn't care about the size of the other guy.

That's how I see it and probably just like 90 per cent of all the tough guys, I don't care about all those polls I read where people vote. And it's not just because the rankings change when one of these guy loses a fight. (For example, put Boogaard against the same guy 10 times and see how many he wins!) If you really want to know who the toughest guys are, just ask the players who play the game. Ask the guys who do the job, who actually fight and know their stuff. Not some know-it-all couch potato guy, frustrated about life who just likes criticizing everything and especially tough guys.

One of the stupidest things is when you read about those guys commenting on other guys' fights like it was the easiest thing in the world. For some people, a fight should be toe-to-toe, you each take turns punching the other guy in the face, but if you don't and are too defensive, you're a chicken, ha ha ha! There are 750 NHL players in the world, maybe about 40 tough guys. The toughest guys of any league (who can also play the game) and some people find ways to criticize them? Just comedy!

For me, I have over 120 NHL fights and when I think about that I am always surprised. This is not my personality. I like to laugh and joke around all the time, and take much more pleasure doing stuff in the community and helping kids than getting in hockey fights. I take more pleasure in scoring a goal then a big fight (which is obvious since fighting for me is much easier than scoring! lol!) But I will always be proud to say that I had a hat trick in the NHL. I have played 651 NHL regular-season games so far, but I take more pride in the 53 playoff games that I have played; for a tough guy to have played that many games in the post-season shows how much more than a one-dimensional player I became. For that I have to thank Ron Low, Kevin Lowe and Craig MacTavish for making me a better player and giving me more ice time than most guys doing this job, because for some of my fellow brothers, ice time is a much bigger fight. But stay strong my brothers, they still need you guys!

Thank for reading my blogs. I hope you enjoyed them and they were all written by me with all my honesty. This is your new NHL! Happy New Year to everyone, I wish you all the best. God bless!

kid's and hockey

Dean, I am saddened to read that you are considering keeping your kid's out of hockey.

Some of my best memories and most fulfilling experiences were coaching my son and one of my daughters in minor hockey. My son played for 15 years and never got into a fight. He was never hazed and made friends that he still hangs out with. Even though he is in Toronto now the way he gets to meet other people is by going and playing pick up a few times a week. My daughter played one season then tried a new sport every year, but it was a good bonding experience we shared.

There are some idiots in the game and some coaches think it is still 1973 and intimidation is the way to play but these kind of people are few and far between. They prepare the kid's for the idiots they will have to deal with later in life. So a good life lesson.

Re: Articles

Tom,

Yeah, it saddens me too! I won't discourage it but if they decide to play, I will be there front and centre as coach. I don't want to be the "typical hockey dad" in the bad way, but I want to make sure they receive good coaching and are playing in a culture of respect. I am going to encourage them to be active and have fun. Since we are cyclists and motor-bikers, we will no doubt try to steer them in that direction... then we can continue to have some bonding moments!

You did a great job with Jimmy - I saw how you practiced with them that year with the midgets and after meeting him a few times, he seems like a nice young man. I guess I have seen some absolutely disgusting stuff first hand - as a player, a coach, a mentor, a skill academy teacher, and "just another face in the crowd." Coaches / adults should never underestimate how much of an influence we / they have an young people!

Re: Articles

Bitter sweet

Nick Kypreos

November 24, 2010

I have to admit I wasn’t sure what to expect from our 30-minute special on fighting with Georges Laraque on Hockeycentral Tonight

With blindside hits and checking from behind, fighting is not exactly the hot-button topic of the day.

Yet I was extremely surprised at the number of people who were eagerly waiting to watch it. I think part of the reason is because it wasn’t another discussion on the merits of fighting and whether it belongs in our game. We all know that's been done to death, not to mention the NHL isn’t in any hurry to get rid of it anyway. Our show was simply about the human element involved in fighting and an inside glimpse through the eyes of the guys that live it.

First, let me say no enforcer ever grows up dreaming of being the team’s designated tough guy. Most fighters have had mild-to-great success putting the puck in the net at some point in their lives. Through minor hockey all the way up to junior and the American Hockey League, most of the guys who fight could score with some regularity. But if that success doesn’t follow you to the NHL level, you simply make a quick decision to find an alternative way to contribute and stay in the league.

As they say, it’s a dirty job but someone has to do it, and we are, after all, dealing with guys that want to play so badly that they are willing to do almost anything to stay. I found it interesting that Laraque and I approached fighting from polar opposites.

He said he fought calm and confident, while I fought scared and nervous. Perhaps if I had four more inches in height and reach, not to mention an additional 45 lbs, I wouldn’t have felt my heart pounding through my chest like it did every time I fought. Everyone thinks Ryan VandenBussche ended my career, but the truth is wear and tear did most of the damage, as did my lack of hunger to continue to do it.

I simply didn't have the sustaining power to fight anymore.

When I broke into the pros, six feet and 200 lbs was a good size to fight with. Twelve years later I was well below average. I could no longer hold off bigger, stronger guys craving for success.

Listening to Florida’s Darcy Hordichuk talk about how a couple of bad fights could get you to the unemployment line was a quick reminder of how fighters live with different insecurities than most other players.

A bad week, month or year for a scorer is described as being an off year. Yet a bad week for a fighter may end his career. Case in point: Raitis Ivanans in Calgary who lost badly against Steve MacIntyre. Will he truly recover from it both physically and psychologically? If not, his career is over as fast as it started.

I also feel fortunate that I was single during my career and didn’t have to deal with explaining to my children why my face looks like it just went through a meat grinder on some nights.

Listening to Nashville’s Wade Belak tell the story of misleading his children about how he makes a living in an effort to protect them was sweet and a little bit sad at the same time. You can call us all crazy for what we endured during our hockey careers and argue all day long it’s not needed in the game, but what you can't do is say its not deemed the most respected job in hockey by all the players.

Telling your teammates every single night: "I've got your back," is the most noble gesture among the guys that play.

People who have day jobs should feel so lucky.

Re: Articles

Tough way to make a living

November 23, 2010

BY WEB STAFF
sportsnet.ca

A few weeks ago, in the Hockeycentral viewing room at Sportsnet, analysts Nick Kypreos and Doug MacLean were going through the usual routine of watching every game being played in the National Hockey League that night.

The sound was down on the New York Rangers-Philadelphia Flyers game, but when Ranger Derek Boogaard squared off with Flyers enforcer Jody Shelley, a producer grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.

For perhaps 20 seconds, the 6-foot-7 Boogaard and the 6-foot-3 Shelley rained punches down on each other's head. As the Hockeycentral group watched, the usual "wows" and "oh mans" emanated around the room, but sitting quietly -- watching without a word, his face almost wincing with each blow that landed -- was Kypreos.

For eight NHL seasons Kypreos worked as an enforcer, until one night in 1997 when a Ryan VandenBussche punch ended his career.

As the Boogaard-Shelley fight ended and the group went back to work, Kypreos said quietly, to no one in particular, "Man, I can't believe I used to do that. My head hurts just thinking about it."

Then, snapping out of a memory perhaps better forgotten, he said more clearly: "It's a tough way to make a living, boys."

* * *

It is that; the toughest job in sports. There is no role in any team sport that is similar to that of the enforcer in the NHL.

It is a job that comes with the threat of devastating injury, the stress of preparing -- sometimes weeks in advance -- for the next big opponent, the pressure to not be embarrassed in front of thousands of screaming fans.

On Tuesday former NHL player Georges Laraque was a guest on a special edition of Hockeycentral Tonight titled "The Toughest Job in Sports" where he discussed life as an enforcer with Kypreos.

One of the topics was premeditated fights that occur during games, of which Laraque has been involved in a few.

"The way the rules are now with the instigator rule and everything, what are you going to do?" Laraque said. "You can't jump a guy anymore. You've got to make sure the guy's engaging.

"Most of the fights you see in the NHL today, the guys look at each other, they may not say anything but they nod their heads and stuff (and they go)."

Kypreos said there is a lot that goes into a fight that the fan might not know about, such as a personal history between two guys, what might have been said in warm-ups, and so on.

"You want to get your team into it, you want to get the crowd into it," Kypreos said. "(There are) many different reasons (you'll have a staged fight)."

* * *

One of the toughest parts of the gig is waiting for that opportunity to play.

"That would probably be the toughest, just the mental aspect," Edmonton's Steve MacIntyre said. "You know, coming to the game and you might not get in the game. You might not get the minutes you want. You have to realize you're here for a reason and you do your job and you do it well."

Florida's Darcy Hordichuk agreed. He has two fights so far this season in an average of four minutes and fifty seconds of ice time per game.

"Us fourth-liners, we get our five or six minutes a game and that can be tough sometimes when you're sitting on the bench and all of a sudden someone runs over one of your guys and you're expected to fight him whether you like it or not," Hordichuk said.

That waiting can be stressful. Colorado's David Koci, who at 6-foot-6 and 238 pounds you would think would have no fear, admits that not knowing if he will fight each game can play on the nerves.

"Of course, I've been nervous and lots of guys are nervous," said Koci. "It's different than boxers because boxers know they'll get in a fight. You kind of don't know but you still have to play hockey and that's a little bit stressful sometimes."

Nashville's Wade Belak, who has more than 100 fights on his record in his 14 seasons, also admits to that stress.

"It's hard not to be (stressed)," Belak said. "The anticipation of that buildup, you can't sleep, you're nervous, don't want to be embarrassed, especially at home.

"It's stressful."

* * *

That stress also translates to the fighters' family and friends. It's unlikely moms and dads envisioned their young hockey stars growing up to be enforcers; nine-year-olds dream of being Sidney Crosby, not Derek Boogaard. And it can be even tougher when the fighter is a dad.

"My kids have only been to a couple of my games," Belak said. "Against Florida I fought Georges Laraque and my youngest was in the crowd crying. I don't like to see that. It's tough."

"My mom absolutely hates it," said Boston's Brian McGrattan, who is in his sixth season in the NHL and already has 53 fights in the NHL, according to the website hockeyfights.com. "She can't watch. My brother and my dad, even my dad gets a little, when he sees me going up against a big guy he gets a bit nervous. My brother loves it, my buddies love it, but my mom can't watch. She just doesn't want to see me get hurt."

That possibility definitely exists when there are players such as Boogaard in the league. He is considered by most players as the NHL's heavyweight champion, a position of honour held by such luminaries as Dave (The Hammer) Schultz, the late Bob Probert and recently retired Laraque. His fights-per-season have decreased in his six seasons in the NHL, mostly because others don't want to tangle with him.

"He knows what he's doing," Belak said. "He trains for it, which is probably the scariest thing. You have to be smart when fighting him. You have to stay out of his reach.

"He hits hard; has a long reach. He's just a big human being."

* * *

Boogaard, for his part, seems unbothered by the whole process, responding to a question on whether he finds the job tough with a playful smile and quip: "No, maybe a stress reliever."

But he does acknowledge the threat of injury that exists, as do most enforcers. It would be foolish not to. Kypreos' career ended with a concussive punch, and two years ago, Don Sanderson died after hitting his head on the ice in a fight while playing for the Whitby Dunlops of Ontario's Major League Hockey circuit.

"There's no doubt about it, the career of a fighter is a lot shorter than most guys because nowadays the guys are getting bigger and stronger and you get hit a couple of times and you don't know if you play again," Hordichuk said.

"People don't understand the pressure that tough guys are under. It doesn't matter who you are. It takes one punch to the chin and you're down in front of 17,000 fans.

"And if you go down too many times and you're out of a job in this league."

* * *

Watching a clip of one of Laraque's fight during Tuesday's show, Kypreos was dumbfounded when he heard Laraque say, "Good luck" to the other player before a pre-arranged fight.

"Good luck? Are you nuts?" Kypreos said. "I don't want a guy having good luck against me!"

For Laraque, however, it was just the job and animosity never came before sportsmanship.

"I say that every fight I have," Laraque said. "I always tell the guy, 'Good luck.' That's just the way I am. I never fight mad."

Re: Articles

Good read to make us thankful. Mandi was featured on HNIC and during this past year's draft when her brother was taken by St. Louis. Mandi played at Notre Dame in Wilcox SK prior to heading south on a scholarship. I saw her play and wanted to recruit her...



For Mandi Schwartz and Family, Truly Time To Be Thankful
By David Whitley
National Columnist
November 25 2010



SEATTLE – The Schwartz family can barely recall this Thanksgiving. Not the American one on Thursday, but the Canadian one last month.

The daughter was near death. About all Mandi Schwartz remembers is hallucinating about her fiancé. The brothers were away at college, shielded from the sight of their sister with up to 13 IV bags dripping into her body.

The parents?

"I can't remember a lot of it. I think it was too much to handle," Rick Schwartz said recently. "I'm starting to forget things. My mind's going a little bit."

They are from Saskatchewan, where Thanksgiving was observed Oct. 11. Back then the Schwartzes were just thankful Mandi was alive. Now they have reason to celebrate.

"You feel like she's got a life again," Rick said.

It's not the perfect Thanksgiving story, but nobody who gathered here last weekend was complaining. They've come too far for that.

Mandi Schwartz, a Saskatchewan native, has been in and out of chemotherapy for more than 20 months since first being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in December 2008. On Aug. 31, Schwartz entered remission once again after completing additional chemotherapy. She underwent a daily pair of hour-long radiation sessions between Sept. 15 and 17, and had another two days of chemotherapy on Sunday and Monday to prepare for the transplant.

Mandi and her parents moved here in July for the final showdown against cancer. By then the story was so well-known one of Mandi's new doctors came up and said she was honored to meet her.

Mandi is the Yale hockey player whose search for a transplant donor galvanized her school, her sport and thousands of people who'd never heard the phrase "acute myeloid leukemia."

She was originally diagnosed two years ago. After months of hospitals, treatments and anxiety, nothing would compare to a transplant.

"This is the hardest hockey game you'll ever play," a nurse told Mandi.

Like any hockey game, it's been a team effort. Mandi still can't quite grasp why her plight has inspired so many.

"I never thought I was that popular," she said.

There have been fundraisers galore. Thousands of people lined up to get their cheeks swabbed to see if their bone marrow would match. Many more volunteered to donate blood from umbilical cords.

Finding a suitable donor was just the opening drama. There were no medical guarantees when the Schwartzes pulled into Seattle in a donated RV. They settled into a little two-bedroom apartment near the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

There was lovely view of Lake Union and neighborhood of rolling hills. The walk to the SCCA offered an uphill trek where Mandi could gauge her condition. Not that she was in any shape to enjoy the scenery or fresh air.

The blood-cord drive had found two matches. They weren't perfect due to Mandi's mixed Ukranian-Russian genetic heritage, but they were close enough. The plan could be summed up simply enough: Kill the existing cancer. Inject new cells. Voila! A new immune system.

If only it were that simple.

The cancer returned a week before the scheduled transplant. Mandi was pounded with more radiation and chemotherapy. She went into remission and doctors moved fast.

A stem-cell isn't your usual transplant. There are no organs switched or tense 16-hours surgeries. On Sept. 22, two innocuous-looking bags of fluid were hooked to Mandi's arm. The entire procedure took less than an hour.

That was the calm. Then came the storm.

"Having a transplant is like someone sending you to hell and telling you to crawl back," said Carol Schwartz, Mandi's mother.

Nobody knew if the new stem cells would engraft in the bone marrow. With no immune system, the risk of infection was high.

Mandi developed lung infections and mucositis, a painful intestinal inflammation. She added 35 pounds of water weight. The days were marked by vomiting and delirium.

At one point doctors considered using an experimental drug that would have cost $2,000 a week. Her parents traded 24-hour shifts at the hospital, catching cat naps on the chair by Mandi's bed. Sometimes there was no napping at all.

"I'm a chicken," Rick said. "I get so worried when I hear about things that could happen. I must have aged 20 years in the past two. My wife handles it better than I do."

"I don't know. I just know every day with Mandi is a good day," Carol said. "I mean, where would you go if you were scared she might not get through it? If you knew how strong she was and how hard she worked in her teenage years to train. You put a lot of faith in her physical conditioning.

"It's hard to feel sorry for yourself when she's the one battling through it. You put on a happy face and try to be as positive as she is."

Such talk prompts an embarrassed smile from Mandi. Her friends at Yale always raved about her sunny outlook and stoicism. But Mandi admits there have been plenty of moments she felt anything but positive.

What helps her, what has helped everyone in Seattle, is knowing how many people have been waiting and watching and hoping and helping.

From Brennan Turner, a former Yale hockey player who organized donor-registration drives across Canada, to her teammates who recently "adopted" a sick 9-year-old girl in Mandi's honor.

Her youngest brother, Jaden, was drafted in the first round of the June NHL Draft by the St. Louis Blues. He's been playing this fall alongside brother Rylan at Colorado College. Rival fans will come up and wish Mandi well.

"She's always had that affect on people," Jaden said. "But this has just added to it."

The family's gratitude even extends to Dr. Tedd Collins. He's the New Haven immunologist whose daughter went through the same ordeal as Mandi. She didn't make it, which prompted Collins to start two charities promoting blood-cord transplants.

It turned out Collins had a history of shady fundraising. He's now under investigation for fraud, but Rick said he never expected nor wanted any money from Collins.

"He did nothing but help us," Rick said. "I have to give the man credit."

The Blues donated $10,000 to cancer research in Mandi's name. Last week, a group of friends in Saskatchewan did the same.

Insurance takes care of Mandi's medical expenses, but the family's expenses aren't covered. The money raised has helped her fiancé, Kaylem Prefontaine (pictured right), travel from Saskatchewan to Seattle every few weeks.

He's an engineering student who met Mandi in high school. It wasn't love at first sight, but that followed soon enough. In one of her toughest stretches in the intensive care unit last year, Kaylem showed up with gaggle of balloons and popped the question.

"One of the balloons also popped," he said.

It wasn't a bad omen.

"You can see her spirits pick up when he's around," Sandy said.

That's one reason last weekend was special. Kaylem, who's a good enough hockey player to be invited to tryout for Canada's world junior team, came to Seattle.

Jaden and Rylan also flew in. It was the first time everybody had been together since Mandi left Saskatchewan. It's a good thing everybody didn't show up for the Canadian Thanksgiving.

After 31 days in the hospital, Mandi was well enough to move back to her apartment. It wasn't much more than a hospital room with a better view, however.

She would still routinely spend eight to 10 hours a day at the hospital. Then she'd get home and Rick or Carol would hook her up to another platelet-pushing IV throughout the night, or they gently remind her to take one of the 35 pills she ingests daily.

And the worst part?

"I wasn't strong enough to get out of the bathtub," Mandi said.

It was pretty depressing for a 22-year-old who used to skate joyfully for hours. But Mandi's blood-cell counts have improved in the past few weeks. She's now down to three or hours of infusions a day.

"The doctors sense her body is recovering," Carol said. "They're giving her a little more freedom."

At first, her legs were barely getting her up that hill when she walked to the hospital. The risk of infection is still high, so her parents are always nearby with the trusty bottle of hand sanitizer.

Her brothers weren't sure what to expect when they showed up Friday. They'd talk to their parents almost every day, but Rick and Carol always sugarcoated the report on Mandi. She may have spent hours throwing up, but it would come out: "She's not having a great day."

It was all so the boys won't worry, of course. But the boys couldn't help it.

They were little hockey prodigies, talent honed from countless afternoons on their makeshift rink behind their house. Jaden and Rylan would smooth the ground, haul pails of water from house and let the Canadian weather do the rest.

Their sister would join the bucket brigade. If Ivy League opponents said she played a relentless game, there was a reason.

"I toughened her up," Rylan said.

When Mandi was in ICU last year, he would go outside and tend to the old rink. He wanted the ice to be ready for her return.

"That's how he dealt with it," Carol said.

At least the boys didn't have to deal with Mandi from a month ago. Her face is still puffy from the steroids and she gets exhausted in no time. But doctors encourage her be physically active, so the family headed to a Western Hockey League game Saturday night.

They stopped at a sports bar for dinner beforehand. The games and music and clattering dishes made it hard to hear. As they crammed into a corner booth, Rick looked down the table at his daughter.

Mandi gets cold easily, so she wore a ski jacket, ski cap, gloves and scarf. She closed her eyes and rested her head on Kaylem's shoulder. Jaden gently pressed his hand against the hood of her jacket, trying to help keep her warm.

"We don't know what she's going through, right?" Rick said. "Even though she's doing pretty good, we really don't know."

"She knows she's got to get out and do something," Carol said. "We'll see if she lasts the night."

They passed the hand sanitizer around the table and feasted on nachos, burgers and pizza. Then it was off to the ShoWare Center to watch the Seattle Thunderbirds play Everett Silvertips.

Mandi made it through all three periods. There was a promotion after the game in which women were invited down to the ice. They could take a shot at open goal and win a turkey.

"Come on, Mandi," Rylan said. "Take snipe."

"I just want to go home," she said.

No problem. The official family Thanksgiving was the next day and Carol had already bought a turkey breast.

The boys had a late-afternoon flight back to Colorado Springs. They won't be back before Mandi is scheduled to leave Seattle.

Barring complications, patients usually recover well enough to go home 100 days after a transplant. That would be New Year's Eve for Mandi. A full recovery takes about a year.

"You don't go day by day. You go week by week," Rick said. "It gets a little better each week."

Mandi has asked Rylan for one of his accounting books, just to get her academic mojo going again. She's just about able to bathe herself now. She's hoping for a wedding next summer.

Complications will inevitably arise. There's always the danger her body will reject the new immune system.

Everybody knows this hockey game is far from over. But as they gathered to eat turkey and homemade pierogies, they knew just getting to this point was reason to celebrate.

"I can feel my legs getting stronger," Mandi said.

That hill doesn't seem as quite steep as it used to be. And wherever it leads, Mandi knows she'll never walk alone.

Re: Articles

Or... "How to build a team and use what could easily slide into "professional jealousy"... as positive motivational fodder... by Blake Nill."

Even though this is an article about CIS Football, there are some interesting comments from Blake Nill, head coach of U of C, who lost again to Laval. I have talked to Blake on many occasions as he joined U of C my last year I coached there... I like how he talks about elevating the level of play in this article - rather than complain about how good the other team is. (I know there are whispers of payments / incentives to play football on the Laval team... I have heard it happens in other sports at other schools too. But the CIS is a toothless entity... anyways, I don't want to get off-topic. Also interesting to read the last edition of Sports Illustrated - the lead story is about a sports agent who went on the record declaring he had paid players to use him as an agent - even when they were in school. "The truth will set you free" - his comments were met with a lot of people distancing themselves; having convenient memory lapses; or discrediting him and his comments altogether!)

Anyways, Blake has some neat comments on trying to get the program / team better. He has moved the program forward in a short time (and they do have money - a very large, organized alumni with open wallets. They 'fundraise' an amazing amount of money each year. Good for them!)

It does take a few years to turn a program around. I think 3-5 years to fully put one's stamp on it.
-----



Dinos coach concedes Laval has set new standard


By Allen Cameron, Calgary Herald November 27, 2010

Good teams reach championship games; great teams win them, and the University of Calgary Dinos got a convincing reminder of that Saturday afternoon.

The Laval Rouge et Or, 29-2 winners over the University of Calgary Dinos in the Vanier Cup for their sixth national title since 1999, are Canadian university football's richest program thanks a wealthy private backer and unparalleled fan and corporate support.

But if other teams want to play at their level, suggested Dinos coach Blake Nill after the game, they have to follow the same model.

"I don't expect them to slow down," said Nill. "It's a matter of other teams sincerely wanting to get up there. They have to keep raising the bar.

"We need someone stepping up and saying, you know what? I'm prepared to spend this because that's what football means to us. If you look at this right here, tell me what CIS team wouldn't want this at their university. Laval said, 'We want it.' Now, other teams have to decided if they really want this or not."

But it goes beyond financial support; at the end of the day, all the money in the world means nothing if you don't have the players, and Nill had an early clue prior to Saturday's game that those players were ready.

"I was watching them warm up and I didn't see one of their guys drop a ball in the warm-up," he said. "I was watching for that; I was sitting there going, 'Geez, at least throw a poor pass.' But not one dropped pass that I saw.

"It just shows you that their plan and the model with which they run their team has superseded the rest of the country. Every now and then, a team gets close and every now and then they lose, but the consistency with which they've won just makes it difficult (for other teams)."

Which isn't to say the Dinos can't reach those heights; since hiring Nill, the Dinos have reached the final four in Canada three straight years, and lost the last two Vanier Cups.

As well, there is promising talent in the system. Offensively, the quarterback reins will be passed from Erik Glavic to Eric Dzwilewski, who was named the country's top rookie earlier this week. Running back Matt Walter may be back for a fifth year, while Steven Lumbala continues to improve in leaps and bounds.

The defence looks terrific next season with youngsters such as linebacker Sam Hurl and defensive back Doctor Cassama.

"I'm a realist," said Nill. "I think we can beat these guys, and there are other teams that can beat them. But the teams have to get better, that's all it is. It's do-able. I told my kids after the game that in five years we've come so far. And we will keep going. We're going to lose a couple key guys, but that's part of it. You have to keep building and rebuilding.

"I told my coaches (after the game) that the best team won, there's no doubt about that. We're a good football team, but you can see the difference right now. We just have to keep trying to get better, getting better athletes, train harder, and we'll be back some day."

acameron@calgaryherald.com


Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/sports/Dinos+coach+concedes+Laval+standard/3894849/story.html#ixzz16cTTYWyN

Re: Articles

Dean I believe it is all in the attitude. I played in two national final fours in college and coached in 3 with the U of Calgary. In Bemidji Coach Peters stated at a dinner with eveyone present that "we are here for the whole apple and not for the apple sauce." there was never an option of not winnig but most importantly not do eveything it takes to win. This was drilled on us from day one. When we scored or they scored we all knew why the goal happened. Clarity

All three times we went to the final four when I was asst. coach at the U of Calgary we were ranked #1 in Canada and we never won. In my opinion as a former player I thought we changed everything so much when we got to Toronto that the players were not comfortable and all three time underachieved.. (just my thought and I could be full of sh---).

Re: Articles

Good insights Tom. (I don't think you are full of sh1T!) It would be interesting to talk to the other members of the coaching staff to get their feelings. Did you guys debrief as a group? Do you have any other recollections of why you didn't win with the group at U of C?

What about while at Bemidji? Reasons?

I love the comment about "the whole apple" in relation to the "applesauce." Clarity - define the goals / culture and then hold the team / players / staff accountable to that standard. Attitude is SO important.

I think a quote attributed to Henry Ford said, "Whether you think you can or can't... you are probably right!"

(Hmmm, this stuff maybe should go under "The Art of Coaching" thread...)

PS Dinner with Olli and his family was very nice. Some good discussion surrounding the teaching systems in Finland, Canada, and abroad.
----------------------
Dean in Bemidji Coach Peters started talking about winning the Championship from Day one. At that time hockey didn't start until October and we did 6 weeks of off ice training which consisted of a lot of running intervals. In my first year it finished with a 10 mile run around the lake and after that it was 20 miles, 10 around the lake and 3 times around the golf course. I think the 10 was better because it was doable for hockey players. This set the tone for the entire season. There was clarity in how we played in all situations. By todays standards the practices were primitive and every week was the same sequence as the last. (better than when I played in the AJHL and we would scrimmage while our coach drank a bottle of wiskey with the owner and then stagger onto the ice and bag skate us for 20 or 30 minutes to end practice.) Two of our D played for the silver medal winning USA Olympic team in 72; so that helped as well.

In 90 at U of C we got unlucky. We were leading 4-2 with 2 min. left and 2 players from the Hat wouldn't come off. The winger near the boards changed 3 times. Finally exhausted one of them tried to sit on the puck and they picked it up and bankded it off one of our D with 1:52 left. They got another off two shin pads after Bracko had gone end to end and put it in the far corner only to hit the knob of their goalies stick. We went to OT and they won with a tip in off our D's stick when he tried to block it. Willy was coaching.

In 95 and 96 we played our worst games of the season at the Nationals after sweeping the U of A. The team core was recruited by Willy before he went to Japan to coach. We got about 8 top major junior players in the 93-94 season and enticed them with a 3 week tour of Scandanavia that I arranged. Jason K still holds the record for most pp goals in major junior hockey. I never sensed the same committment to hard work at Calgary as there was and still is at Bemidji.

Re: Articles

The Pros and Cons of the Tutor Stampede
By ALINA TUGEND
Published: October 22, 2010 NY Times


I’M well aware that many parents in my community assume that hiring tutors — whether to help their children with learning difficulties or to bump up already high scores — will be as much a part of the cost of school as backpacks and calculators.

But I was somewhat surprised this summer when I found out that several boys on my son’s travel baseball team had instructors who gave them individualized lessons throughout the year.

Private batting instruction for Little League? I somewhat self-righteously told friends that this had all gone too far. What about those who couldn’t afford it? Are they going to get squeezed to the bottom of the Little League ladder?

And what about just letting our children figure things out on their own? I agreed with a friend who wondered what was next — hiring a tutor to make snowmen in the winter?

Then, a few weeks later, I accidentally ended up having some private tennis lessons, when other members of my class failed to show up. And while I’m not off to Wimbledon, my tennis did improve remarkably.

Seeing how helpful some one-on-one lessons were for me, my husband and I offered to pay for a few individualized batting lessons for our younger son. And guess what? He also improved — and even more important, understood the mechanics of batting far more than he ever had.

But I still questioned whether those of us in affluent communities — not just in the New York area, but across the country — had gone too far in the tutoring arena. Besides expanding the ever-widening gap between the haves and have-nots, are we also turning every activity into an intensive training session rather than an opportunity to simply have fun?

I don’t know what Americans spend on private music and art and sports lessons, but according to Edward E. Gordon, president of the Imperial Consulting Corporation and one of the authors of “The Tutoring Revolution” (Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2006), they now pay about $15 billion collectively on academic tutors. That’s a lot of money.

So I talked to a few people, some of whom have thought about how much children have to do today and some of whom have written about what it takes to perfect skills in any area. Daniel Coyle, author of “The Talent Code” (Bantam Books, 2009) has written extensively about how people get to the top in a given field.

“I’m very ambivalent” about private instruction, Mr. Coyle said. “A whole industry has risen up where there wasn’t one before, and the irony is, as effective as a lot of it is, all this machinery of coaches and tutors can increase skill, but decrease motivation. The kids can end up losing ownership.”

But Mr. Coyle agreed that there were certainly times when such instruction could be helpful.

“There’s a lot of upside to listening to an expert,” he said. “Coaches and teachers have a lot to offer. I would just hate losing that amateur spirit.”

What about piling more and more on children, many of whom are already running from one activity to another?

“Over-scheduling is a real problem,” said Alvin Rosenfeld, co-author of “The Over-Scheduled Child,” (St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000) and a lecturer in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “But this is a separate and very different issue.”

“If your kid wants to be better at a sport, why not get private instruction?” he said. “I’ve seen kids who are clumsy on the soccer fields and with five to six lessons, it gets them up to an adequate level.”

The crucial point, however, is that the push should come from the child, not the parent. And everyone needs to be realistic about the goal.

Before rushing into three days a week of lessons and an intensive summer camp, “parents have to get an idea of the statistics,” Dr. Rosenfeld said. He noted that “some 440,000 boys will play in competitive basketball games in the fourth grade.” But, he said: “About 4,000 will play in college. And about 30 will get into the N.B.A.”

It is also critical, he said, to separate the good instructors from the bad. And to know what your child needs: a tough taskmaster or a gentle encourager?

Vicki Abeles, director of the recently released documentary “Race to Nowhere” about stressed and over-programmed students, does not see tutoring and private instruction so benignly.

“I’m not saying it’s all bad or all good, but it bears looking at,” she said. “Academic tutoring used to be remedial, but now the vast majority is doing it because parents and educators want students to be competitive.”

She also wondered whether hiring tutors and instructors whenever a child faced difficulty might mean “we’re sending the message that they can’t do this on their own.” She added: “They don’t learn to struggle. I’ve talked to college professors who say kids still send their essays home or to tutors to be looked at.”

I decided to talk to Ralph Vasami, who helped improve my son’s batting average, to get his take on all this. He played baseball at the University of Pennsylvania and now along with his brother, Chris, coaches many children in our community for around $75 an hour and $40 for half an hour.

“The first thing Ralph and I do, before the kid even takes a swing, is ask what the goal is,” said Chris Vasami, who plays in the minor leagues for the New Jersey Jackals. “Most people are pretty realistic. They want their son or daughter not to be afraid of the ball, or not be afraid to swing and miss.”

Some of the Vasamis’ students want to make the high school team or have a shot at a college team, the Vasamis said, but both the parents and students have to realize how much they will have to work outside of the private lesson.

“It’s like someone can sit in class and take notes, but are they equipped to take the tests unless they study in addition?” Ralph Vasami said.

Mr. Gordon, who has been writing about tutoring for years, said he believed the majority of parents who hired someone to help their child with academics did it because the child was struggling, not to increase already high scores.

“That may be very true in Manhattan, but it doesn’t reflect the reality of what goes on in the American landscape,” Mr. Gordon said.

The most important thing a tutor can do is “help a child learn how to learn,” he said. And parents have to realize that teaching and tutoring involve different skills.

“Tutoring is precise individual instruction,” he said. “A tutor should give some understanding of the child’s issues — not just that he has trouble in English or math, but why they exist.”

It’s also important to remember that “tutoring should not be a lifelong crutch for a child,” Mr. Gordon said. “The purpose of tutoring is to help a child learn how to go about the learning process. If a child does wonderfully with a tutor, but terribly in a classroom, what’s the point?”

The use of tutors and private instructors has certainly increased over the years, but Dr. Rosenfeld recalled that he received the help of a great tutor in preparing for the SATs back in the early 1960s.

“He taught smart Jewish kids from Brooklyn who wanted to get into the elite schools,” said Dr. Rosenfeld, who did well enough to attend Cornell University and then Harvard Medical School.

The name of the tutor? Stanley Kaplan.

Re: Articles

The Many Errors in Thinking About Mistakes

By ALINA TUGEND
Published: November 24, 2007 NY Times


OF the many mistakes I have no doubt made over the last few weeks, two stand out: One cost me money and one cost me some pride.

I made an error in an article, and of the thousands who read it, a few gleefully e-mailed me about it.

I corrected it, although I sheepishly admit my first — though fleeting — instinct was to avoid owning up.

In the second case, in a flurry of zealous organization, I sent in a check to cover a bill for my husband’s monthly train pass. It turns out that he pays by direct debit. I canceled the check.

Then we got a notice that we were being charged $20 for a bounced check.

Neither mistake was on the scale, with, say, amputating the wrong leg or causing two planes to collide.

But they bothered me and made me consider how we are taught to think of mistakes in our society.

“I think it’s a very difficult subject,” said Paul J. H. Schoemaker, chairman of Decision Strategies International and teaches marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “There’s a lot of ambivalence around making mistakes.”

On one hand, as children we’re taught that everyone makes mistakes and that the great thinkers and inventors embraced them. Thomas Edison’s famous quote is often inscribed in schools and children’s museums: “I have not failed. I have just found ten thousand ways that won’t work.”

On the other hand, good grades are usually a reward for doing things right, not making errors. Compliments are given for having the correct answer and, in fact, the wrong one may elicit scorn from classmates.

We grow up with a mixed message: making mistakes is a necessary learning tool, but we should avoid them.

Carol S. Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University, has studied this and related issues for decades.

“Studies with children and adults show that a large percentage cannot tolerate mistakes or setbacks,” she said. In particular, those who believe that intelligence is fixed and cannot change tend to avoid taking chances that may lead to errors.

Often parents and teachers unwittingly encourage this mind-set by praising children for being smart rather than for trying hard or struggling with the process.

For example, in a study that Professor Dweck and her researchers did with 400 fifth graders, half were randomly praised as being “really smart” for doing well on a test; the others were praised for their effort.

Then they were given two tasks to choose from: an easy one that they would learn little from but do well, or a more challenging one that might be more interesting but induce more mistakes.

The majority of those praised for being smart chose the simple task, while 90 percent of those commended for trying hard selected the more difficult one.

The difference was surprising, Professor Dweck said, especially because it came from one sentence of praise.

They were then given another test, above their grade level, on which many performed poorly. Afterward, they were asked to write anonymously about their experience to another school and report their scores. Thirty-seven percent of those who were told they were smart lied about their scores, while only 13 percent of the other group did.

“One thing I’ve learned is that kids are exquisitely attuned to the real message, and the real message is, ‘Be smart,’” Professor Dweck said. “It’s not, ‘We love it when you struggle, or when you learn and make mistakes.’”

As we get older, many of us invest a great deal in being right. When things go wrong, as they inevitably do, we focus on flagellating ourselves, blaming someone else or covering it up. Or we rationalize it by saying others make even more mistakes.

What we do not want to do, most of the time, is learn from the experience.

Professor Dweck, who wrote a book on the subject called “Mindset” (Random House, 2006), proved this point in another study, this one of college students. They were divided into two camps: those who did readings about how intelligence is fixed, and those who learned that intelligence could grow and develop if you worked at it.

The students then took a very tough test on which most did badly. They were given the option of bolstering their self-esteem in two ways: looking at scores and strategies of those who did worse or those who did better.

Those in the fixed mind-set chose to compare themselves with students who had performed worse, as opposed to those Professor Dweck refers to as in “the growth mind-set,” who more frequently chose to learn by looking at those who had performed better.

Mr. Schoemaker would agree. He was the co-author of a June 2006 article for the Harvard Business Review called “The Wisdom of Deliberate Mistakes.” Among its theories is that there is too much focus on outcome rather than on process.

If businesses and people are not making a certain number of mistakes, “they’re playing it too safe,” he said.

The resistance to making mistakes runs deep, he writes, but it is necessary for the following reasons, which he outlined in the article:

¶We are overconfident. “Inexperienced managers make many mistakes and learn from them. Experienced managers may become so good at the game they’re used to playing that they no longer see ways to improve significantly. They may need to make deliberate mistakes to test the limits of their knowledge.”

¶We are risk-averse because “our personal and professional pride is tied up in being right. Employees are rewarded for good decisions and penalized for failures, so they spend a great deal of time and energy trying not to make mistakes.”

¶We tend to favor data that confirms our beliefs.

¶We assume feedback is reliable, although in reality it is often lacking or misleading. We don’t often look outside tested channels.

Of course, there are mistakes and then there are mistakes.

“With children, you want them to make mistakes, but not end up in prison or in a wheelchair,” Mr. Schoemaker said. One also has to weigh the consequences. We want people who run nuclear power plants or fly planes to avoid mistakes as much as possible.

But most of us are not holding people’s lives in our hands and can stand to take a few more chances.

“Unfortunately, the people who most need to make mistakes are the ones least likely to admit it, and the same is true of companies,” Mr. Schoemaker wrote.

Of course, there are stupid mistakes, or what Stanley M. Gully, associate professor at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University, called “unintelligent failures.”

After all, nobody wants a worker who keeps making the same mistake, and “if we fail and don’t learn from it, it’s not an intelligent failure,” he said.

Professor Gully and other researchers have looked at ways of training people to do complex tasks and found that in some cases encouraging them to make mistakes works better than teaching them to avoid them.

Those who were good at processing information, open to learning and not overly conscientious were more effectively trained if they were persuaded to make mistakes.

“We get fixated on achievement,” he said, but, “everyone is talking about the need to innovate. If you already know the answer, it’s not learning. In most personal and business contexts, if you avoid the error, you avoid the learning process.”

But old habits die hard. I want to be more open to — or less afraid of — making mistakes. But if you catch an error in this column, do me a favor. Keep it to yourself.

Re: Articles

For the ethics file...

Toronto Star

Hockey coach faces ban for opposing racial slur

December 03, 2010

Kate Allen



Coach Greg Walsh pulled his Peterborough minor league hockey team off the ice after an opposing player hurled a racial slur at one of his teenaged team members and no one apologized.

Two weeks later, Walsh is watching his house league team from the stands while he serves an indefinite suspension from the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA). Meanwhile, the player who used the taunt and his two coaches received three-day penalties and are playing again.

Because of a Hockey Canada rule on “refusing to start play,” Walsh could be barred from coaching for up to a year.

“I acted in the best interest of the kids I represent as coach of the hockey team, and I’m prepared to accept any punishment that was given, he said. “Whether it’s fair, whether its not . . . that’s not my decision.”

Others are less diplomatic. “We’re supposed to be in it for the kids, but we’re just running into hurdles of bureaucracy,” said John Gardner, president of the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL).

The target of the slur, Andrew McCullum, 16, is simply angry. “He wanted to make a statement that he does not tolerate racism,” McCullum said of his coach.

The incident occurred at a Nov. 15 game between two Peterborough Minor Hockey Association teams. McCullum, who has played for Walsh’s NAPA Auto Parts team for years, and a boy who plays for the Austin Trophies got into an on-ice confrontation.

They were sent to the penalty box for two minutes, where “we were chirping each other,” McCullum recalled.

The other boy then called him “the N-word.” The referee didn’t hear it, so couldn’t impose a penalty.

The Austin Trophies coach benched his player for part of that period. But when the boy was put back on the ice the next period without offering an apology, Walsh was furious.

“In order for us as a team to protect our player from that, we said that we weren’t going to play and we went to the dressing room. Simple as that,” he said.

Walsh’s players were changing out of their uniforms before the referee’s two-minute window for the team to reconsider was over. “They seemed pretty angry,” McCullum said.

According to the Hockey Canada rulebook, any official responsible for a team withdrawing from the ice and failing to return may be suspended for up to a year. Walsh is prevented from coaching until a hearing to determine the extent of his punishment for breaking that rule.

OMHA executive director Richard Ropchan said that while Walsh may not be suspended for an entire year, he expects the coach will suffer some penalty. “He has breached the regulations, and that’s suspendable, so I don’t know how long it’s going to be.”

Ropchan agreed the rule is “harsh,” but added: “It’s really clear on what happens if you remove a team from a game, for whatever reason.”

The OMHA merely enforces the rules set by Hockey Canada, he said, adding Walsh didn’t have to force the game to end for the Austin Trophies player and coaches to be punished.

Other coaches have suffered suspensions under the same rule for removing their team from play when kids have been injured by much larger players on the opposing team, according to another OMHA official.

Todd Jackson, a senior manager at Hockey Canada, said the regulation “allows the minor hockey associations to deal with different situations on a case-by-case basis.”

Walsh knew he could face suspension for the decision, and the referee warned him about the rule at the time. Asked whether he thinks the outcome fair, he laughed. “Under the circumstances, certainly not. But a rule is a rule.”

But the GTHL’s Gardner said that “we can be over-regulated.” He added, “I always say, if you want to do well in Ottawa politics, get into hockey for a year or two.”

McCullum said it’s the second time in two seasons another player has used the same slur against him.

Following a Star investigation into racism and violence in minor hockey last year, this season the GTHL changed the penalty for discriminatory taunts to an indefinite suspension — up from a three-game suspension like the one McCullum’s opponent received.

Carl Friday, a senior GTHL referee, said he thinks those penalties should be applied everywhere. “If every league were to go to that, it would show a unified decision,” he said.

Gardner agreed that “you’ve got to speed up in order to catch up with the times.”

Austin Trophies coach John Welsh said the offending player is a good kid who deeply regrets the incident. A letter of apology has been written and McCullum will receive it soon, he said, adding he thinks Walsh’s suspension is taking too long to be resolved.

Walsh’s team continues to play without a coach but still stands behind his decision, said manager Tracy Groombridge.

“We just want to play hockey.”

Re: Articles

Ongoing discussion between Major Junior and NCAA


College hockey becoming bigger pipeline to NHL

By Kevin Allen, USA TODAY
December 3 2010


The NHL, once resistant to having an abundance of former college hockey players, could soon reach the point where one of three players has an NCAA background.

According to the NHL, 225 of the 789 players (28.5%) who have played at least one game this season are former college players. That list doesn't include New York Islanders regular Kyle Okposo, a former University of Minnesota player, and a few other ex-collegians who have been hurt all season.

"I think you are going see that number hitting at least 35% in the next few years," said Paul Kelly, executive director of College Hockey Inc., a marketing arm for the sport.

The primary feeder system has always been Canadian junior hockey, which best mimics the NHL's style of play and schedule length. That program continues to produce many top NHL stars, including Steven Stamkos, Sidney Crosby and Drew Doughty.

But Central Collegiate Hockey Association Commissioner Tom Anastos said it's not unthinkable that the college player representation in the NHL could grow beyond 35%

"I wouldn't be surprised that someday that we would see 35% to 40% of NHL players coming out of our system," Anastos said. "I don't know if it would take another 10 or 15 years, but the number is going to continue to grow."

Kelly says the loss of Russian players to the Kontinental Hockey League and the reduced number of quality players coming out of Slovakia and the Czech Republic are contributing to college hockey's rising stature.

Over the past three years, 34.6% (218 of 630) of all draft picks were college players or players who had committed to play college hockey. NHL teams own the rights to about 200 players still in college.

"The number of signings of college free agents has also trended upward over the last few years," Kelly said. "The late bloomers … Tyler Bozak, Christian Hanson, Casey Wellman, kids that weren't drafted at age 18."

Kelly says 20 to 25 NHL scouts usually are at Merrimack College games to look at undrafted center Stephane Da Costa.

"I think … college hockey has become more of a realistic option if you have dreams of playing in the NHL," said Los Angeles Kings defenseman Jack Johnson, who played for Michigan. "There are more college programs becoming more competitive across the country. It's not just a select few."

The NHL outlook has come a long way from the 1980s, when college players would arrive at training camps knowing they had more to prove than Canadian juniors.

"It was just a harder climb up the hill if you were from college," said former NHL player Tom Laidlaw, who went from Northern Michigan to the New York Rangers in 1980.

Laidlaw said college players back then had to prove they were willing to fight through injuries and would battle for their teammates.

"I was Canadian so it was a bit easier," Laidlaw said. "It was worse to be an American college player back then because the perception was that an American hadn't lived the game like a Canadian had."

St. Louis Blues defenseman Erik Johnson, who played college hockey at Minnesota, said the indication of change to him is that a lot more Canadians are starting to go to college.

"The only downside is that college doesn't let you go to NHL training camps," Johnson said. "If college would let you go and try out for the pro teams, it would be a more ideal destination for more players."

Canadian juniors continue to be the biggest pipeline to the NHL, claiming 50% of picks in the last three drafts. But as Nashville Predators general manager David Poile said, "We will and do go anywhere to find players."

"Junior is still very good," he said. "But college hockey is very good. European hockey is very good. We have players now from Denmark, and Anze Kopitar is Slovenian."

The college influence has even climbed into management ranks. Ten NHL general managers hold college backgrounds.

"Our development system is as good as there is in the world right now," Anastos said.

By the numbers

A breakdown of college representation among NHL players. The list of colleges on the left includes anyone who has played one NHL game this season. The list of teams on the right includes active players and those on the injured list.
College
Players

Team
Players
Wisconsin
18
Colorado
11
Boston College
17
Los Angeles
11
Michigan
17
San Jose
11
Boston Univeristy
15
Florida
11
North Dakota
12
Tampa Bay
10
Michigan State
11
Chicago
10
Minnesota
11
New Jersey
9
Clarkson
8
Pittsburgh
9
Ohio State
7
St. Louis
9
Maine
6
N.Y. Islanders
9
Colorado College
5
Buffalo
8
Dartmouth
5
Anaheim
8
Denver
5
Vancouver
8
Miami (Ohio)
5
Calgary
6
Notre Dame
5
Edmonton
6
Princeton
5
Ottawa
6
Vermont
5
Carolina
5
Harvard
4
Columbus
5
Massachusetts
4
Detroit
5
Michigan Tech
4
Minnesota
5
Nebraska-Omaha
4
Montreal
5
New Hampshire
4
N.Y. Rangers
5
Providence
4
Toronto
5
St. Cloud
4
Philadelphia
4
Western Michigan
4
Washington
4
Alaska-Fairbanks
3
Atlanta
3
Bowling Green
3
Boston
3
Colgate
3
Dallas
3
Cornell
3
Phoenix
3
Minnesota State-Mankato
3
Nashville
2
Minnesota-Duluth
3

Northern Michigan
3
St. Lawrence
3
Yale
3
Alaska-Anchorage
2
Lake Superior
2
Massachusetts Lowell
2
Bemidji State
1
Ferris State
1
McGill
1
RPI
1

Re: Articles

Heard about this fellow on Jim Rome's daily sports radio show. He apparently recently gave up his position at Ameritrade to become an assistant coach in NCAA football - his intent is to become a full-time coach! Wow! I am sure he is financially well off so the career change is something he can pursue without worrying about financial repercussions... I am jealous! (The article below is over a year old - I think Joe has stepped away from Ameritrade and was volunteering his time for free this past year...) I think his business experience will be a solid asset to the student-athletes he is involved with - acting as a mentor to prepare for life after football. I think to a large degree, we fall short on this piece in hockey - we have blinders on while we help kids pursue the dream - and there is a much more important world out there - waiting to be discovered once the hockey career is over!

Courtesy: NU Media Relations Release: 07/16/2009


http://www.huskers.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=100&ATCLID=204762446

TD AMERITRADE Chairman Moglia NU's New Life Skills, Leadership Consultant


The Nebraska Athletic Department today announced that beginning July 29, Joe Moglia, chairman of TD AMERITRADE Holding Corporation, will work under the direction of Nebraska Associate Athletic Director Keith Zimmer and will be the life skills and leadership consultant for football.

Moglia will join Nebraska’s nationally prominent Life Skills Department, which provides services in the areas of personal and team education on societal issues, career counseling and education, and community outreach to the University’s current and former student-athletes.

In this role, Moglia will help encourage student-athletes to focus on career aspirations after football, whether immediately following college or after a career in the National Football League or another professional athletic organization.

Moglia is donating his services to the University in his new position and remains chairman of the board at TD AMERITRADE. He will help Nebraska student-athletes better understand their unique leadership roles and how they can best exemplify the responsibility of being ambassadors for the University of Nebraska.

Prior to his career in financial services, which most recently included eight years as chief executive officer of TD AMERITRADE, Moglia coached football for 16 years. He was the defensive coordinator when Dartmouth College won back-to-back Ivy League championships.

As defensive secondary and special teams coach at Lafayette College, his players set national and school records. He also turned two high school programs around, authored 11 articles in national coaching journals, wrote a book on football, and has since been inducted into two high school halls of fame.

Nebraska Reestablishes His Career in Football

“Joe is well-rounded in the financial world and has experience at the highest level on Wall Street, but he also has a real passion for football,” Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne said. “He was a very effective coach and has always wanted to get back into it. Now that he’s moved from CEO to chairman, he has more time, and this gives him the opportunity to reestablish his career in football.

“Joe is organized, systematic and has the ability to get things done,” Osborne said. “I’ve known him for three or four years and had the opportunity to become better acquainted with him the past six months. While he will not be coaching, he’ll be very active in life skills. He can interact with student-athletes in all of our sports programs and teach them the fundamentals of finance and how to invest.

“Working with Nebraska and seeing how a top program operates administratively is a good way to reconnect with football,” Osborne said. “With his background and track record, Joe could be leading any number of major corporations, but he wants to be here to learn how we operate and show how he can contribute.”

“We’re delighted that Joe will support our student-athletes in football,” Nebraska Coach Bo Pelini said. “It’s not every day that the only person in the world who’s written a book on both football and investment strategies wants to volunteer his expertise. We appreciate what he’s accomplished, and we’re looking forward to working with him.”

Moglia is the author of “The Perimeter Attack Offense” and “Coach Yourself to Success: Winning the Investment Game.” Under his leadership, TD Ameritrade has become the world’s largest online discount brokerage firm (in terms of the number of retail online equities placed each day).

Despite his business accomplishments, “I suppose people will say this guy hasn’t coached for 20 years, so what can he do now?” Osborne said. “That’s why he wants to learn how we operate and bring some leadership abilities of his own to the table. I don’t know where it all will lead, but I think Joe would be a good coach.”

Re: Articles

20 questions with the Golden Jet, Bobby Hull


By Sean Fitz-Gerald, National Post December 4, 2010


One of the most gifted goal-scorers in National Hockey League history had not eaten, by his estimation, in almost a day. Bobby Hull looked tired, shuffling slowly down a hallway, sparking to life only midway through an interview, and again to the annoyance of a ringing cellphone that interrupted his afternoon.

"Jesus," he said, fumbling with it.

"Hello?"

Hull, now 71, had accidentally disconnected.

"Isn't that awful? This is the worst goddamn ... I opened it, and I just happened to touch something, and the goddamned thing..." he said. "Oh, I can't wait until I can go out in the middle of Lake Michigan, to the deepest hole, and throw these goddamned cellphones in there."

It had already been a long day, promoting his new book, The Golden Jet, featuring 200 glossy pages of his career in photographs. Hull had risen to the NHL through the ranks of legend, from smalltown Ontario by way of hard manual labour, muscles carved from all forms of stone, and a slapshot that defied conventional understanding.

By the time he was finished, Hull had led the Chicago Black Hawks to a Stanley Cup title (1961), while assuring himself a place in the Hockey Hall of Fame with 610 career goals and 1,170 points. His son Brett followed his path and plowed even further, finishing his career with 1,391 points.

That is the storybook part.

The other side of the story includes a bumpy transition to the nascent-and-doomed World Hockey Association, a bitter and very public divorce from Brett's mother, Joanne, and an estrangement from his prodigal son. There have been scrapes with the law, including one guilty plea for trying to punch a police officer in suburban Chicago in 1986.

Hull's life, as he admits, is a combination of narratives.

He has been married to Deborah for almost 30 years now, and they live in Sarasota, Fla., at least when he is not on the road, which is often.

Hull works as an ambassador with the Blackhawks, the defending Stanley Cup champions, and wears a championship ring on each hand -- one from 1961, and one from earlier this year, a cherished symbol of his homecoming.

Hull stopped by the National Post for a round of 20 questions earlier this week, covering everything from his family history, his health and an alternate nickname to "The Golden Jet."

1 Composite or wood?

BH I never, ever used a composite stick. Northland, the company, made my sticks. But when I'd be at Brett's games, he'd have three or four sticks made up out in the rack. And I used to just salivate when I grabbed those sticks.

2 How did you curve your first blade?

BH Poured hot water on it, from a tap, until it got soft and lithe. And then I'd shove it under a door at the Chicago Stadium and put a chair up, underneath the handle, and left it there all night. When I came back in the morning, it was just like this-- [cups hand, like the letter 'C'] -- and then it was "top corner," or "second balcony." [chuckles]

3 What is the secret to getting a puck onto the street from inside Chicago Stadium?

BH Oh. [laughs] That was in the old Stadium. If you stood at right about the red line, against the boards in between the two benches, there was an exit diagonally across the rink. There was an exit that went out into the main corridor, on Madison Avenue, and there were glass doors on the other side of the corridor. Just a few of us could get that puck over the glass in the corner, and then out through that exit, where it would bounce and hit those glass doors -- and break the goddamn glass in the doors. [laughs]

4 The Winnipeg Jets gave you a $1-million signing bonus...

BH [interrupts] It wasn't the Winnipeg Jets. It was the World Hockey Association. There were nine teams in the league at that time, when we first began, and they all divvied up $110,000 or whatever it was. And the million came from all nine teams.

5 More than 400 players will earn more than $1-million this season. Do today's salaries drive you crazy?

BH Isn't that something? Oh, god. Just to give you an idea, when I broke in, in 1957, I made $6,500. So you're saying 400? Isn't that something? Making $1-million or more? That is unbelievable ... that, to me, is out of whack. The Ovechkins and the Malkins and the Crosbys and the kid in Tampa and the Kanes and the Toews, they all deserve to be paid royally because they entertain royally. But, there are a lot of those players that you talk about--making a million or more -- that should be making basic rates, according to their ability to draw people into the building.

6 Which opponent drove you the most crazy on the ice?

BH Um, likely, [Bryan] Bugsy Watson. He was with Detroit. He was put out there just for the sole purpose of getting me off my game. When I look back on it, it wasn't really his doing, because he didn't know any better. It was guys like Sid Abel, who was coaching at that time, who would put these people out there for the sole purpose of getting me off my game. Then you'd have to whack 'em, and the blood was flying. When I look back on it, I would just like to have been able to play just one season being treated as just an ordinary left winger ... Of course, if you wish in one hand and sh-t in the other, you know which one will fill up first. [laughs]

7 What was your view of Glenn Hall's legendary habit of vomiting before a game?

BH Ohhhh, I tried to get the trainers to change his seat right over by the sh-thouse door, but they said, "No, that's his seat, and that's where he's going to sit.' And, oh god, I'd hear it-- 'whoop, whoop'--and then, all of the sudden, up he'd jump. And, 'clump, clump,' with all of his equipment on, heading toward the washroom. Then you'd hear, 'blurb!' Then you'd hear [Stan] Mikita: "Atta boy, goolie! Get good and sick because the sicker you get, the better you play!"

8 What would the 71-year-old Bobby Hull tell the 33-year-old Bobby Hull about leaving the Chicago Blackhawks for the WHA?

BH Um, I would have to say, "You're backed in a corner, son. Go to it." That's exactly what happened. [Chicago] backed me into a corner, they never offered me a contract while they were off floating around in their 110-foot ship in the Caribbean. They didn't seem like my 15 years of blood, sweat and tears for them made any difference. They pissed me off, a few years before that, on a number of occasions.

9 Does Winnipeg deserve another NHL team?

BH I don't think they could afford it. It's not that they don't deserve one, but I don't think they have enough fans, enough corporate businesses, to fund a professional franchise of that magnitude.

10 Who is more like the old Bobby Hull: Patrick Kane or Jonathan Toews?

BH [chuckles] No one has faster feet than Patrick Kane, or faster hands. But I think Johnny is, if you're going to compare, more like me. He's a 22-year-old in a 50-year-old man's head. He never does anything wrong, never says anything wrong. And what a leader he is. I would love to have him on my team, and he'd be the captain of my team, as well.

11 Have you ever been known by a nickname other than "The Golden Jet?"

BH [chuckles] I can't recall them calling me anything, except in Detroit. They called me "The Sweathog," because they didn't like me there. Some of my greatest games were played in the old Olympia [Stadium], head-to-head against [Gordie] Howe. I used to fill the tanks the night before with a little bit of fire-brewed Stroh's [beer]. And when I warmed up, I'd sweat it out, and my red jersey would snap in the breeze as I'd be flying around the ice. And that's what they knew me as: "The Sweathog."

12 On page 8 of your book, you say the Hamilton Tiger-Cats said you likely could have played defence for them. Could you hit harder than you could shoot?

BH Likely as hard. I loved to play. I was centre linebacker and fullback. I used to love the body contact of people coming through that line.

13 How are you feeling these days?

BH Sometimes good, sometimes not quite so. A few years ago, I was walking around with pneumonia, walking pneumonia. And my heart went into A-fib [atrial fibrillation]. Your heart goes, 'lub-dub, lub-dub.' Well mine goes, 'lub-bllbb, lub-bllbb.' It doesn't beat true, and it doesn't fire the blood where it should go as quickly as it should. I had a stent put in, and I have a pacemaker. I'm sure as hell not half the man I used to be.

14 Getting to the...

BH [interrupts] I can't sleep through the night. Of course, my shoulders are worn out and I need a new knee. But I'm such a goddamned chicken, I'm afraid of the knife. I could lay and get stitches all night, but the thought of them going into my flesh with a scalpel, I don't relish it.

15 In 1980, you told a reporter: "I have nothing left, just my sanity, my health and my memories." What do you have now?

BH [chuckles] That was just to make people feel bad, those who were a--holes. I have everything that I need, except health. I'd rather have that Bobby Hull that I remember back as a 30-, or 40-year-old, but my wife and I are very happy, and financially sound. In the last couple of years, she's got a little puppy dog, and when I'm away so much, he is just the greatest little pup that ever was. A cross between a Shih Tzu and a poodle. He is the smartest little sucker there ever was.

16 How did you feel, when Brett signed with the Flames in 1986, that he said, "It's mostly because of my mother and my stepfather that I am where I am?"

BH Brett Hull was not going anywhere when he was 16, and he came to a game that I was doing for Hockey Night in Canada. I took he and his buddy out after the game and bought him dinner and a couple of beers. I said, "Are you going to school?" "No dad." "Are you playing hockey?" "No dad." "Are you playing baseball?" "No dad." So I said, "Brett, with a little bit of intestinal fortitude and hard work, you could solidify your future in a couple of short years. Get your ass doing something. If you want to play hockey, go and play hockey."

17 On page 158 of your book, there is a picture of you smiling with a young Bobby, Blake, Brett and a woman identified only as "their mother." How have you reconciled that part of your past?

BH Put it behind me. It happens. We're two people who tried to make a go of it, and it doesn't work. I regret not being able to be with the kids all through their childhood and into their teens and into college. But just to stay with a person that you're not getting along with -- and when the kids are getting bad vibes and hearing bad things from both -- I don't think you should stay together.

18 In the late '70s and early '80s, there were a lot of really nasty allegations. Are you a different person now than you were when those allegations...

BH Same guy. Same guy with the same attitude toward life. You only pass this way one time, and if you don't have fun, you'll go to the grave, and you'll have missed a lot. I think I've mellowed a lot, as far as that's concerned. Where I think that my wife is a better wife now than when we got married, and that was 28 years ago.

19 You're not talking about Joanne ...

BH Oh, Christ, no. She's not my wife. As my kids would say, "Dad, how come you call your ex 'our mother?' " And it's just because I don't need it. I don't want to think about it. But she goes as Joanne Hull Robinson. I said, "You don't f---king like me, what are you doing using my name if you don't like me? Forget about the Hull in the middle." But that's neither here nor there.

20 Write the first sentence of a story you would write about Robert Marvin Hull.

BH They were the best of times, they were the worst of times. Doing a little plagiarism from A Tale of Two Cities. And they were. It was the greatest time of my life. I've really never, ever had a job. I played hockey. And if you like what you're doing, it's not a job. And there were times in there when everything didn't go my way, but no one ever said that life was all a bowl of cherries.
© Copyright (c) National Post

Re: Articles

Coach's game day

Inside look at coach Molleken on Blades' game day

By Cory Wolfe, The StarPhoenix December 6, 2010

It's a Saturday afternoon in the Okanagan Valley and Saskatoon Blades head coach Lorne Molleken is going through his usual game-day routine.

He's been coaching hockey for 26 consecutive winters, so his life sometimes resembles that Groundhog Day movie where Bill Murray's character wakes up to repeat the same day over and over.

Molleken relishes the rituals, though.

He always draws up a game plan in the morning and shines his shoes in the afternoon. And even though pre-game meals of pasta and chicken get monotonous long before the end of a 10-day road trip, Molleken never complains. He used to eat hard-boiled eggs on game day, but that was in his previous hockey life as a free-spirited goaltender.

Now 54, Molleken has the respect of some of the biggest names in hockey. Twice in the past two years, NHL general managers have offered him coaching jobs in the American Hockey League, but Molleken turned them down. He's got security as the coach and general manager of the Blades and he enjoys working with young players.

A few of his current proteges have a chance to become NHL stars. It's no surprise, then, to see Carolina Hurricanes talent hawk Bert Marshall grilling Molleken in the lobby of the Coast Capri Hotel. The two were in the New York Islanders' system together in the late 1970s.

"That guy," Molleken says later, "used to block more shots than the goalie would stop."

Time to get to the rink.

4:45 p.m. -- The Blades' bus departs right on time. Molleken always rides shotgun, occupying the two front seats to the right of driver Pete Smith.

As the bus rumbles towards Prospera Place for the Blades' 7 p.m. date with the Kelowna Rockets, another hockey team rolls into view.

"Vernon Vipers," says Molleken, reading the side of their white bus as it passes in the left lane. "They're the Centennial Cup champions, aren't they?"

Then he catches himself, realizing that Canada's national junior A championship is no longer known as the Centennial Cup. It's been the Royal Bank Cup for 15 years.

"Or whatever you call it," he says.

4:53 p.m. -- The bus arrives at the rink.

Molleken saunters toward the coaches' room where Tim Hortons coffee is already brewed thanks to trainers Steve Hildebrand and Graham Watt. The coach hangs his grey sportcoat on a hook, adjusts his navy necktie, and returns to the hallway.

"Les, are you ready?" Molleken says to Les Lazaruk, the team's play-by-play man.

Time to tape an interview for the radio broadcast. Molleken stands with his back to the cindercrete wall and rehashes the previous night's 4-3 overtime win in Kamloops.

"It wasn't our best game," he says into Lazaruk's microphone, "but we had spots throughout the game where I thought we played extremely well and it's been a trademark of this team all year that we've been able to find a way to win a hockey game."

5 p.m. -- Assistant coach David Struch stands in the corridor under the stands.

With a blue marker, he scribbles numbers and arrows on a dry-erase board. The diagram resembles a weather map, but it's actually the team's power-play strategy.

5:06 p.m. -- A WHL official, dressed in a black blazer, brings a copy of the lineup to the coaches' room.

Molleken checks it over and makes one addition: Ayrton Nikkel, a 15-year-old Kelowna defenceman who's making his WHL debut tonight.

"So," Molleken says, "No. 55 is . . ."

Trainer Stever Hildebrand finishes the sentence.

"Ayrton? Yup."

"OK," says Molleken. "Now how do you spell his name?"

After receiving a few conflicting suggestions, Molleken checks the spelling in his BlackBerry.

"A-Y-R-T-O-N," says Molleken. "N-I-K-K-E-L"

"It better be N-I-K-K-E-L," mutters Hildebrand. "That's what's on his jersey."

5:30 p.m. -- Players wander in and out of the coaches' room, which doubles as a storage area for tape and equipment. Precisely 90 minutes before game time, Molleken tells defenceman Duncan Siemens to herd the players for a pre-game meeting.

Siemens' exclamation -- "Meeeeting!" -- breaks up a game of hacky sack in the hallway. The players' chatter stops, and like children at storytime, they huddle around Molleken's diagram board in the locker-room.

The coach outlines the game plan. Much of the briefing focuses on how to defend Rockets defenceman Tyson Barrie, Kelowna's offensive catalyst.

Assistant coach David Struch stands ready with a towel to clear the marker from the board and give Molleken a fresh canvas for the next diagram. Within a few minutes, all angles have been covered.

"Now let's have a real good warm-up," says Molleken. "Let's get our legs moving and get ready for a big win here tonight."

The players hoot and holler.

Molleken is gone quicker than Struch can wipe the board.

5:45 p.m. -- At the Blades' bench, centre Marek Viedensky begins arranging pucks to spell the word "WIN" on the ledge of the boards. It's a game-day ritual he inherited from Travis Toomey, who was traded to the Seattle Thunderbirds in September.

Viedensky has barely completed the task when a stern, young rink attendant starts dismantling the project. Viedensky protests, along with Molleken and Hildebrand, but the attendant gathers the pucks into a bucket and dumps them into the webbing on top of the net.

Soon after, Kelowna Rockets GM Bruce Hamilton happens by. Molleken relates the rink attendant's actions and jokingly threatens to bring up the issue at the next board of governors meeting.

"Hey, we have a tradition here where we put the pucks up on the boards," says Molleken. "That kid comes by and tells us we can't do that because one might go in the Zamboni."

"That's right," says Hamilton, whose son Curtis plays for the Blades.

"You gonna flood the ice again?" asks Molleken.

"We might," Hamilton replies with a shrug and a half-smile. "You guys who play in public buildings play by their rules. When you come to private buildings, you play by our rules."

The rivals share a laugh.

6:25 p.m. -- The players hit the ice for warm-up.

Molleken seldom watches. Even during his playing days, he wasn't much for warm-up. Winnipeg Clubs coach Muzz MacPherson once called out Molleken for his lacklustre approach, but the free-spirited goalie simply replied: "When the clock starts tickin', I start kickin'."

MacPherson had a more lasting influence on Wayne Gretzky. It was MacPherson who convinced a 16-year-old Gretzky to wear No. 99 because a teammate had already claimed Gordie Howe's No. 9.

6:40 p.m. -- Molleken is pacing.

"It doesn't get easier," he says after a nervous exhale.

Molleken's assistant, Struch, stands in front of the mirror and adjusts his tie.

"Strudel," hollers Molleken. "We should be able to play that kid (Nikkel). You can move him around. Just make sure we have Duncan (Siemens) and Stef (Elliott) against their top line."

6:52 p.m. -- Molleken sits in a corner of the coaches' room: Head down. Hands clasped. Knees bouncing nervously.

6:58 p.m. -- The coach stands and marches out of his concrete bunker. Struch follows. They cross the corridor into the Blades' locker-room and Molleken speaks:

"OK, guys. Let's make sure we're the aggressors (but) I want lots of discipline in all areas. Let's be physical and let's play (expletive) Blade hockey for 60 minutes!"

Then Molleken turns to the Kelowna-raised kid, Curtis Hamilton. The coach's voice booms with intensity.

"It don't get any better," roars Molleken, "than a Saturday night in Kelowna, eh Hambone?"

The players erupt and Molleken marches back across the hall to the coaches' room.

7:02 p.m. -- At last, it's game time.

Molleken claps his hands once and says, "Let's get 'er done."

Assistant coach Jerome Engele is already up in the press box, but Molleken's other deputies fall in line behind him: Struch, Hildebrand and Watt. They march out to face a packed house of 6,100.

7:41 p.m. -- At the first intermission, Saskatoon leads 2-1 on goals by Stefan Elliott and Darian Dziurzynski, but Molleken wants to see more shots than the nine his players fired in the opening frame. They're trying to be perfect instead of throwing pucks on net and pouncing on rebounds.

8:32 p.m. -- The tide turns in the second period. Kelowna scores three quick goals -- in a span of 2:19 -- to take a 4-2 lead. At the intermission, Molleken demands more effort. Too many freeloaders, he says.

9:27 p.m. -- The buzzer sounds on a 6-3 Kelowna win. Playing a fourth game in five nights, the Blades' fatigue shows.

9:28 p.m. -- Molleken enters a sombre locker-room.

"Every game that you guys play, you know you're going to get challenged -- every game," he says to his first-place team. "The difference tonight was that we didn't counter what they threw at us in the second period. OK? You know they're going to come hard and we have to be ready to play. 'Compete' is what it was all about here tonight and we didn't do a very good job. That's why you lose a hockey.

"Keep your heads up and get ready for (expletive) Tuesday night (in Prince George)."

cwolfe@thestarphoenix
© Copyright (c) The StarPhoenix

Re: Articles

Why Hay said no to Oilers' offer and stayed in the WHL


By Ed Willes, The Province December 8, 2010


This is what Don Hay turned down at when he was offered the associate coach's post with the Edmonton Oilers this offseason.

The job, for starters, was an entree back into the NHL, which meant considerably more money than the Vancouver Giants could pay and a closer proximity to a head-coaching position in The Show.

It also represented a chance to work with Oilers head coach Tom Renney, with whom Hay had worked in Kamloops in the early '90s. Finally, and this can't be stressed enough, it meant an end to the interminable bus rides that Hay has endured for the past seven years.

Hay considered all this, then opted to stay with the Giants. We'd ask why, but the more pertinent question might be: Just who is this man's career counsellor?

"I said, 'Geez, Don, you're leaving an awful lot of money on the table,' " Giants owner Ron Toigo said. "He just said, 'I've never coached for the money and I'm not going to start now.' "

But the buses, Hayser????? The buses?????

"The rides do seem to get longer," said the 56-year-old Kamloops native. "I keep bugging Ron to put a La-Z-Boy in the front."

He pauses.

"Edmonton was a good opportunity, but it's got to be a really good offer because of the relationships I have here. I'm happy. That's important."

So maybe the man knows what he's doing after all.

Tuesday night, before their meeting with the Kamloops Blazers, the Giants honoured Hay for his 500th career WHL win, putting into focus a career that started as a part-time assistant in Kamloops 25 years ago and now has him fourth in all-time wins among WHL coaches.

Think about that for a moment. Think of what that number represents. Now think of the lives that have intersected Hay's career.

There's Stanley Cup-winner Ken Hitchcock, who coaxed Hay out of the Kamloops fire department to become a full-time assistant with the Blazers in '85. Hitchcock, who was there on Saturday night when Hay joined the 500 club, offered his new assistant a $7,000 pay cut to join his staff 25 years ago.

"Try selling that one to your wife," Hay said.

Then there was Giants co-owner Pat Quinn, who congratulated Hay.

"That was special," he said. But so was hearing from former players like Evander Kane, an NHL first-rounder in '09, and Dave Chyzowski, an NHL first-rounder 21 years earlier.

All this caused Hay, who isn't exactly given to moments of introspection, to reflect on his career. True, that reflection ended with the Giants' first neutral-zone turnover on Tuesday night but, if you were wondering what keeps bringing him back, well, it isn't the bus rides.

"Coaching isn't about wins and losses," he said. "It's about the process of building your team. I believe in what we do here."

And that belief is at the core of what the Giants have built during Hay's seven years.

This year the Giants have lost 150-man games to injuries, and Hay says it's been the most challenging season of his tenure.

But, in the next breath, he talks about the excitement of teaching, of reaching these young kids, the way he's reached so many others over the years.

Craig Cunningham, by way of example, is the captain of this year's team. This is his fifth season with Hay and the Giants. In his first campaign, he scored, roughly, zero goals in 48 games. Last summer, after Cunningham had a 97-point season, the Boston Bruins took him in the fourth round.

It's kids like Cunningham who keep bringing Hay back.

"It was really emotional for me at the end of last year," Hay said. "James Wright, Lance Bouma and Craig were all 20 and graduating. [Cunningham chose to return as an overager this season.]

"They were with me for four years. You see them come up as 16-year-olds, then you watch them grow.

"You feel like they're your sons."

And over the years he's had a lot of sons.

"Each year is different, but it's also the same," says Hay.

"You watch them grow as people and players. When they're ready to leave, our job is done.

"You're really excited for them. But you're also sad because you're not going to be part of their lives any more."

Except that Hay will always be a part of his players' lives and that's just one of the things that's more rewarding than a fatter paycheque.

ewilles@theprovince.com
© Copyright (c) The Province


Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/said+Oilers+offer+stayed/3945937/story.html#ixzz17a8gqEcc

Re: Articles

Here's article from thetalentcode.com by Daniel Coyle


How to Light a Fire: The Keith Richards Method

Passion is the nuclear reaction at the core of every talent. It’s the glowing, inexhaustible energy source. It’s also pretty darn mysterious.

Where does intense passion come from? How does it start, and how is it sustained? How does someone fall wildly in love with math or music, stock trading or figure skating?

Most of us intuitively think of passion as uncontrollable — you have it or you don’t, period. In this way of thinking, passion is like a lightning strike, or a winning lottery ticket. It happens to the few, and the rest of us are out of luck.

But is that true? Or are there smart ways to increase the odds?

We get some insight into that question from none other than Keith Richards, whose book Life just came out. My favorite part of the book (and that’s saying something) is the part where Keith tells how he fell in love with music, and specifically with the guitar. The process went like this:

Step one: Keith’s Grandpa Gus, who was a former musician and a bit of a rebel, noticed that Keith liked singing.

Step two: whenever young Keith would come over, Gus placed a guitar on on top of the the family piano. Keith noticed. Gus told him, when he was taller, he could give it a try.

Step three: one momentous and unforgettable day, Gus took the guitar down from the piano, and handed it to Keith. From that moment, Richards was hooked (his first addiction). He took the guitar everywhere he went.

As Richards writes:

“The guitar was totally out of reach. It was something you looked at, thought about, but never got your hands on. I’ll never forget the guitar on top of his upright piano every time I’d go and visit, starting maybe from the age of five. I thought that was where the thing lived. I thought it was always there. And I just kept looking at it, and he didn’t say anything, and a few years later I was still looking at it. “Hey, when you get tall enough, you can have a go at it,” he said. I didn’t find out until after he was dead that he only brought that out and put it up there when he knew I was coming to visit. So I was being teased in a way.”

Reading it, I couldn’t help but think that most parents and teachers — me included — do precisely the opposite. We don’t put things out of reach — in fact we put them within reach. We go fast, not slow. We try to identify passion, not to grow it. We don’t take the time to make the nuclear reaction happen on its own.

For me, the lessons are these:

Don’t treat passion like lightning. Treat it like a virus, one that’s transmitted on contact with people who already have it. Grandpa Gus loved music. He noticed Keith liked singing.

Create a space for private contact with a vast, magical world. The guitar was totally out of reach. It was something you looked at, thought about, but never got your hands on.

Give time for the ideas to grow. And I just kept looking at it, and he didn’t say anything, and a few years later I was still looking at it.

Know that it’s never about today, but rather about creating a vision of the future self. “When you get tall enough you can have a go at it.”
For parents and teachers, Gus provides a useful model. Because Gus didn’t hover. He didn’t push. He didn’t even try to teach, beyond some rudimentary chords. But he did something far more intelligent and powerful. He understood what makes kids care. He carefully put the elements in place, sent a few pointed signals at the right time, and let the forces of nature take their course.

Smart man, that Gus.

And I can’t help but wonder: are there other Gus stories out there that might be instructive? How do we take the Gus Method and apply it to schools, or sports, or math?

Re: Articles

Here's more Daniel Coyle.


Advice That Changed Your Life


When it comes to developing our talents, we all hear a lot of good advice. In fact, there’s never been a moment in the history of the world when we’ve had such an incredible bounty of good advice – a teeming ocean of it, provided by teachers, coaches, parents, the Internet.

For example, pick up a golf magazine. Each page brims with dozens of perfectly sound, smart tips; it’s a cornucopia of good advice. But does all that good advice actually make you better? (Judging by the historical average of golf scores, the answer is a resounding no.) It’s the same with other sports, music, art, math, business, you name it.

This surplus creates a uniquely modern problem: with good advice so plentiful, how do you know when you’ve located truly great advice – the rare, powerful ideas that really matter? How do you know when you’ve found advice that might change your life?

For instance, here’s one of the the greatest pieces of advice I’ve heard. It’s from the late John Wooden, and it goes like this: You haven’t taught until they’ve learned.

That’s it.

You haven’t taught…until they’ve learned.

I know what you’re thinking. Because I thought it when I read it for the first time a few years back. My thought was, no kidding, dude.

But then one day shortly afterward I was coaching my Little League team, trying to teach them to field grounders. I was, as usual, putting my attention into my coaching – saying the correct words, showing them the correct form – and presuming if they picked it up, that was their responsibility.

Wooden’s words hit me like an avalanche. I wasn’t really coaching, because they hadn’t learned it yet. I wasn’t teaching, I was just talking. And no matter how wisely I talked, no matter how brilliantly the drills were designed, it didn’t matter until they actually learned it. That was the only yardstick.

His advice showed me that it really wasn’t about me at all—it was 100 percent about them, about doing whatever it takes to create a situation where they learned. It seems strange to say now, but that was a titanic realization, and I still find myself thinking about it a lot.

I think this kind of advice–truly great advice–tends to follow a distinctive pattern.

It seems super-obvious at first, then gets deeper as you live with it.
It expresses a basic scientific truth about learning.
It jolts your perspective and leaves you somewhere new.
And so here’s the next step: I think it would be good and useful to start to gather some of these jewels of great advice in one place. Namely here, on this blog.

What’s the single greatest piece of advice you’ve ever heard? What’s the one that changed your life? It could be anything – something you heard or read or saw – all that matters is that it works for you.

You can write them in the comments section below, or email them to me at djcoyle@thetalentcode.com and I’ll start a master list to use and share.

To get things going, here are a few gathered from a peanut gallery of friends:

–Practice on the days that you eat

–If you want to get better, double your failure rate

–Do one thing every day that scares you

Re: Articles

How NOT to Develop Your Talent: The 3 Deadly Habits
Daniel Coyle - Nov 3 2010

We spend a healthy amount of time here trying to identify good habits for building skill. In fact, we do it so much that I can’t help but wonder: what if we turned the question on its head? What if we tried to identify the worst, most unproductive, most deadly habits? What habits are skill-killers? What’s the fastest way to slow down your talent development?

Let’s start with a well-established truth: many top performers are obsessive about critically reviewing their performances – either on videotape or with a coach or teacher.

A good example of this is Bill Robertie, who’s a world-class poker player, world champ in backgammon, and a grand master in chess (and who’s written about by Alina Tugend in her soon-to-be-released book Better by Mistake). Robertie reviews every game obsessively—even the ones he wins—searching for tiny mistakes, critiquing his decisions, breaking it down. The same is true of many top athletes, musicians, comedians, and (I can vouch) writers.

Which leads us to Deadly Habit #1: Thou Shalt Ignore Your Mistakes.

* In order to develop your talent slowly, you should never, ever review your performance. You should regard errors as unfortunate, unavoidable events, and do your best to immediately hide their existence or, even better, erase them from your memory.

Another general truth about top performers is that they love rituals. Whether Rafael Nadal prepping for a serve or Yo-Yo Ma prepping a sonata, a lot of top performers are addicted to idiosyncratic, persnickety rituals that seem, to the neutral observer, insanely detailed and RainMan-esque. They tie their sneakers just so, they place their violin case at a certain precise angle. These behaviors are usually described as a superstition, but I think that misses the point: their ritual is their unique way of prepping themselves to deliver a performance.

Which brings us to Deadly Habit #2: Thou Shalt Avoid Ritual.

* In order to develop your talent slowly, you should approach each practice and performance as if you’ve never, ever done it before. You should be casual. You should avoid any repetition of actions, thoughts, or patterns of any kind, and instead make every day completely different.

A third commonality of top performers is that they are thieves. They are incurable shoplifters of ideas and techniques, constantly scanning the landscape for something they can use. As Picasso said, “Good artists copy. Great artists steal.”

Which gives us Deadly Habit #3: Thou Shalt Not Steal.

* In order to develop your talent slowly, you should regard your talent as your own private creation, and your challenges as private challenges that only you can solve. Don’t look elsewhere for guidance; certainly not to other performers.

It’s interesting to note that each of these deadly habits is not a big thing. They are small, nearly innocuous-seeming patterns that we can all fall into. We’ve all ignored past mistakes, avoided ritual, and failed to find guidance in the experiences of others. But here’s the real point: perhaps these little habits are a lot bigger than we might think.

This point is underlined by a fascinating paper I just bumped into called The Mundanity of Excellence, by Daniel Chambliss. Chambliss makes a powerful case that top performers aren’t great because of any overarching superiority, but rather because they do a lot of ordinary things very well. They pay attention to detail. They make each repetition count. They seek small, incremental improvements one at a time, every single day. And these little habits, over time, add up to great performance.

As Olympic gold-medalist swimmer Mary T. Meagher puts it, “People don’t know how ordinary success is.”

Of course, these three habits aren’t the only ones. What other deadly habits are out there? I’d love to hear your suggestions.

interviews with coaches

Kevin Sullivan just sent me this link. This week the coaches discuss developing speed in practice. It is a really good coaching site.

http://www.lightthelamp.flexxcoach.com/

Re: Articles

Hockey coach banned for pulling team
Player on opposing squad made racist remarks

By GALEN EAGLE and BRENDAN WEDLEY, QMI Agency

December 16, 2010

PETERBOROUGH — A minor hockey coach’s stand against a racial slur directed towards one of his players has been suspended for a year.

Greg Walsh pulled his team from the Nov. 15 house league game after the officials and the opposing coach let a player back on the ice after he called 16-year-old Andrew McCullum, one of two black players on Walsh's team, the N-word.

He has been suspended until April 10.

The Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA) delivered its decision on Thursday after a hearing held at the league’s offices in Richmond Hill on Dec. 11.

Walsh was reluctant to talk about the ruling as he contemplates how to move forward.

“At this point, I have no comment,” he said. “I’m dumbfounded, so I have no comment.”

Walsh has the option of appealing the decision.

OMHA executive director Richard Ropchan characterized the suspension as fair, saying Walsh's suspension could have been for longer.

The OMHA sees the racial slur and Walsh’s actions as two separate issues, Ropchan explained.

The Peterborough Minor Hockey Association suspended the offending player for three games, which settled the racial slur issue, Ropchan said.

“They dealt with the situation of the racial slur and we were satisfied with how they dealt with that. Refusing to start play was all we had to deal with,” he said.

The OMHA does not make the rules, it just enforces the rules and the rule Walsh broke was a very severe one, he said.

“(Taking a team off the ice) affects a lot of players and people and schedules and things like that,” he said.

“We are put in a position to have to apply the regulation and the necessary suspension based on the criteria set forth by Hockey Canada.

“It is a Hockey Canada regulation and it is very severe and (Walsh) was made aware of the consequences.”

Under the suspension, Walsh is prohibited from any involvement in all hockey under Hockey Canada jurisdiction until April 10.

The team walked off the ice in unified protest to a racial slur directed at McCullum.

McCullum and a player from the opposing team were sent to the penalty box after they exchanged some words on the ice.

“He kept chirping me in the box. I was sitting trying to ignore him and the people that were keeping the score came over to me and said he called me the N-word,” McCullum told QMI Agency earlier this month. “I felt very angry and upset about it.”

When the penalty was over, McCullum skated directly over to his bench and told his head coach.

“(Walsh) called in the refs and told them he was going to forfeit the game if the coach on the opposing team let his player play,” McCullum explained. “They said they couldn’t do anything because they didn’t hear it.”

When the player returned to the ice for the third period, the team forfeited the game.

The coach of the opposing team was John Welsh, who is also the president of the Peterborough Minor Hockey Association.

Welsh has not responded to repeated requests for an interview during the past two weeks.

McCullum said the OMHA ruling shocked him. It sends a very poor message that racism is OK, he said.

“I feel upset about it, surprised,” he said Thursday. “He did a good thing. He shouldn’t be punished that bad for what he did.”

McCullum’s mother, Debbie, said she was at a loss for words when told about Walsh’s season long suspension.

“It is ridiculous. I guess it just doesn’t pay to stand up for something,” she said.

Daryl Taylor, who is one of two people to take over the team's coaching in Walsh’s absence, said he too was disappointed but not surprised.

“When we made the decision to leave the ice that’s what I figured would happen,” Taylor said.

“I don’t necessarily agree (with the rule) in this circumstance, but I think (Walsh) was prepared to take the punishment whatever it was.”

In the wake of Walsh’s original suspension, the story caused a major uproar in the hockey world. The Peterborough Examiner newspaper and the OMHA have been flooded with e-mails in support of Walsh’s actions, criticizing the OMHA for sending a poor message.

Ropchan said the organization understands the criticism but reiterated the OMHA was just enforcing the rule.

“We have received a lot of criticism on it … but we have to apply (the rules) as they are written,” he said. “We do take the racial slurs and racism very seriously and there is no place for it in hockey, but that’s a separate issue.”

But Ropchan was vague as to what Walsh could have done differently in the same situation. He could have gone to the referees or made a formal complaint to the league, Ropchan suggested.

This was the second time in three years that McCullum has been the victim of a racial slur under Walsh’s watch and Walsh was not satisfied with how the league dealt with the situation previously.

Walsh took a strong stand against racism in hockey in comments he made to the media after the incident.

“There is just no place in society for that language. Period. End of story,” Walsh said Dec. 2. “It’s important that we can provide an atmosphere for the kids to learn more about life than just playing hockey. It’s more than hockey. It’s about turning young men into adults.”

The team's manager, Tracy Groombriddge, said the team will try to get on with their season but said the OMHA ruling will not set well with the players.

“I think it’s telling people that they really shouldn’t stick up for what they believe in and it’s a shame. It sends a really bad message to Andrew,” she said.

Re: Articles

Banned hockey coach speaks out

By QMI Agency
December 17, 2010


The governing body for minor hockey in Ontario needs to have the guts to take a stand against racism, says a local house league coach who was suspended for the rest of the season for pulling his team from a game after a racial slur was hurled at one of his players.

Greg Walsh learned on Thursday that the Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA) had suspended him until April 10 for forfeiting a game on Nov. 15 when the player who uttered the racial slur was allowed to return to the ice in the third period.

The player who used the racial slur against one of Walsh’s players was later given a three-game suspension.

Walsh compared the punishments.

“In the end, if you want to use the basics, is you have society saying it’s only worth three games to hurl a racial slur at a fella… and if you want to stand up against that then you get suspended for the rest of the year,” he said on Friday.

Despite the suspension, Walsh said he doesn’t regret the actions he and his team took to protest the use of the N-word.

“This is not about one person, or one hockey team, or one guy. It’s about that society needs to rid itself of behaviour like this,” he said.

Walsh became most animated when he recalled watching McCullum apologize to him on a national news broadcast after the season-ending suspension had been handed down.

“It’s absolutely disgusting that he should have to feel any remorse for what happened, and they created it. I’m just defending him,” Walsh said.

Ontario Human Rights Commission Barbara Hall voiced her support of Walsh’s actions in a letter to The Examiner on Friday.

Walsh bravely defended his player’s right not to be the subject of racial slurs and led his team off the ice in protest, Hall states.

“His action was admirable,” she states. “But the way he is being treated by the Ontario Minor Hockey Association – a full-season suspension – is not. All of us, on and off the ice, should stand up and say no to racist conduct.”

Sports organizations should be prohibiting, not sanctioning, racist conduct, Hall states.

Hall couldn’t be reached for an interview.

Walsh was immediately suspended following the game on Nov. 15. The OMHA held a hearing at its offices in Richmond Hill on Dec. 11 and on Thursday it issued its ruling.

The incident happened during a game at the Kinsmen arena.

The player hurled a racial slur at Andrew McCullum as the two players were in the penalty box after a confrontation on the ice near the end of the second period.

On-ice officials couldn’t penalize the player because they didn’t hear the slur, the OMHA states in a release issued on Thursday.

Walsh brought it to the attention of the officials and the opposing team’s coach, but the player was back on the ice to start the third period. That’s when the team forfeited the game in protest.

The coach of the opposing team is John Welsh, the president of the Peterborough Minor Hockey Association (PMHA).

The player who uttered the racial slur, the coach of the opposing team and an assistant coach of the opposing team were given three-game suspensions by the PMHA on Nov. 17.

The PMHA is reviewing its internal policies and procedures as a result of the incident, the OMHA states in a release issued on Thursday.

Walsh is being penalized for pulling his team from the game.

The PMHA has refused to comment at this time, but the OMHA stated that the PMHA supported Walsh throughout the hearing process.

Walsh wouldn’t comment on the level of support he has received from the PMHA or on reports that the PMHA lobbied the OMHA to immediately lift Walsh’s suspension.

“I have no comment,” he said.

The OMHA focused on Hockey Canada regulations rather than considering the specifics of the situation, Walsh said.

“The OMHA does not want to be involved. They do not want to help. They just want to blame somebody else for the problem. It’s a Hockey Canada regulation,” he said.

On Thursday, OMHA executive director Richard Ropchan said the PMHA dealt with the racial slur issue with the three-game suspension of the offending player.

The OMHA only had to deal with the refusal to start play, which is a regulation set by Hockey Canada, Ropchan said.

Peterborough MP Dean Del Mastro, who is the parliamentary secretary to the minister of sport, expressed disappointment over the OMHA’s suspension of Walsh.

“This has become a national story,” Del Mastro said. “I saw it as an opportunity to reaffirm that frankly there’s no place for racism in Canada… They had an opportunity, in my view, to take a strong stance that would have been on the right side of the issue.”

Del Mastro said he believes that the player who uttered the racial slur and his family are genuinely remorseful.

“I don’t think we as a community should be beating up on them,” he said.

Organizations that control minor sports in Ontario need to take action soon to ensure that it’s clear that any form of prejudice or racial slurs is unacceptable, said Hamilton East-Stoney Creek MPP Paul Miller, the NDP sports critic.

“They need to revisit their rules governing these kinds of incidents,” he said. “They have to send a strong message.”

Miller added he doesn’t agree with the OMHA looking at the racial slur and forfeiting of the game by Walsh’s team as separate issues.

The player who uttered the racial slur, his coach and his assistant coach got three-game suspensions, while Walsh is suspended for the rest of the season, Miller pointed out.

“That’s hardly fair,” he said. “What’s wrong with that picture?”

The OMHA was penned in by its regulations when it considered Walsh’s suspension, Del Mastro said.

“There isn’t a lot of latitude in the rules … It’s something that the OMHA may want to consider in the off-season,” he said. “If the public at large was polled on this, I don’t think you’d find very many people that think Greg Walsh should have been suspended for even a minute.”

NOTE: Coach Greg Walsh made a point on Friday of defending the sponsor of the opposing team, Austin Trophies. Austin Trophies is a great sponsor of the league, Walsh said.

bwedley@peterboroughexaminer.com

Re: Articles

Hockey coach's suspension lifted

OMHA reverses ruling on coach who pulled team from game after racial taunt

Last Updated: Monday, December 20, 2010



An Ontario minor hockey coach who was suspended after a racial slur prompted him to pull his team from the ice said Monday that the Ontario Minor Hockey Association has rescinded the suspension.

Peterborough hockey coach Greg Walsh, who was suspended for the year after he pulled his team from the ice following a racial slur, said the penalty has been rescinded.

Greg Walsh, a coach from Peterborough, Ont., called CBC News to confirm that the suspension had been lifted.

The OMHA also confirmed the move.

"The board met behind closed doors yesterday and decided to end Walsh's suspension," OMHA director Richard Ropchan said. "This is the right decision to move forward."

Walsh, the coach of the NAPA Auto Parts team, pulled his team from the ice after one of his players was the target of a racial slur from the opposing team.

On Nov. 15, one of Walsh's players on the NAPA Auto Parts team, Andrew McCullum, 16, was sent to the penalty box along with a rival from the Austin Trophies.

While they were in the Kinsmen Arena penalty box, the boys heckled one another. McCullum told his coach that the opposing player directed the N-word at him.

The referee benched both players for the rest of the period, but when the offending player came out to start the third period, Walsh and his team left the ice. That move was against the rules of Hockey Canada, the sport's national governing body.

The Ontario Minor Hockey Association last week decided to suspend Walsh from the Peterborough Minor Hockey Association Midget House League until April 10.

The ruling came after a Dec. 11 hearing into the incident.


Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2010/12/20/toronto-hockey-coach.html#ixzz18jDnPdtw

Re: Articles

Minor hockey officials want apology for reinstated coach


By Linda Nguyen, Postmedia News December 21, 2010

Two Ontario minor league hockey teams will boycott all tournaments in Peterborough, Ont., until a local coach there gets an apology for being suspended for intentionally forfeiting a game after a racial slur was directed at one of his players.

"Essentially, we won't come back to Peterborough for a tournament again until we get an apology from the Ontario Minor Hockey Association," Keith McDonald — coach of the two London, Ont., teams — said on Tuesday.

Greg Walsh, who coaches the Peterborough team NAPA Auto Parts, was reinstated Monday after he was automatically suspended following a forfeiture during a Nov. 15. game.

At that game, Walsh pulled his team off the ice after referees did not immediately discipline a player on the opposing team for allegedly calling one of his players the "N-word." Officials said they did not hear the racial slur from the player on the Austin Trophies which was directed at 16-year-old Andrew McCullum.

That player, his coach and assistant coach were later suspended for three games.

Walsh was told last Thursday his suspension was going to last until April 10. But the OMHA contacted him Monday to notify him that they have reversed the suspension effective immediately, following a weekend board meeting.

Nevertheless, McDonald doesn't think it's enough.

"I just think it was the public backlash that caused the OMHA to reverse their decision," he said. "Not because of what happened. People make mistakes but I think the OMHA needs to admit theirs and make sure we have policies and procedures in place."

He said the parents of his players, who are between the ages of 7 and 10, support the boycott.

The OMHA originally said it had no choice but to suspend Walsh because it had to follow Hockey Canada's rules. The association said it has been in contact with Hockey Canada and will review the policy biannually as scheduled.

Spokesman Richard Ropchan had no comment Tuesday on the boycott.

The Peterborough Minor Hockey Association is also in the process of looking at its policies to prevent future similar incidents.

Peterborough is about 150 kilometres northeast of Toronto.

Re: Articles

Doyle: Suspended minor hockey coach finally reinstated
loosepucks.com 12/20/10 15:56 blog

It took way too long, but a minor hockey coach who took a stand against racism in a Peterborough midget house league can finally go back behind the bench.
...

Greg Walsh made national headlines when he pulled his team off the ice after one of his players was on the receiving end of a racial slur during a midget house league game in Peterborough in November. The Ontario Minor Hockey Association held a hearing into the incident and decided to uphold Walsh's suspension for the remainder of the hockey season. But now, the OMHA's Board of Directors has decided to overturn the suspension and allow Walsh to get back to coaching.

The incident happened during a mix-up between two players in a Peterborough Minor Hockey Association game. One was accused of directing "The N-word" towards the other player, who is black, while in the penalty box. The on-ice officials did not hear it, but it was overheard by timekeepers. Walsh informed the referees and the opposing coach of it and informed both that if the player was allowed to return to the game - his team would not. When the player who used the slur returned in the third period, Walsh and his players decided they would not play and left the ice.

The player involved along with the coach, who is also President of the Peterborough Minor Hockey Association, were both suspended three games and have since returned to action. But Walsh was facing a more severe punishment for pulling his team off the ice and failing to play.

Before I go further, I will disclose that I know Walsh through my days in Peterborough. But I have not spoken to him since this incident occurred, or actually in a couple years since I moved to Sarnia.

I do not agree with how the Ontario Hockey Minor Hockey Association handled this incident. First of all, the hearing should have occurred quickly. Why was it a few weeks before a hearing took place? In this day-and-age of modern technology - conference calls, web meetings, etc. could have taken place if a face-to-face was difficult to coordinate. I understand the rule, and potential severe punishment, for pulling your team off the ice. That rule is necessary so that you don't have coaches pulling their team off anytime a coach is unhappy with a referee. The integrity of the game itself could be compromised if a coach could withdraw his team anytime they are losing and a call is missed. But the OMHA stuck to its rulebook and slapped Coach Walsh with a major suspension, despite evidence his team had been wronged. The lengthy suspension was justified by saying that it could have been a calendar year. Since that ruling came down, there have been whispers that major sponsors were threatening to pull their support from the OMHA.

How do I think it should have been handled?

If I was heading up this situation, I would have thanked Walsh for bringing this situation to light and taking a stand. But I would have also asked him to acknowledge withdrawing his team from a game is not something that can be taken lightly no matter the situation. With that in mind, I would have reinstated him immediately after the hearing, calling it "time served". He could not go unpunished for pulling his team off the ice, that is a rule and he was aware of it. But to sit out the rest of the year for taking a stand against something we all agree with him taking a stand against was ridiculous. I would have also ordered a review of player conduct regarding racial, ethic and social discrimination in all minor hockey branches under their jurisdiction. What is the punishment for stooping to that level? How is it to be handled if not heard by the on-ice officials? What should a player do if he/she feels they have been victimized not only by an opponent, but what if the comments are coming from their own team? It can happen.

People are calling the three-game suspension to the coach and player involved to be too light. You have to factor in how many games that league plays. I do not have that number, but when I played house league hockey we played one game per week with another game thrown in on a weeknight every couple weeks. This is not the OHL where three games could be served over one weekend. Three games is also a higher percentage of the season than a league like the OHL. I believe the player involved is remorseful for what happened, and his suspension along with an apology should suffice. If it happens again - well of course that is different and penalties should escalate for repeat offenders. But one slip of the tongue should not tarnish a person for life if they are willing to learn from it.

Running minor hockey is not an easy task - it is a job I certainly would not want. You have overzealous parents who think their kid is heading to the National Hockey League going up against people who are just looking for a recreational activity. Hopefully this situation will turn into a lesson for minor hockey executives as well. At least the OMHA Board of Directors got it right in the end.

tdoyle@loosepucks.com
Twitter: Loosepucks
www.facebook.com/loosepucks

Re: Articles

OMHA reverses suspension in racist slur case

By QMI Agency

Last Updated: December 20, 2010

Peterborough - A Peterborough hockey coach who was suspended for the season after pulling his house league team from a game to protest a racial slur hurled at one of his players has been reinstated.

The Ontario Minor Hockey Association (OMHA) reversed its decision on Monday, immediately reinstating Greg Walsh, who was told Thursday that he was suspended until April 10.

The OMHA wouldn’t say why it reversed its decision, made at a Dec. 11 committee meeting at league offices in Richmond Hill, Ont.

Walsh’s team forfeited a game Nov. 15 after officials failed to penalize the player who uttered the racial slur and the opposing coach failed to pull the player from the game.

Walsh expressed surprise Monday over the OMHA’s reversal.

“It’s very humbling in the end the support that we received, really from all across the country,” he said. “I applaud the OMHA for looking at it. We had planned an appeal anyways, but it’s very nice to see that they saw merit in the case.

“It was nice to see that the public really had a voice and it was heard.”

Walsh hopes the racial slur was an isolated incident in Peterborough hockey.

“It’s still a problem in society. It’s not just hockey,” he said. “This is just another life lesson that we learned as a team.”

The 30-member board met Sunday afternoon to discuss the suspension, OMHA executive director Richard Ropchan said Monday.

“They decided to have a closed-door meeting and to review the decision,” he said. “Based on its review, the board decided to terminate the suspension immediately and basically we move on.

“I’m very pleased with the board’s decision and we move on.”

Ropchan said he’s the spokesman for the OMHA and that was the information the board gave him to make public.

Walsh was temporarily suspended on Nov. 15, pending the outcome of a hearing, for pulling his team from a game that was held at the Kinsmen arena in Peterborough.

A player uttered a racial slur at Andrew McCullum as the two players were in the penalty box following a confrontation on the ice near the end of the second period.

A referee didn’t hear the racial slur, but Walsh brought it to the attention of the officials and the opposing team’s coach.

The player was back on the ice to start the third period and that’s when Walsh’s team forfeited the game in protest.

The coach of the opposing team is John Welsh, president of the Peterborough Minor Hockey Association (PMHA). Welsh hasn’t responded to numerous requests for interviews over the last two weeks.

The player who uttered the racial slur, his coach and an assistant coach were given three-game suspensions by the PMHA on Nov. 17.

The PMHA supported the immediate reinstatement of Walsh, said Jeff Ayotte, a lawyer representing the PMHA.

“It was the right thing to do. Given the nature of the one boy’s comments, the PMHA does not condone in any way racism or any type of conduct like that,” he said.

As a result, the PMHA is reviewing its policies and procedures.

The PMHA plans to roll out its new policies next month, Ayotte said.

“Education is the key and greater penalties, greater sanctions if it does occur,” he said. “It’s about more than hockey. It’s for children. And we’re trying to provide a safe environment where they can continue to play and learn.”

Walsh and his NAPA Auto team have offered their support for the policies and procedures review.

Right now, a racial slur is considered a minor penalty until the second incident, Walsh said.

“There’s no more minor penalty for that,” he said. “I would like to see that that is called as a major penalty by the PMHA, then the person that had made that slur would have gone through the same process that I went through."

Walsh is looking forward to getting back behind the bench.

“It’s very gratifying because we are a team. I get to get back with the kids that I have a great deal of respect for. I get to coach my son, which means a lot to me too,” he said.

Re: Articles

After reading this one, I wonder what some people are thinking... the lowest level peewee team... really parents???

Controversy pushes girl off coed hockey team
December 22, 2010
Robert Cribb - Toronto Star


For 12-year-old Kayla Watkins, the public humiliation was too much.

After learning a parent on her coed peewee hockey team — comprised entirely of boys except for her — called for restrictions on her ice time or her removal from the team unless her skills improved, she did the only thing she thought she could: She quit.

“I felt that if I went back all the parents would have been watching every move I made and always staring at me,” said the outgoing preteen, who has been playing the game since the age of four.

“To play hockey you shouldn’t have to go through what I went through. I was just looking to have friendship and play the game I love.”

The controversy that seized the Toronto Ice Dogs PeeWee “A” club — minor hockey’s lowest level of competitive play — emerged last month at a parents’ meeting called by George Atis, who has a child on the team, but is not part of the coaching staff.

The Thornhill lawyer drafted the agenda which included this item: “Kayla Watkins — Player Ability Limitations and Suggested Options.”

“It is now 14 games into the season and I have noticed that Kayla’s play has not improved,” the agenda reads. “It is at the point where many of the team members do not want to play on this team if this situation is not addressed.”

Atis then details two possible options for consideration, either moving Kayla from defence to forward and keeping her off of power plays and penalty kills, or playing her every second shift on defence and again keeping her off special teams “until her skating and shooting improves.”

“If Kayla is NOT amenable to the above options, the coach should find Kayla a new team to play on — commensurate to her skill level — for the balance of the season,” the agenda reads.

Atis also raised concerns about Kayla changing in the same locker-room as the boys, stating, “there have been many ‘near miss’ incidents where the boys have almost been exposed to Kayla.”

Vanessa Watkins, Kayla’s mother and team manager, says she was shocked by Atis’s targeting of her daughter.

“Do we not put our kids in team sports to learn to be a team player, to win as a team, to lose as a team and it’s not about me, me, me?”

In an interview Monday, Atis defended the agenda, saying it voiced concerns from boys on the team who were both squeamish about undressing in front of Kayla and frustrated with her play on the ice.

“I wrote the agenda, I stand by it,” said Atis, whose son Michael has played with Kayla for the past two seasons until her recent departure.

“I lay the blame, if you must know, at the feet of Vanessa Watkins . . . If it was my child, he would have never been in that position because I would not have put him on a team where he was not competing and where he was a liability to the team.”

While such disputes are common at higher levels such as triple-A hockey, they shouldn’t happen at single-A, Kayla said.

“(Atis) is not my coach so I don’t know how he’s judging my play,” she said. “If there’s something wrong, my coach should have talked to me, not him. And my coach never did.”

Paul Macchia, Kayla’s coach, says he chose her to be on his team and never wanted her to leave.

“There’s always complaints from parents about ice time but I’ve never seen an issue where it has gone this far before,” he said. “I don’t know what they were trying to accomplish. It’s not an individual player losing a game. She made mistakes but so did others on the team. We’ve been the same since she left.”

The team is currently 10th out of 12 teams in their division with a record of 8-13-1.

Sheree Watkins, Kayla’s grandmother who attended the meeting and many of her granddaughter’s games, called it a mean-spirited attack on the team’s only girl.

“It floored me that a lawyer would write an agenda like that. There was just so much discrimination.”

Atis said he supports coed hockey generally and that his move wasn’t about gender discrimination. It was about skill level.

“This should have never come down to a singling out of Kayla in this fashion. I think you should look to Vanessa and ask her if she felt truly in her heart . . . if Kayla was at the same level as her teammates.”

Kayla found out about everything when she spotted a copy of the agenda in her mom’s email.

“I was very upset. I do think parents can be over the edge,” she said.

Atis said he never intended Kayla to see the agenda.

“As a parent, my heart goes out to her. If Kayla truly read this agenda by accident, it is very unfortunate . . . I am mortified that Vanessa or Sheree or whoever shared this agenda with Kayla would actually do so . . . I believe Kayla’s feelings could have been spared. That, to me, is the great shame in this process that Kayla would feel as she did.”

Since quitting the Ice Dogs, Kayla has moved to the all-girls North York Storm.

She may miss the challenge of playing with boys. But the culture is far more welcoming, she says.

“Everyone’s nice to each other. It doesn’t matter if we win or lose. If we lose a game, it’s okay because everyone picks each other up.”

Re: Articles

And now for something completely different (that's for you Kai!) - some good news articles! You have to see John Wooden's TED Talk...

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/john_wooden_on_the_difference_between_winning_and_success.html


For a list of all TED Talks, see:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?utm_campaign=ted&hl=en&utm_medium=on.ted.com-twitter&utm_source=blog.ted.com&key=0AsKzpC8gYBmTcGpHbFlILThBSzhmZkRhNm8yYllsWGc&utm_content=site-basic#gid=0



How John Wooden changed my life: Exclusive interview with Steve Jamison


Steve Jamison has co-authored five books with John Wooden, produced a documentary about him, and is consultant to his leadership program at UCLA. All this came about after one fateful meeting, for an innocuous interview.

Coach Wooden has influenced the lives of many, and he discusses his inspirational philosophy on personal success in today’s heartwarming TEDTalk. To understand why Steve got hooked by the story of this legendary basketball coach, read below the fold >>

An excerpt from the interview:
When I got back to transcribe the conversation, I realized that every single sentence was fully formed, enlightening and substantive. I just kept re-reading it. And it was about leadership and life, not basketball. He said things like, “Don’t forget, Steve, the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”What did Coach Wooden think about his talk being posted on TED.com?

He said, “Fine.” Well, he was delighted with TED when he was there. But he’s just come out of the hospital, and although his recovery is coming along fine, he was in the hospital for three weeks. And he’s currently on some very serious medication, so that’s all he could manage. But he is recovering, and was able to celebrate daughter’s birthday with her this weekend.

When we watched the video here at TED, we were all very impressed with Coach Wooden’s wit and public speaking prowess, especially considering his age.

He’s always had the ability to hold the attention of crowd. He’s got a sense of humor and a profound presence that is unique and probably brought on by his phenomenal experience and age. His presence is just riveting.

How did you first meet Coach Wooden and how did your relationship with him evolve?

It was totally unforeseeable. I interviewed him for another project I was doing that involved talking to the top performers in sports to understand their way of thinking and see how that could be applied elsewhere.

In my mind, he wasn’t a big deal. I was more impressed with his players. If you’re an average fan, like I was, you don’t talk to the bench. I knew he was good, but I didn’t go into the interview with any sense of awe. I actually took my dad along, because my dad understood and he was excited.

All of that changed when I met Coach Wooden. He has this combination of great inner strength and great inner youthfulness. As we went on, I got to see much more of what he was about.

When I got back to transcribe the conversation, I realized that every single sentence was fully formed, enlightening and substantive. I just kept re-reading it. And it was about leadership and life, not basketball. He said things like, “Don’t forget, Steve, the most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”

So when I saw the transcript, literally I thought, “This is a book!” I called Coach with a great deal of enthusiasm to tell him about my intentions. He was polite, and said no. But I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I called him back in a week. And he said he had a lot of things on his agenda, and he was serious, even though he was in his 80s.

But I kept going back, and eventually wrote him a letter. I tried to convince him with all the usual arguments — money, visibility. He didn’t care. Then I remembered that he had said, “I am a teacher.” So I sent him a note that said this book is an opportunity to teach. He agreed to work on it.

Eventually we found a publisher, and created a small, blue book that started a real relationship in my life with Coach, that has turned into a great friendship. He views his team as an extended family, and we were a different type of a team, but we were a little team of two in writing this book.

I thought that was it. But the little blue book, “Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections,” became popular and the publisher asked if there were any other books we’d like to do. So we did another fabulous book together. We did a PBS show and I was the producer, called “John Wooden: Values, Victory and Peace of Mind.” We’ve also done a children’s book called “Inches and Miles” and other books since then.

Why do you think the books have had so much success?

These were all driven by John Wooden’s appeal. He talks about not just leadership, but his life and his father’s influence. A lot of young people get advice from their dad and just forget it. But he carried his dad’s advice with him all through his life.

His dad emphasized the golden rule and that was fundamental to his coaching. His definition of success comes from his father telling him not to compare himself to others, just do your best.

Coach was values-driven and character-based before those terms were coined. He understood how to treat people right, but he was also very demanding. His strategy is based on his dad, but also on his coach at Purdue, Piggy Lambert, who was another one of the greatest coaches of all time. He also had this “team as an extended family” idea.

I remember that first transcript, I sent it to my dad, and asked, “What do you think?” He sent it back with a note that said, “Everything that Coach Wooden says is pure gold. Don’t mess it up.”

It sounds like Coach Wooden was really influenced by his father and the idea of family. His father must also have been a tremendous man.

Yes he was. I once went to his father’s gravesite, actually — just to pay my respects to that kind of a man.

And the team is an extended family. All the players still contact Coach, and stop by for lunch or breakfast regularly. They send him letters, postcards and birthday cards from everywhere.

One of Coach’s first players, from his first high school team in 1932, contacted him while we working on a book. He hadn’t much longer to live, and wanted to talk to Coach. After they had spoken, I asked the player quickly, “How’d it go?” He replied, “Coach Wooden really cared about us boys on the team, and made us practice extra because of it.”

It sounds like Coach Wooden has an amazing philosophy.

Well, when he first started teaching he thought he was supposed to like all the players all the same. But then he started coaching, and he realized that he didn’t like everyone the same. He read something that Amos Alonzo Stagg had written, where he said, “I don’t like all my players the same. But I love them all the same.”

So, Coach changed his pre-season talk from, “I will like you all the same,” to “I will not like you all the same. I will love you all the same and I will give you the treatment you earn and deserve.”

He also liked when people paid attention to little things. I remember being at a game with him, where they sent in a waiter to serve his dinner. Now, this waiter didn’t know who Coach was, but he took his time making sure everything was done correctly, adjusting the cutlery and the flowers till they were just right. When the waiter left, Coach said, “Steve, if there’s a secret to success, it just might be little things done well. I love to see little things done well.”

He loved when people paid attention to perfecting the relevant details. And every season, he would show his players how to put on their socks. They had to learn to put on their socks properly to avoid folds, creases and wrinkles, because folds, creases and wrinkles could cause blisters. Blisters cause pain, and pain causes distraction, and that can come at the wrong time.

He also insisted that they double-knot their shoestrings. All of these nuts and bolts combined with the different elements of leadership — that’s what he was getting at. In my opinion he was the best at getting players to perform at the highest level they can.

How about the John Wooden Global Leadership Program at UCLA? How did that come to be? And to what extent are you involved with it?

I’m a consultant to that program. Coach sees over it and approves what’s done.

I was seeing from my results in book sales that there was a great interest in these skills in corporate America. So I got the idea for a program like this and I said, UCLA is the place for it. And so I set up a lunch meeting for Coach with Dean Judy Olian, and he had a great impact on her. She called me and said, “Let’s do it.”

Coach agreed to it because we have a banquet each year and the proceeds go to student scholarships. When you say scholarships for young people, you’re talking his language.

Right now, it’s still an award and a banquet with a distinguished keynote speaker. But in the future we’re hoping to get Coach’s teachings integrated into the curriculum.

Are there any other plans for the future?

Well, we would like to see the children’s book, “Inches and Miles,” animated. We’ve had a couple of offers on that, but not one I like yet. But you know, a child will watch “Winnie the Pooh” 400 times. Imagine if they did that with something that contained lessons that were this important.

Re: Articles

Here is another good one - Stuart Brown on "Play." He also has a book out... now it is on my list! Amazing pictures and description of a polar bear and a husky (dog) playing!

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html

Keep it fun, coaches!

Re: Articles

A couple of sites of interest with tons of articles and videos. Tom mentions the site on the home page, down toward the bottom.

Minnesota Hockey... I posted some of these links under the thread "Competitiveness."

http://www.minnesotahockey.org/page/show/80470-home

http://minnesotahockeyhep.com/

--------------------------
Dean, I think the Minnesot hockey program is the most open to new ideas and really tries to help their coaches.

I couldn't believe how enthused they were about high school hockey when I went there to play for Bemidji State. The fans at the games were unbelievably loud and the enthusiasm was more than I have seen at games in any other hockey place I have been (and that is almost every hockey power).

On a Thursday afternoon at 1pm on a workday the arena where the NHL team played was full for a high school qualification game. No one went to clas but all watched on TV. Canada and Minnesota are equal in their love for our favourite game.

Re: Articles

A Canadian goaltender’s lesson in life

From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Jan. 07, 2011

Perhaps you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but just maybe this old dog has something to teach a few people.

We will meet Sheba later.

But let us begin around midnight Wednesday on the Peace Bridge leading from Buffalo, N.Y., to Fort Erie, Ont. Dan Visentin, a high school math teacher, is driving. His wife, Liz, also a teacher, is in the car, as are his parents Italo and Rita Visentin.

Italo Visentin knows something about dreams. More than a half century ago he and Rita came from Italy to nearby Niagara Falls with no idea what would happen to them in this strange new country where they didn’t even speak the language. Yet it all worked out wonderfully. He became a crane operator; their children excelled in school and life; retirement gave them time to spend with grandchildren – and they had just witnessed one of them have a dream shattered.

Mark Visentin, who turned 18 only last August, was in goal for Team Canada at the World Junior Championship when the unimaginable happened. Canada was ahead 3-0 heading into the third period of the gold medal game and seemed on cruise to avenge the championship lost to the Americans last year in Saskatoon. The young Canadians had already effortlessly dispatched this year’s Americans 4-1 and seemed to be doing the same to the Russians – only to have Russia score two goals in 13 seconds, tie the game in less than five minutes and storm on to a stunning 5-3 victory.

Even without the radio on, everyone in the car knew what was being said: the greatest collapse ever …the team had choked…the goalie was the goat. They hoped that Mark, travelling behind in another car with his girlfriend Harmony, didn’t have his radio on. He didn’t.

“How ya doin’ tonight?” the border guard asked as Dan Visentin handed over the four passports.

“Depressed,” Mr. Visentin answered.

The guard, flicking through the passports, paused and looked up, surprised.

“Oh shit,” he said, “you’re a Visentin.”

“I’m the father.”

The guard handed back he passports. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You have a great kid there – you got to be proud of him.”

“We are.”

“He’s going to be a great goalie one day.”

“We know.”

Mark Visentin made it through at another border booth and drove slowly to his parents home in little Waterdown. No radio. Hardly any words. What was there to say?

He had already said what he thought he had to say. He had sobbed on the ice and wept in the dressing room – no different from any of the other shattered players – and when Andre Brin, Hockey Canada’s media person at the tournament, tentatively asked if anyone was ready to meet the media, Mark Visentin volunteered immediately.

“I’ll come out,” he told Mr. Brin.

A lot of goaltenders would have refused. Some of the gathered media reacted with surprise when the black curtain split open and out stepped the Canadian goaltender of record, eyes clear, head held high, and prepared to talk as long as there were questions.

“I like to get stuff done and not leave it,” he says.

He put no blame on the defence that at times let him down, no blame on the forwards who had their own breakdowns. He took full responsibility.

“I’m not the guy who blames his team,” he says. “You really wish you could have provided a couple of saves when they were needed but I didn’t. They kind of took it to us.”

He had felt the tide turning, as coach Dave Cameron later put it. He watched the “spark” go into the Russians and knew that it had gone out of his own team. “We pushed the panic button a bit,” he says. “We tried to get back but….”

He knew he could talk forever and the score would never change. “No one to blame but me,” he says. “I try to make myself accountable for what happens.”

It is, in fact, the accountability and responsibility of that critical position in hockey that first appealed to him. In his first year of novice they let each youngster try goaltending, and when some of the children balked, he volunteered. In his second year he went fulltime in the nets.

“I fell in love with it,” he says.

“Only fat kids who can’t skate play goal,” his father would kid him. But Mark stuck with it even though he had shown promise as an out player.

“The goaltender can be a game-changer,” he says, “and that is a great, great feeling. But if you’re going to do that, you have to accept the ups and downs that come with it.”

His great hero was Curtis Joseph, then the goaltender for the nearby Toronto Maple Leafs. He and his friends would play on the backyard rink and he would imagine he was “CuJo” kicking out the pucks – at least when Sheba, the family’s golden retriever puppy wasn’t running off with them.

An only child, he had formed a remarkable bond with the dog. They grew up together and today are teenagers together, Sheba 14 and Mark 18, though she long ago lost interest in chasing pucks.

Dan Visentin didn’t push his son. He himself had never played the game and he left the coaching to others. One minor hockey coach, Ken Jaysman, took Mark as goaltender on his AA Novice team and the team went through the season undefeated – Mr. Jaysman’s attitude and love of the game making a huge impression on the youngster.

Soon he was considered a goaltender to watch. At 16, he made the leap to major junior, drafted by the Niagara IceDogs, a team that plays out of St. Catharines, Ont. At 17, six weeks short of his 18th birthday, and much to his own surprise, he became a first round draft pick (chosen 27th overall) of the Phoenix Coyotes.

“I felt like I had a heart attack,” he said of the surprise first-round choice, a selection that Sports Illustrated tagged the biggest surprise of the opening round of the draft. To Mark Visentin, however, it was “the best day of my life.” He had no idea that, before the year was out, he would also go through the worst day of such a young life.

He hopes, like every player named to the Team Canada junior team, to have a professional career, but he is an excellent student with an average consistently above 80 per cent and intends to take courses at Brock University for as long as he’s a junior. “You have to have a back-up plan,” he says.

But the main plan is obviously to go as far as he can in hockey. Last summer he was invited to the junior camp, but when he got there they lumped him in with the under-18s rather than the under-20s and he was sure he would never be able to impress the ones he needed to. But then they made him one of four goaltenders invited to the December camp in Toronto. His roommate was Olivier Roy, who got his call from team management early that final morning of camp and told Mark, who figured this meant he himself hadn’t made it.

“Who’s your partner going to be?” the disappointed youngster asked.

“You!”

It seemed that partnership would be in the back-up role, with the year-older Mr. Roy pegged to get the most work, but after Canada lost 6-5 in a shootout to Sweden, the switch was made to Mark Visentin. He allowed a weak goal in the quarter-final against Switzerland, but it was the only goal allowed, and he was as good as the rest of his team against U.S.A., when Canada won 4-1 to reach the final. There was no doubt, by this point, that the 18-year-old goaltender would play the gold medal game in a championship that was created for, and has traditionally been decided by, 19-year-olds.

He prepared as usual – a meal of chicken parmesan, listen to some music (everything from rap to country) on the iPad Hockey Canada gave each player for Christmas, get to the rink, work on his sticks, go through the warm-up – but no one, not the coaches, not the country, was prepared for that third period.

It has been described as the greatest collapse ever in Canada’s time in international hockey, but there are comparables. Alan Eagleson says what happened in Buffalo reminded him of Game 5 in the 1972 Summit Series. Team Canada was up 4-1 into the third period in Moscow, only to have the Soviets score two very quick goals – quicker even than the Russians scored their two on Mark Visentin – on Tony Esposito and then two more before the period was out to win 5-4.

Mr. Esposito, it might be worth pointing out, went on to a Hall-of-Fame career.

“People lose perspective,” says Dan Visentin. “The better team won.

“Mark will be fine. He’s not just my son, he’s my best friend – and he’s a great guy. He’s got his whole future in front of him.”

It took a long time for Mark Visentin to drive home that night. He thinks he probably got in around 3:30. “It was weird,” he says of the drive back. “There was just so much to take in.”

He was grateful for his goaltending coach with the IceDogs, Ben Vanderklok, who has worked hard on “focus” and “attitude” and “confidence” the past two years.

“It was a tough pill to swallow,” he says. “But I think I’m a better person for it. This has been a big learning curve.” If he gets a chance next year, when he’ll only be 19, he’ll be ready. He just hopes to get the chance.

There was no one up when he came through the front door, but then the sound of an old dog’s nails moving along the floor.

Sheba came hurrying toward him, wiggling and tail wagging.

“She was just happy to see me,” he says.

And he her, after the day he had just put in.

Re: Articles

Easier said than done
Building NHL winner not simple

By STEVE SIMMONS, QMI Agency

Jan 12 2011

TORONTO - At the halfway point of another frustrating Maple Leafs season, it is far too easy and much too inaccurate to point to the Phil Kessel trade as the philosophical reason for the organizational stagnancy.

The other night, when the Leafs were playing the Los Angeles Kings, the obvious comparisons were made: One team building patiently through the draft. The other trying to fast track. One team doing it right, the story went. The other, missing all the cues.

If only building hockey teams were so simple.

While the Kings may seem to be a model for managerial patience and bottoming out — building through the draft being the catch phrase — understand this: The Kings missed the playoffs six straight years to get the draft picks necessary to compete. In the seventh building year, they made the playoffs and were eliminated in six games. This is Year 8. If the season ended today, the Kings would not be in the playoffs. So for all their patience, all their doing things the “right way” you can ask yourself a question: Where exactly are they?

It isn’t just the Los Angeles Kings, although they have the nicest roster of the recent rebuilds. The notion that Brian Burke messed up by trading away two first-round picks for Kessel is a wonderful debating point — but the evidence of successful teams building through the draft is not entirely clear.

The model franchise in all of hockey is the Detroit Red Wings. They’ve had 10 straight 100-point seasons. Almost everything they do seems like the right thing. Their team was built around three draft choices — Niklas Lidstrom, a third-round pick; Pavel Datsyuk, a sixth-round pick; Henrik Zetterberg, a late seventh-round pick. The Red Wings have traded their first-round picks away in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2006. Only one important player on their team, Niklas Kronwall was their own first-round pick.

Which means what? It means there is no one way to find success in the NHL.

The Atlanta Thrashers have played 10 full seasons and have never won a playoff game. They have drafted first twice, second twice, third and fourth in their history: How has any of that helped them get to where they are today?

The Columbus Blue Jackets have played in one playoff round in 10 years of existence. They’ve had top 10 draft picks 10 different times. It hasn’t taken them anywhere near contender status.

The Florida Panthers have missed the playoffs 11 of the past 12 years and drafted top 10 on occasions. Their top picks produced Nathan Horton, Stephen Weiss and Jay Bouwmeester, all decent NHL players, none of them about to challenge for all-star status.

Even the New York Islanders, who have picked first twice, second once, and chosen third, fourth and fifth twice in the draft, remain the most dysfunctional franchise in all of hockey.

It works to build through the draft when you have early picks and they turn out to be Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane. You can do it when you get lucky and win the Sidney Crosby lottery just after Evgeny Malkin had been selected. You can do it when you end up with Alex Ovechkin, and Nick Backstrom and Mike Green in a few short drafts.

But for every Chicago story, every Pittsburgh, every Washington, there’s an Atlanta, a Florida, a Columbus, and yes, even an Edmonton.

Even the Phoenix Coyotes are an example that questions that notion that drafting early means everything: The Coyotes missed the playoffs six years in a row in the Wayne Gretzky era. In that time, they drafted early five different times. Not one of the five picks has turned into a high-end NHL player. The Coyotes turned their team around in a completely non-conventional way, beginning with the hiring of coach Dave Tippett and the claiming of goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov on waivers. Only five of the regulars who play for the Coyotes were drafted by the team and the best first-round pick, Shane Doan, was selected by Winnipeg, if you believe that.

Re: Articles

What impact coaches?
Coaches matter, as long as they're entertaining

Michael Grange
Globe and Mail Blog
Posted on Wednesday, January 12, 2011


How much difference does coaching make?

It’s one of the endless debates in sports. Fire that guy; hire this guy.

So-and-so coach gets his guys to play hard; so-and-so coach can’t get his guys to execute, and on-and on.

It wasn’t long ago that firing Ron Wilson was the obvious solution to whatever was ailing the Toronto Maple Leafs and Rex Ryan was promising the New York Jets were headed to Super Bowl.

With the Jets facing New England in the Divisional playoffs Sunday and prohibitive underdogs, it's looking like Wilson will last longer than Ryan's pledge, but stranger things have happened.

Why fire Wilson? The reasons were varied: his club had quit playing for him; the Leafs' special teams – particularly penalty killing, considered one area where coaching matters most – remained near the bottom of the NHL; he was growing short with the media; and ultimately he’s heading for his third straight year out of the playoffs.

And then last night he puts a bunch of money on the wall as a bonus if his team can beat the San Jose Sharks – this while playing on the road on the second night of back-to-back – and his club goes out and rallies to win 4-2.

Was it coaching? Maybe, in theory he's a good one. The win gave Wilson 600 for his career. The only men who’ve won more?

Scotty Bowman (1244), Al Arbour (782), Dick Irvin (692) Pat Quinn (684), Mike Keenan (672) and Bryan Murray (620).

But if you’re looking for the so-called money quote; the line where there’s clear connection between Wilson putting his money down and the players lifting their level of play, it’s not quite there; bemusement would be my interpretation:

“He had some money up on the board there for his 600th win, so it was nice to take that from him,” said Clarke MacArthur, who scored two goals and established a new career-high in points with 36.

“I just said ‘Congratulations’, that’s about it” laughed Colby Armstrong when asked what he said to the coach after the game. “It’s pretty good though, 600 wins. It’s a tremendous feat as a coach.”

It’s been an interesting week for coaches. The other day Ryan seemed to go out of his way to break every rule in the unwritten rule book in advance of the Jets-Patriots matchup.

He questioned the preparation and dedication of Tom Brady and took the risk of alienating his own players by suggesting that he would be the difference if the Jets somehow upset the might Patriots machine.

As former New York Jet lineman Joe Klecko put it: Ryan’s thunder was his George Patton moment, in reference to the famed WWII leaders nickname: old blood and guts, his soldiers called him, as in his guts, our blood.

I suppose there’s no downside when you’re the underdog to rattling the big dog’s cage.

And make no mistake, his words were heard: “When he talks about and insults the preparation of Tom Brady … there’s one guy I know that takes that personally and that’s Tom,” former Patriot lineback Ted Bruschi said on Tuesday evening during at interview on The Michael Kay Show on ESPN 1050. “I think it just intensifies his focus to where you’ve added a little bit more motivation.”

But if the best quarterback in the game comes out and strafes the Jets and Ryan’s club once again gets blown out by Bill Belichick’s Patriots it will be hard to argue that Ryan’s transparent attempt to set the tone for the week was a waste of hot air of which, fortunately, his has plenty to spare.

There are those that have tried to measure the impact of coaches and managers in major sports, and for the most part the results are inconclusive, though their does seem to be some evidence that a really, really bad coach can hurt his team.

But for the most part the measures say the same thing: coaching doesn’t really matter. Even in cases where coaches are fired mid-season and teams seem to bounce back is usually just a regression to the mean, which is to say: teams can't lose forever. Did Wilson's money make a difference in his team getting their fourth straight win and his 600th? Maybe, if goalie James Reimer was short on cash.

But more likely not. Do coaches matter? It doesn't matter to me; my only expectation for coaches is that they entertain me in some fashion.

In this regard, Ron Wilson and Rex Ryan are doing pretty well

Re: Articles

What Makes a Great Teacher?

For years, the secrets to great teaching have seemed more like alchemy than science, a mix of motivational mumbo jumbo and misty-eyed tales of inspiration and dedication. But for more than a decade, one organization has been tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and looking at why some teachers can move them three grade levels ahead in a year and others can’t. Now, as the Obama administration offers states more than $4 billion to identify and cultivate effective teachers, Teach for America is ready to release its data.

By Amanda Ripley


On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math.

One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor’s math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked.

The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so.

At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools—not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it’s worth noting, not a very hard one).

After a year in Mr. Taylor’s class, the first little boy’s scores went up—way up. He had started below grade level and finished above. On average, his classmates’ scores rose about 13 points—which is almost 10 points more than fifth-graders with similar incoming test scores achieved in other low-income D.C. schools that year. On that first day of school, only 40 percent of Mr. Taylor’s students were doing math at grade level. By the end of the year, 90 percent were at or above grade level.

As for the other boy? Well, he ended the year the same way he’d started it—below grade level. In fact, only a quarter of the fifth-graders at Plummer finished the year at grade level in math—despite having started off at about the same level as Mr. Taylor’s class down the road.

This tale of two boys, and of the millions of kids just like them, embodies the most stunning finding to come out of education research in the past decade: more than any other variable in education—more than schools or curriculum—teachers matter. Put concretely, if Mr. Taylor’s student continued to learn at the same level for a few more years, his test scores would be no different from those of his more affluent peers in Northwest D.C. And if these two boys were to keep their respective teachers for three years, their lives would likely diverge forever. By high school, the compounded effects of the strong teacher—or the weak one—would become too great.

Parents have always worried about where to send their children to school; but the school, statistically speaking, does not matter as much as which adult stands in front of their children. Teacher quality tends to vary more within schools—even supposedly good schools—than among schools.

But we have never identified excellent teachers in any reliable, objective way. Instead, we tend to ascribe their gifts to some mystical quality that we can recognize and revere—but not replicate. The great teacher serves as a hero but never, ironically, as a lesson.

At last, though, the research about teachers’ impact has become too overwhelming to ignore. Over the past year, President Barack Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, have started talking quite a lot about great teaching. They have shifted the conversation from school accountability— the rather worn theme of No Child Left Behind, President George W. Bush’s landmark educational reform—to teacher accountability. And they have done it using one very effective conversational gambit: billions of dollars.

Thanks to the stimulus bonanza, Duncan has lucked into a budget that is more than double what a normal education secretary gets to spend. As a result, he has been able to dedicate $4.3 billion to a program he calls Race to the Top. To be fair, that’s still just a tiny fraction of the roughly $100 billion in his budget (much of which the government direct-deposits into the bank accounts of schools, whether they deserve the money or not). But especially in a year when states are projecting $16 billion in school-budget shortfalls, $4.3 billion is real money. “This is the big bang of teacher-effectiveness reform,” says Timothy Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, a nonprofit that helps schools recruit good teachers. “It’s huge.”

Despite the perky name, Race to the Top is a marathon—and a potentially grueling one; to win, states must take a series of steps that are considered radical in the see-no-evil world of education, where teachers unions have long fought efforts to measure teacher performance based on student test scores and link the data to teacher pay. States must try to identify great teachers, figure out how they got that way, and then create more of them. “This is the wave of the future. This is where we have to go—to look at what’s working and what’s not,” Duncan told me. “It sounds like common sense, but it’s revolutionary.”

Based on his students’ test scores, Mr. Taylor ranks among the top 5 percent of all D.C. math teachers. He’s entertaining, but he’s not a born performer. He’s well prepared, but he’s been a teacher for only three years. He cares about his kids, but so do a lot of his underperforming peers. What’s he doing differently?

One outfit in America has been systematically pursuing this mystery for more than a decade—tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and analyzing why some teachers can move those kids three grade levels ahead in one year and others can’t. That organization, interestingly, is not a school district.

Teach for America, a nonprofit that recruits college graduates to spend two years teaching in low-income schools, began outside the educational establishment and has largely remained there. For years, it has been whittling away at its own assumptions, testing its hypotheses, and refining its hiring and training. Over time, it has built an unusual laboratory: almost half a million American children are being taught by Teach for America teachers this year, and the organization tracks test-score data, linked to each teacher, for 85 percent to 90 percent of those kids. Almost all of those students are poor and African American or Latino. And Teach for America keeps an unusual amount of data about its 7,300 teachers—a pool almost twice the size of the D.C. system’s teacher corps.

Until now, Teach for America has kept its investigation largely to itself. But for this story, the organization allowed me access to 20 years of experimentation, studded by trial and error. The results are specific and surprising. Things that you might think would help a new teacher achieve success in a poor school—like prior experience working in a low-income neighborhood—don’t seem to matter. Other things that may sound trifling—like a teacher’s extracurricular accomplishments in college—tend to predict greatness.

Steven Farr is a tall man with a deep, quiet voice. He is Teach for America’s in-house professor, so to speak. His job is to find and study excellent teachers, and train others to get similar results. He takes his work very seriously, mostly because he has seen what the status quo looks like up close.

Farr grew up in a family of teachers in central Texas. When he graduated from the University of Texas, in 1993, he had a philosophy degree and an acceptance letter to Yale Law School, neither of which felt quite right. So he deferred law school and joined a new, floundering outfit, Teach for America.

After a little more than a month of somewhat uneven training, Farr walked into Donna High School in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas—a place he’d never been. Many of the three dozen kids in his classroom were the children of migrant workers; they would disappear for weeks at a time as their families followed the harvests.

Talking to Farr about those two years feels a little like talking to a war veteran. You and he both know that you can never understand what it was like, and the clichés come marching in. “It was the hardest, proudest, all of that,” he says, his voice drifting away. Then: “I was not the teacher I want our teachers to be.”

Farr lived with three other Teach for America teachers, in a house that had been confiscated by U.S. Marshals in a drug raid. He taught English and English as a Second Language. Texas required that students pass a standardized test before they graduate, and as test day approached, Farr felt a mixture of anxiety and resentment.

About a month afterward, he got the news: 76 percent of his students had passed; 24 percent were told they didn’t yet have the skills to graduate. Even though many were only sophomores, some of them dropped out as a result. The principal congratulated him on his scores, but Farr cried into his pillow that night. “Some of those kids did not pass because I was not as effective as I needed to be.”

After his two years were up, Farr went to law school, as planned. He came back to Teach for America in 2001—this time in charge of training and support. By then, the organization’s founder, Wendy Kopp, had begun to notice something puzzling when she visited classrooms: many Teach for America teachers were doing good work. But a small number were getting phenomenal results—and it was not clear why.

Farr was tasked with finding out. Starting in 2002, Teach for America began using student test-score progress data to put teachers into one of three categories: those who move their students one and a half or more years ahead in one year; those who achieve one to one and a half years of growth; and those who yield less than one year of gains. In the beginning, reliable data was hard to come by, and many teachers could not be put into any category. Moreover, the data could never capture the entire story of a teacher’s impact, Farr acknowledges. But in desperately failing schools, where most kids lack basic skills, the only way to bushwhack a path out of the darkness is with a good, solid measuring stick.

As Teach for America began to identify exceptional teachers using this data, Farr began to watch them. He observed their classes, read their lesson plans, and talked to them about their teaching methods and beliefs. He and his colleagues surveyed Teach for America teachers at least four times a year to find out what they were doing and what kinds of training had helped them the most.

Right away, certain patterns emerged. First, great teachers tended to set big goals for their students. They were also perpetually looking for ways to improve their effectiveness. For example, when Farr called up teachers who were making remarkable gains and asked to visit their classrooms, he noticed he’d get a similar response from all of them: “They’d say, ‘You’re welcome to come, but I have to warn you—I am in the middle of just blowing up my classroom structure and changing my reading workshop because I think it’s not working as well as it could.’ When you hear that over and over, and you don’t hear that from other teachers, you start to form a hypothesis.” Great teachers, he concluded, constantly reevaluate what they are doing.

Superstar teachers had four other tendencies in common: they avidly recruited students and their families into the process; they maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning; they planned exhaustively and purposefully—for the next day or the year ahead—by working backward from the desired outcome; and they worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls.

But when Farr took his findings to teachers, they wanted more. “They’d say, ‘Yeah, yeah. Give me the concrete actions. What does this mean for a lesson plan?’” So Farr and his colleagues made lists of specific teacher actions that fell under the high-level principles they had identified. For example, one way that great teachers ensure that kids are learning is to frequently check for understanding: Are the kids—all of the kids—following what you are saying? Asking “Does anyone have any questions?” does not work, and it’s a classic rookie mistake. Students are not always the best judges of their own learning. They might understand a line read aloud from a Shakespeare play, but have no idea what happened in the last act.

“Strong teachers insist that effective teaching is neither mysterious nor magical. It is neither a function of dynamic personality nor dramatic performance,” Farr writes in Teaching as Leadership, a book coming out in February from Farr and his colleagues. The model the book lays out, Farr is careful to say, is not the only path to success. But he is convinced it can improve teaching—and already has. In 2007, 24 percent of Teach for America teachers moved their students one and a half or more years ahead, according to the organization’s internal reports. In 2009, that number was up to 44 percent. That data relies largely on school tests, which vary in quality from state to state. When tests aren’t available or sufficiently rigorous, Teach for America helps teachers find or design other reliable diagnostics.

So far, only one independent, random-assignment study of Teach for America’s effectiveness has been conducted. That report, published by Mathematica Policy Research in 2004, looked at the organization’s teachers and found that, in math, their students significantly outperformed those of their more experienced counterparts. (In reading, though, the teachers’ students did the same as other teachers’ students.) Another study is due out in 2012 or 2013.

Mr. Taylor, the fifth-grade math teacher in Washington, D.C., is not a member of Teach for America. He grew up attending D.C. public schools and then joined the profession the traditional way: he majored in education in college and then was certified. But Mr. Taylor has a lot in common with the teachers Farr has found to be most effective.

On a typical Monday, Mr. Taylor’s kids come to class and begin silently working on the Problem of the Day written on the blackboard. They sit in four clusters of desks. Each group has a team leader, who is selected by Mr. Taylor each month.

Mr. Taylor walks in and says good morning. “Good morning!” they answer in kid unison. He is wearing a scarf, a black-and-white pinstripe cardigan, and small, oval Dolce & Gabbana glasses, and he looks tired. He is taking classes on the weekends to get his master’s in education administration. He has a Bluetooth headset in one ear and an earring in the other.

After a few minutes, Mr. Taylor announces that it’s time for Mental Math. The kids put down their pencils and grab the orange index cards and markers on their desks. Mr. Taylor begins to walk around the class, reading problems aloud. “How many 5’s are in 45?” The kids have to do the math in their heads. All of them write their answers on their cards and thrust them up in the air. With a quick scan, Mr. Taylor can see if every child has written the right answer. Then he says, “What’s the answer?” And all the kids call out, “Nine!” When they get an answer right, they whisper-shout “Yes!” and pump their fists. If some kids get it wrong, they have not embarrassed themselves by individually raising their hand and announcing their mistake. But Mr. Taylor knows he needs to give them more attention—or, more likely, have their team leader work with them. Children, he has learned, speak to each other in a language they can better understand.

“Now I’m going to trick you,” Mr. Taylor says. “What’s 3 times 120?” The orange cards go down—and back up. “Ooh, ooh, ooh!” says one little girl, unable to contain herself. “‘Ooh’? Is that the answer?” Mr. Taylor says, silencing her.

Next, Mr. Taylor goes to the board to teach a new way to do long division. It’s a clever method that takes a little longer but is much easier than most other methods, and I’ve never seen it before. “You want to work smart, not hard,” he tells me later. “If you just show them the traditional method, not everyone understands.” He actually learned the method last year—from one of his students.

Mr. Taylor follows a very basic lesson plan often referred to by educators as “I do, we do, you do.” He does a problem on the board. Then the whole class does another one the same way. Then all the kids do a problem on their own. During the “we” portion of the lesson, Mr. Taylor calls on students to help solve the problem. But he does this using the “equity sticks”—a can of clothespins, each of which has a student’s name on it. That way, he ensures a random sample. The shy ones don’t get lost.

As the kids move into group work, there is a low buzz in the room. I try, but I can’t find a child who isn’t talking about math. One little boy leans across his desk to help another with a problem. “What do you add to 8 to get 16?” he says, and then he waits. “Eight,” the other boy says. “Then,” says the first, “you subtract that and what do you get?”

The activities come in brisk sequence, following a routine the kids know by heart, so no time is lost in transition. In Teaching as Leadership, Farr describes seeing such choreography in other high-performance classrooms. “We see routines so strong that they run virtually without any involvement from the teacher. In fact, for many highly effective teachers, the measure of a well-executed routine is that it continues in the teacher’s absence.”

On the front wall, Mr. Taylor has posted different hand signals—if you need to go to the bathroom, you raise a closed hand. To ask or answer a question, you raise an open hand. “This way, I have the information before I even call on you,” Mr. Taylor explains. There is even a signal for when you are having a terrible day and don’t feel up to participating: you just put your head down on your desk. I ask Mr. Taylor how often kids exploit that option. “I’ve never had anybody put their head down,” he says, matter-of-factly. “In three years?” I ask. “No.”

Next, Mr. Taylor announces it’s time for Multiplication Bingo. As Mr. Taylor reads off a problem (“20 divided by 5”), the kids scour their boards, chips in hand, looking for 4’s. One girl is literally shaking with excitement. Another has her hands clasped in a prayer position. I find myself wanting to play. You know you’re in a good classroom if you have to stop yourself from raising your hand.

Finally, after a dozen problems go by, a small voice from an even smaller boy pronounces, “Bingo!” Kids wail in despair as the tiny boy walks up to collect his prize (a pencil) from Mr. Taylor. “Dang!” one girl says. “Okay, relax,” Mr. Taylor says, smiling. “It’s just a game.” Before they leave, all the kids fill out an “exit slip,” which is usually in the form of a problem—one more chance for Mr. Taylor to see how they, and he, are doing.

When I talk to Mr. Taylor after class, I notice that he tends to redirect questions so that they reflect his own performance. When I ask him if his first year on the job was hard, he says, “I found that the kids were not hard. It was explaining the information to them that was hard. You paint this picture in your head about how you will teach this lesson, and you can teach the whole lesson and no one gets it.”

Like all the teachers I talked to in Washington, Mr. Taylor laments the lack of parental involvement. “On back-to-school night, if you have 28 or 30 kids in your class, you’re lucky to see six or seven parents,” he says. But when I ask him how that affects his teaching, he says, “Actually, it doesn’t. I make it my business to call the parents—and not just for bad things.” The first week of class, Mr. Taylor calls all his students’ parents and gives them his cell-phone number.

Other teachers I interviewed spent most of our time complaining. “With the testing and the responsibility and keeping up with the behavior reports and the data, it has gotten so much harder over the years,” said one fourth-grade teacher at Kimball, the same school where Mr. Taylor teaches. “It’s more work than it should be. They don’t give us the time to be creative.”

A 23-year veteran who earns more than $80,000 a year, this teacher has a warm manner, and her classroom is bright and neat. She paid for the kids’ whiteboards, the clock, and the DVD player herself. But she seems to have given up on the kids’ prospects in a way that Mr. Taylor has not. “The kids in Northwest [D.C.] go on trips to France, on cruises. They go places and their parents talk to them and take them to the library,” she says one fall afternoon between classes. “Our parents on this side don’t have the know-how to raise their children. They’re not sure what it takes for their child to make it.”

When her fourth-grade students entered her class last school year, 66 percent were scoring at or above grade level in reading. After a year in her class, only 44 percent scored at grade level, and none scored above. Her students performed worse than fourth-graders with similar incoming scores in other low-income D.C. schools. For decades, education researchers blamed kids and their home life for their failure to learn. Now, given the data coming out of classrooms like Mr. Taylor’s, those arguments are harder to take. Poverty matters enormously. But teachers all over the country are moving poor kids forward anyway, even as the class next door stagnates. “At the end of the day,” says Timothy Daly at the New Teacher Project, “it’s the mind-set that teachers need—a kind of relentless approach to the problem.”

Once teachers have been in the classroom for a year or two, who is very good—and very bad—becomes much clearer. But teachers are almost never dismissed. Principals almost never give teachers poor performance evaluations—even when they know the teachers are failing.

Ideally, schools would hire better teachers to begin with. But this is notoriously difficult. How do you screen for a relentless mind-set?

When Teach for America began, applicants were evaluated on 12 criteria (such as persistence and communication skills), chosen based on conversations with educators. Recruits answered open-ended questions like “What is wind?” Starting in 2000, the organization began to retroactively critique its own judgments. What did the best teachers have in common when they applied for the job?

Once a model for outcomes-based hiring was built, it started churning out some humbling results. “I came into this with a bunch of theories,” says Monique Ayotte-Hoeltzel, who was then head of admissions. “I was proven wrong at least as many times as I was validated.”

Based on her own experience teaching in the Mississippi Delta, Ayotte-Hoeltzel was convinced, for example, that teachers with earlier experience working in poor neighborhoods were more effective. Wrong. An analysis of the data found no correlation.

For years, Teach for America also selected for something called “constant learning.” As Farr and others had noticed, great teachers tended to reflect on their performance and adapt accordingly. So people who tend to be self-aware might be a good bet. “It’s a perfectly reasonable hypothesis,” Ayotte-Hoeltzel says.

But in 2003, the admissions staff looked at the data and discovered that reflectiveness did not seem to matter either. Or more accurately, trying to predict reflectiveness in the hiring process did not work.

What did predict success, interestingly, was a history of perseverance—not just an attitude, but a track record. In the interview process, Teach for America now asks applicants to talk about overcoming challenges in their lives—and ranks their perseverance based on their answers. Angela Lee Duckworth, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, and her colleagues have actually quantified the value of perseverance. In a study published in The Journal of Positive Psychology in November 2009, they evaluated 390 Teach for America instructors before and after a year of teaching. Those who initially scored high for “grit”—defined as perseverance and a passion for long-term goals, and measured using a short multiple-choice test—were 31 percent more likely than their less gritty peers to spur academic growth in their students. Gritty people, the theory goes, work harder and stay committed to their goals longer. (Grit also predicts retention of cadets at West Point, Duckworth has found.)

But another trait seemed to matter even more. Teachers who scored high in “life satisfaction”—reporting that they were very content with their lives—were 43 percent more likely to perform well in the classroom than their less satisfied colleagues. These teachers “may be more adept at engaging their pupils, and their zest and enthusiasm may spread to their students,” the study suggested.

In general, though, Teach for America’s staffers have discovered that past performance—especially the kind you can measure—is the best predictor of future performance. Recruits who have achieved big, measurable goals in college tend to do so as teachers. And the two best metrics of previous success tend to be grade-point average and “leadership achievement”—a record of running something and showing tangible results. If you not only led a tutoring program but doubled its size, that’s promising.

Knowledge matters, but not in every case. In studies of high-school math teachers, majoring in the subject seems to predict better results in the classroom. And more generally, people who attended a selective college are more likely to excel as teachers (although graduating from an Ivy League school does not unto itself predict significant gains in a Teach for America classroom). Meanwhile, a master’s degree in education seems to have no impact on classroom effectiveness.

The most valuable educational credentials may be the ones that circle back to squishier traits like perseverance. Last summer, an internal Teach for America analysis found that an applicant’s college GPA alone is not as good a predictor as the GPA in the final two years of college. If an applicant starts out with mediocre grades and improves, in other words, that curve appears to be more revealing than getting straight A’s all along.

Last year, Teach for America churned through 35,000 candidates to choose 4,100 new teachers. Staff members select new hires by deferring almost entirely to the model: they enter more than 30 data points about a given candidate (about twice the number of inputs they considered a decade ago), and then the model spits out a hiring recommendation. Every year, the model changes, depending on what the new batch of student data shows.

This year, Teach for America allowed me to sit in on the part of the interview process that it calls the “sample teach,” in which applicants teach a lesson to the other applicants for exactly five minutes. Only about half of the candidates make it to this stage. On this day, the group includes three men and two women, all college seniors or very recent graduates.

One young woman—I’ll call her Abigail—stands up to teach her lesson. She has curly blond hair and wears a navy-blue suit. She tells us she will be teaching a fifth-grade Spanish class. She tapes up a preprepared poster. (Female applicants are more likely to bring props, which is not a bad thing. In fact, women are more likely to be effective in Teach for America, Duckworth found.) Then she writes her objective on the room’s whiteboard: to teach the days of the week. Krzysztof Kosmicki, a Teach for America program director, starts the clock.

To me, Abigail’s objective seems a little dull (especially compared with that of another applicant, who taught “the five fluids that transmit HIV”). She asks the class to repeat each of the days of the week. “I know it’s confusing,” she says. So she teaches them a song to help keep them straight, and then has the applicants sing it—twice. “If I don’t hear everyone’s voice, we’re going to sing it again until I do.” When she asks what day it is, Kosmicki volunteers the wrong answer. She asks another applicant to help correct him, which he does, and then her time is up.

The last applicant to teach is a young man I’ll call Michael. He has been very quiet, but he becomes much more animated when he starts teaching. His objective is to teach the order of operations in a math problem. “Good morning, class!” he says. When someone gets something right, he says, “Correctomundo!” He seems confident. He asks if he can get a volunteer to answer part of the problem on the board, and one of the other applicants steps up. Kosmicki asks him to explain exponents again, which he does. Time’s up.

Later, I talk with Kosmicki about his impressions. He liked Abigail’s sample teach—but not Michael’s. Kosmicki is not very interested in the things I noticed most: charisma, ambitious lesson objectives, extroversion. What matters more, at least according to Teach for America’s research, is less flashy: Were you prepared? Did you achieve your objective in five minutes?

“Abigail’s sample teach was exceptional,” says Kosmicki, who taught for Teach for America in the South Bronx before starting a charter school in Newark, New Jersey. “It was abundantly clear to me that she had practiced.” The students successfully learned the days of the week “somewhere between the third and fourth minute,” Kosmicki says. He was interested in what Abigail was doing, but he had been more focused on the other applicants, acting as her class.

This summer, those who have been accepted will go to a Teach for America training institute. That’s when Steven Farr, the in-house professor, and his colleagues take over. For them, the challenge is not to pick the perfect teacher but to diagnose strengths and weaknesses early and provide intense, customized training to correct them. Farr is more hopeful each year. “When I see not a handful, not dozens, but hundreds of people being successful in a world where most people think success is not possible, I know it can be done,” he told me.

Of course, thanks to its mission and brand, Teach for America has been able to draw from a strong recruiting pool. (During the 2008–09 school year, 11 percent of Ivy League seniors applied.) Large, low-income school districts do not get nearly as many candidates per open position, and most of the candidates they do get aren’t nearly as high-caliber. Plus, the extreme hours that Teach for America teachers put in—for two years—are not sustainable for most people over the long term.

But if school systems hired, trained, and rewarded teachers according to the principles Teach for America has identified, then teachers would not need to work so hard. They would be operating in a system designed in a radically different way—designed, that is, for success.

This year, D.C. public schools have begun using a new evaluation system for all faculty and staff, from teachers to custodians. Each will receive a score, just like the students, at the end of the year. For teachers whose students take standardized tests, like Mr. Taylor, half their score will be based on how much their students improved. The rest will be based largely on five observation sessions conducted throughout the year by their principal, assistant principal, and a group of master educators. Throughout the year, teachers will receive customized training. At year’s end, teachers who score below a certain threshold could be fired.

The handbook for the new system looks eerily similar to the Teach for America model, which is not a coincidence. The man who designed it, Jason Kamras, is a former Teach for America teacher who taught in a low-income D.C. school for eight years before being chosen by D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee to help fix the schools. Rhee is herself a Teach for America alumna, who went on to run the New Teacher Project.

Washington, D.C., is also applying for Race to the Top money from the Obama administration, along with many states. To qualify, states must first remove any legal barriers to linking student test scores to teachers—something California and Wisconsin are already doing. To win money, states must also begin distinguishing between effective and ineffective teachers—and consider that information when deciding whether to grant tenure, give raises, or fire a teacher or principal (a linkage that the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, has criticized as “inappropriate” federal interference in local prerogatives). And each year, states must publish which of their education and other prep programs produced the most effective (and ineffective) teachers and principals. If state and local school officials, along with teachers unions, step up to the challenge, Race to the Top could begin to rationalize America’s schools.

By the time the Obama administration begins handing out awards this spring, Mr. Taylor will be finishing up another year at Kimball Elementary. On the mornings his students take their standardized tests, he will cook a hot breakfast of sausage, eggs, and toast for them, as he always does. But this tradition may be coming to an end. He’s thinking about quitting in the next few years.

Mr. Taylor wants to become a principal. In just three years as a teacher, he feels that he has already run up against the limits of his classroom. He wants to bring what he has learned to scale. That way, he says, “it won’t just stay with me, bundled in Room 204.” He is, like many great teachers, well aware that he is not one in a million—or at least, that he should not be.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/01/what-makes-a-great-teacher/7841/
Copyright © 2011 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.
------

http://www.teachingasleadership.org/

http://www.teachforamerica.org/the-corps-experience/becoming-an-exceptional-teacher/

Teaching As Leadership: http://www.amazon.com/Teaching-As-Leadership-Effective-Achievement/dp/0470432861
------

Positive predictors of teacher effectiveness

Angela Lee Duckworth a*, Patrick D. Quinn b and Martin E.P. Seligman a

a Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
b Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA

(Received 5 March 2009; final version received 14 June 2009)

Some teachers are dramatically more effective than others, but traditional indicators of competence (e.g., certification) explain minimal variance in performance. The rigors of teaching suggest that positive traits that buffer against adversity might contribute to teacher effectiveness. In this prospective longitudinal study, novice teachers (N¼390) placed in under-resourced public schools completed measures of optimistic explanatory style, grit, and life satisfaction prior to the school year. At the conclusion of the school year, teacher effectiveness was measured in terms of the academic gains of students. All three positive traits individually predicted teacher performance. When entered simultaneously, however, only grit and life satisfaction remained significant predictors. These findings suggest that positive traits should be considered in the selection and training of teachers.

Keywords: learned helplessness; explanatory style; grit; life satisfaction; teacher performance

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/Positive predictors of teacher effectiveness.2009.pdf
-----

Re: Articles

Not allergic to ice: Severe allergies haven't kept Poti from NHL career

Joseph White, The Associated Press

11 Jan 2011

ARLINGTON, Va. - The spread was nice at the Capitals' annual media day luncheon. Flavourful meat. Fresh veggies. Players, coaches and reporters lounged around various tables, enjoying the food and chatting about hockey.

Over by the window, away from everyone else, sitting a chair at a table with nothing but a drink and nice view, was defenceman Tom Poti.

"They asked me if I wanted something," Poti said. "I said don't even worry about it. We're only here for 40 minutes and I can just go home and eat."

It was a rare moment in which Poti's many allergies made him stand out, which is quite remarkable - because he has a lot of them. No nuts. No chocolate. No fish. Nothing from the ocean. No MSG. Most spices and sauces are verboten. Everything he eats has to be cooked in separate, clean utensils. It's been this way since he began eating solid food as a toddler, when he would break out in hives, rashes and have other problems at nearly every feeding.

"They finally ended up taking me to an allergist. I almost died from the testing it was so bad," Poti said. "Nowadays they test for just one thing at a time, back then they'd test for everything (at once). I had to get filled up with adrenaline, things like that.

"They finally figured out what I could have and I couldn't have, and I've just been doing that ever since."

The 33-year-old Massachusetts native is now a veteran professional athlete, with 12 seasons in the NHL and an Olympic silver medal as a member of the U.S. hockey team at Salt Lake City in 2002. He's proof that even the most sensitive of constitutions can be productive at the most demanding of occupations.

"I don't think it's real easy for him, but it's something that he's adjusted to," teammate Brooks Laich said. "Especially with the amount of travel - you're on airplanes, you're in hotels. Kudos to Tom for just adjusting and being strong himself with it."

When the team flies to road games, the charter company has a list of Poti's allergens. When players go out to eat at a restaurant in another city, Poti will speak to the chef personally "and make sure he can take care of me. ... That's the safest way to do it."

"I eat a lot of the same stuff most guys do," Poti said. "I can have chicken, steak, hamburgers, turkey - it just has to be plain. I don't cook with any oils or any spices. If I eat chicken, it's just plain grilled chicken. If I eat steak, it's just plain steak. Hamburger, I don't put any mustard, relish or ketchup or stuff on it - just plain."

Poti, his family and his teammates - he's been in Washington since 2007 - are so used to his routine that it has become second nature.

General manager George McPhee says Poti's allergies have never been an issue, and the few minor things the staff does on Poti's behalf are hardly an imposition. It's been eight years since Poti's last major scare, when he grabbed a bottle of his sister's lotion in the bathroom because his face and neck were dry. He didn't look at the ingredients, so he didn't realize it contained some type of nut oil.

"I started breaking out in hives and got rushed to the hospital," he said.

Poti carries an EpiPen everywhere he goes. At home, his wife does most of the cooking and has become good at being creative.

"There's certain things I've found that I can have. I use a lot of Italian dressing on things to spice stuff up for me," Poti said. "And I found a pasta sauce that agrees with me."

Poti serves as a spokesman for the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network.

"The biggest thing I tell kids - I've spoken to a lot of kids over the years - is don't let it hold you back," Poti said. "It's not easy, but I always tell them that everybody has something to deal with, everybody has some kind of problem, and I tell them the way I look at it: I'm fortunate, I can't eat this certain thing, but there's a lot of other things I can do."

Here's another way to put Poti's allergies in perspective. Over the last nine months, he's had two medical scares that are just as worrisome - if not more so - than his food allergies.

Last April 26, he was struck in his right eye by a puck during a playoff game. The impact broke four bones in his face, and he lost sight in the eye for more than 24 hours. He had plastic surgery and his sight recovered enough for him to return for the start of the season.

He still doesn't have 100 per cent feeling in his face, and the long-term prognosis for the eye is uncertain in part because of the steroid drops he's been using.

"Any time I could eat something and could go into anaphylactic shock," Poti said during training camp, "but the scariest thing for me was the eye."

Poti started wearing a visor on the ice, which his wife and mother had wanted for years.

"It's weird. It fogs up, and it gets wet and you can't see," Poti said. "It's a lot hotter under there, but I made some promises so I've got to keep it on. It's probably a good thing."

On Dec. 23, Poti suffered a concussion in the Capitals' overtime loss to Pittsburgh. The constant headaches caused him to miss three games - including the rematch against the Penguins in the Winter Classic - and to take the usual barrage of tests before returning last week.

Again, it made a hamburger without mustard seem trivial.

"With your allergies, usually if you stay away from some things, you're OK," Poti said after his first game back. "With a concussion, you never know what's going to happen."

Re: Articles

Thanks for the articles Dean- One of your links was cut short....it should read:
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/Positive%20predictors%20of%20teacher%20effectiveness.2009.pdf

We're off on a road trip this week, but I hope to start adding to the board soon. Thanks to all for the constant contributions.

Dave

Re: Articles

www.TED.com

Sir Ted Robinson on Creativity. It inspired me so much that I promptly ordered his book for my Kindle!

(More than welcome Dave! Thanks for adding that link. I enjoy sharing things I read / see / my experiences. I like to help fellow coaches as I believe we should be working together in the coaching / teaching fraternity to make ourselves better - this will rub off on our students / players. Lifelong learning should be our goal - otherwise, our "know-it-all" egos will get the better of us and we will stagnate.

Best of luck with your squad!)

So to keep this thread true to it's roots, here is the aforementioned presentation from www.TED.com:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.

Re: Articles

Agents join injured Crosby in asking for action on head shots

By DAVID SHOALTS January 18, 2011

Globe and Mail Update

Players' representatives say rule interpretation is impossible to get right

As Sidney Crosby issued a carefully-worded denial that he would boycott the NHL all-star game because the culprits behind his concussion escaped serious punishment, calls on the league to strengthen its new rule on head shots came from both player and management sides.

J.P. Barry of CAA Sports, who represents the Sedin twins, Daniel Alfredsson and others, firmly believes that the NHL needs to go one step further and ban all blows to the head.

"I am supportive of a football-type rule," said Barry, who noted that it shouldn't be up to hockey operations to decide if a hit was intentional or not because "it's impossible to get it right. The football rule eliminates any uncertainty. It sends a message to the players - that you just can't hit anybody in the head anymore."

Other prominent agents, such as Don Meehan, Don Baizley and Kurt Overhardt, also said it is time to push for a change. Meehan and Overhardt said any lobbying by the agents is best done through the NHL Players' Association and its new executive director, Don Fehr.

"Protecting players' ability to play is as important as any [bargaining] issue," Overhardt said.

There is a sense of unhappiness around the players' union with the way the NHL hands out supplementary discipline such as suspensions for head shots. Those close to the union feel this could become part of the negotiations for a new collective agreement next year.

The number of concussions suffered by NHL players this season, ranging from mild to serious, is now 33. Phoenix Coyotes assistant coach Dave King, whose team just lost defenceman David Schlemko when he was struck on the head by Scott Nichol of the San Jose Sharks, said the affect on hockey "is paralyzing."

Schlemko is the third Coyote to be sidelined with a concussion, joining Ed Jovanovski and Kurt Sauer, who also missed 80 games last season with a head injury. Nichol was suspended by the NHL for four games for the Schlemko hit.

"Every time a guy gets hit now you're holding your breath," King said. "It's affecting our sport. It's paralyzing."

King concurred that the absence of Crosby attracted greater attention to the head shot/concussion issue and believes the NHL is "trying to do the right thing.

"What I like now is that everything goes to replay. Almost every hit is looked at by the league. You can't escape the camera. Will it change the culture? Probably in time it will. It's ridiculous now how many players are on the shelf."

Crosby, who has not played since absorbing head hits from David Steckel of the Washington Capitals on Jan. 1 and Victor Hedman of the Tampa Bay Lightning on Jan. 5, said Tuesday he is feeling better but there is only a "slight chance" he will be healthy enough to play in the all-star game Jan. 30.

While Crosby dismissed a Globe and Mail report on Tuesday, which suggested his anger about the lack of suspensions for Steckel and Hedman was enough to have considered skipping the all-star game even if he were healthy, his presence at the game remains up in the air. Two years ago, Crosby attended the all-star game in Montreal to make public appearances, even though he could not play because of a knee injury.

The NHL and NHLPA did not pick Crosby as one of the captains for this year's game because of concerns he would not be healthy enough to play. Brendan Shanahan, the NHL's vice-president of hockey and business development, said Crosby told him "he wanted to do as much as he can" for the showcase event but they did not discuss his attendance.

"We didn't get into that," Shanahan said.

Crosby said, "I'll be there if I can be there and I still haven't ruled out being there."

A major part of the debate is the intention of players who deliver a hit to the head. One of the reasons Steckel and Hedman were not suspended is that their hits were deemed accidental but Crosby's agent, Pat Brisson, and others say players should be accountable no matter what.

"A head shot may not be premeditated but a player should suffer the consequences," Meehan said.

There is also a lingering controversy about the initial medical treatment Crosby received. While Brisson said he now believes the first hit, by Steckel, led to the concussion, the diagnosis was not made until Jan. 6, the day after he was hit by Hedman.

The Penguins insist Crosby did not show any symptoms aside from a sore neck in the days after the first hit. Brisson said neither he nor Crosby have any complaints about how the team handled his injury.

With reports from Eric Duhatschek, Allan Maki, Matthew Sekeres and The Associated Press

Re: Articles

Lindros: Players' disdain for each other poisonous

By Jeff Blair January 19, 2011

From Thursday's Globe and Mail

Former NHL MVP says it will take a culture change to limit concussions

His words are measured and without self-pity. Yes, he will add his voice to those crying out for more respect among National Hockey League players, but attempts to get Eric Lindros to connect his own history of concussions to what Sidney Crosby is going through, or about to go through, get nowhere.

After a career ruined by six concussions and resulting political battles with a game and power structure that didn't want to know what it was really dealing with, Lindros is all too aware that each concussion, let alone each person's response to it, is unique, both in terms of rehabilitation and reintegration into the game. The star player is targeted; the third or fourth-liner worries about his job. Culture change? Good luck with that.

"What happens is you get tagged as being concussion prone, and there's a huge decline in the respect you get because of it," Lindros said in a telephone interview on Wednesday. "It's people trying to make their name, you know? It's little things that occur after the play, like when it switches out of the corner and the play goes up the ice and you're spinning around heading back up to back check and - bam! You know ... where they kind of catch you."

Is culture change coming to the NHL as a result of Crosby's concussion? Or could it be that the only thing that has now happened is that Crosby has just had a target put on his back for the rest of his career? The answer depends on whether NHL players and agents realize how utterly daft they look.

Forget the owners. Forget Gary Bettman or Colin Campbell. They live in a muddle of money and rules and politics; by nature they can't see the forest for the trees. They are lost causes. The agents are speaking up - some of them, at least - but mostly to throw the issue in the lap of the National Hockey League Players' Association.

Note to the agents: You want change? Spend some money and get everybody together at the all-star game and go behind a locked door. Keep the press out. Turn off the BlackBerries. And read your players the riot act. Stress zero tolerance for a shot to the head, any hit above the shoulders. Then lobby for Draconian suspensions. If a few players get screwed for clearly accidental hits? Too bad. The game will go on without them.

Respect?

"Well, we used to talk about this all the time when I was at the players' association," Lindros says, his voice trailing off.

You wait for the next statement. It never comes.

Lindros believes the seminal moment for the discussion of concussions and sports occurred in October of 2009 when the iconic CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes devoted a segment to concussions among NFL players and a possible link to early-onset dementia. "That's when the big push finally started, it seems," Lindros said. "The pressure initially was on the NFL. But then it moved to other organizations."

Is this the NHL's come-to-Jesus moment? As Lindros noted, it is both "ironic and unfortunate" that it appears as if it's taken a concussion sustained by the game's biggest name to create at least a sense of movement. Once upon a time he was that name - or one of them - and nobody seemed to learn much from the lesson that was his career.

So let's see what happens the first time Crosby is back on the ice and in a vulnerable position, with some rock-head circling. "Guys take liberties," Lindros said matter-of-factly. That they do, and until that stops, there will be no culture change. Just lost opportunity and, most likely, more lost careers.

The NHL can't say it wasn't warned.
-----


Bouchard knows concussion struggle all too well

By ERIC DUHATSCHEK January 21, 2011
Globe and Mail Update

Eric Duhatschek talks to the Minnesota Wild forward about the injuries that cost him more than 100 games in his weekly notebook column

A view from the front lines of the NHL's concussion debate must, of necessity, include a chat with the Minnesota Wild's Pierre-Marc Bouchard, who missed a staggering 104 games over parts of two seasons recovering from a pair of debilitating, career-threatening concussions.

Bouchard never ever thought he would be out as long he was, which goes to the heart of the concussion conundrum. At the time the injuries occur, the players themselves are in the worst position to self-diagnose because they are, after all, suffering from a brain injury that impairs judgment.

"Concussions are really tricky," Bouchard was saying, before the Wild clobbered Calgary 6-0 to sweep the two Alberta teams and unexpectedly move into contention for a playoff berth in the Western Conference.

Bouchard is scoring again, but freely acknowledges that even 24 games into his return, he has not got his old form back.

"To be honest, I don't think it's there, 100 per cent yet," said Bouchard. "I was out for so long. Some games, I feel my game is there. Sometimes, I know there's part of my game that can still be better - that what I used to do in the past, I can be better doing. It's been okay. There are good things and bad things I do in the game, but I think I'm heading in the right direction."

Bouchard was reiterating a point that came up again and again this past week - that the players themselves have a difficult time assessing how bad an injury is, especially when it first occurs.

Pat Brisson, the influential player agent who represents Sidney Crosby and others, says the support group that surrounds an NHL player needs to be at the front of the diagnostic line when it comes to concussion treatment.

"If someone is slightly concussed and we see that, it's our responsibility - meaning the people around the game, the teams, the union, all of us - to be responsible enough to take the player off the ice," said Brisson. "Because the concussed player can't think straight. He doesn't have a bad shoulder. He's concussed."

As for observing the proper back-to-playing protocols, Bouchard suggests that it can be difficult for a player to be honest with himself in terms of the recovery process.

"I had kind of back-to-back concussions and my second one, when I got hit, the next day, I didn't feel right, but you're not sure it's a concussion, because we get hit all the time and your neck is sore and you get headaches sometimes. You think, 'maybe I'll feel better the next day.'

"Then you get into action and your heart rate goes up really high and you're starting to have headaches, so ... I think guys have to be smart about it, because it's not fun to have that injury. If you have a small one and you make sure you're 100 per cent before your next game, you might miss five, six, seven days and then you're fine.

"So I think we have to be a little smarter about how you feel - and I think it's only the player who can say how he feels."

But Bouchard also acknowledged that the most difficult part of the equation is dealing with a players' natural instinct - that he can put up with whatever he's dealing with, that he'll be okay, that he can tough it out, because that is the ethic they've grown up with.

"As hockey players, we don't like to miss games," said Bouchard. "You think you can play through it. You think you'll be able to get rid of it the next few days - and you might. But if you get hit again, there's that danger - that you could get an even bigger concussion."

Re: Articles

NHL TO INVESTIGATE LOMBARDI COMMENTS CRITICIZING LEAGUE

TSN.CA STAFF
Jan 21 2011

The NHL will investigate alleged comments made by Los Angeles Kings general manager Dean Lombardi that called into question the integrity of Mike Murphy, the NHL's senior vice-president of hockey operations.

Lombardi's comments came after the Kings' 2-0 loss to the Phoenix Coyotes Thursday night, after a controversial opening goal by Martin Hanzal was allowed to stand.

Hanzal, standing in front of L.A.'s net, appeared to bat the puck out of the air with a high stick. Officials immediately ruled it a goal, and after more than five minutes of video review with the crew in Toronto - led by Murphy - the goal stood.

"When the guy in Toronto making the decisions on the goals, in Ottawa and the one tonight, wanted the G.M.'s job in L.A. and was not happy about not getting it, you have to assume you are going to get those type of calls," Lombardi was quoted as saying on the Kings' website. "However, we have put ourselves in a position where these calls have a monumental effect on our season, and we're going to have to find a way out of it ourselves."

Lombardi made reference to L.A.'s Nov. 22 game in Ottawa, another time this season where he felt the on-ice officiating crew and video review team in Toronto made the incorrect call. In that game, officials disallowed Ryan Smyth's potential game-tying goal with three seconds left in the game. Video replay did not overturn the call on the ice.

Murphy played 10 seasons with the Kings (1974-83) before becoming an assistant coach with the team for two-and-a-half seasons. He was a head coach for parts of the 1986-87 and '88-'89 seasons, stepping in as a mid-season replacement.

Kings head coach Terry Murray also voiced his displeasure in the report.

"I don't know why we have video replay in the National Hockey League," Murray said Thursday on LAKings.com. "That's all I can say. If the replay is there for review of goals and non-goals...I don't know. You've got a guy who gets credit for the goal. He's 6-foot-6, and the stick is up above his head. Matt Greene is 6'3", and he's batting the puck down his hand beside his ear, and the net is four feet high. It doesn't add up.

"It makes no sense. No sense. How does it get called on the ice a goal, first of all, and then how does the replay hold it up? I don't know. I don't have an answer."

Murphy defended his team's decision during the Kings' broadcast on Fox, saying there was no conclusive replay to overturn the goal. He said the crew in Toronto never saw the puck conclusively hit Hanzal's stick, while all the on-ice officials agreed on the goal call.

Once the league confirms with Lombardi that he did indeed make the comments, the NHL is expected to respond with some form of discipline.
-----



Kings GM likely facing a steep fine

Globe and Mail Blog

Posted on Friday, January 21, 2011

Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday we ask the Globe’s roster of hockey writers to weigh in on an issue from the world of puck.

Today we ask the guys to do weigh in on a statement made last night by Los Angeles Kings general manager Dean Lombardi after a video review failed to overturn a second-period goal by the Phoenix Coyotes in a game the Kings lost 2-0.

The question: How much do you think the NHL will fine Lombardi for his comments?

MICHAEL GRANGE

Well it might be mitigated somewhat because he was right about the poor call, if the photographic evidence is meaningful; and it doesn’t appear that Mike Murphy is going to be out of the lineup for any length of time despite a pretty egregious hit from behind; so I say $50,000.

SEAN GORDON

Whatever happened to 'it's strictly business, not personal'? Didn't these people see the Godfather?

I'll grab any excuse to reference Michael Corleone, but in actual fact, I kinda like what Lombardi did. Not because he's right about Murphy's motivations (although it was certainly a horsespit call, one of many this year), but because any time someone cracks the go-along-to-get-along veneer of the old boy network marks a good day.

I'd guess Lombardi and Murray could both be fined, although by taking a personal run at Murphy, the Deaner will surely be on the hook for the bigger amount. Grange's $50,000 sounds about right, but the league doesn't have a sense of humour about this kind of stuff so it could be significantly more.

You can't have coaches and general managers publicly impugning the integrity of the process, but boy is it fun when they do.

ERIC DUHATSCHEK

The NHL considers some offences more egregious than others and this one - impugning the integrity of someone in the hockey operations department - ranks right at the top of the list. Remember how they went to the mattresses over the Stephane Auger-Alex Burrows matter a year ago, closing ranks around their referee, even if Auger’s conduct in accosting Burrows before the game left him over to criticism? The NHL would have none of that. Burrows was the bad guy; their man squeaky clean, end of story.

I would suggest that Lombardi’s outburst is the frustration of a 2-10 losing streak talking. These Kings were 12-3 in the first month and on their way. Since then, they’ve been arguably the worst team in the Western Conference - or close to it anyway - and Lombardi’s attempts to trade for what he likes to call a “big dog” have proved fruitless. The result is a team without a coalescing force in the dressing room to dig them out of their current predicament.

However much they fine is anybody’s guess. It’ll be steep and I suspect there’ll be a forced formal apology coming later today, in which Lombardi mutters a series of mea culpas and pledges never, ever to say anything as untoward as that ever again.

ALLAN MAKI

Here's a copy of Dean Lombardi's forced apology to the NHL:

"I would like to same I am sorry the NHL and senior vice-president of hockey operations Mike Murphy were offended by my recent comments. I'm sorry the NHL has such lousy officiating and review procedures. I apologize for questioning what is already a flawed process in need of revision. I am sincerely sorry we got hosed by a bad call when there were people in South America who saw it was a bad call but could not voice displeasure with Mr. Murphy, who is in Toronto and wanted this job.

"Thank you, with much apologies.

Dean Lombardi

MATTHEW SEKERES

Lombardi only gets fined if it's a crime to point out conflicts of interests in the NHL's hockey operations department. Because as we know, thanks to Colin "Venting Hockey Dad" Campbell, the conflict of interest itself is "much ado about nothing."

JEFF BLAIR

Maybe they can find another unemployed ex-player to put on the league payroll.

Re: Articles

THN.com Blog: Gorilla-sized goalies populate NHL

Ryan Dixon
2011-01-19

How big are goalies these days? Big enough to fill in for the guys charged with the task of protecting them, if need be.

Former NHL puckstopper Kevin Weekes is a large man himself, but even he can’t help but marvel at the current size of crease creatures such as Montreal’s MVP, 6-foot-3, 219-pound Carey Price.

“When I saw Carey for the first time last year – in person, not playing against him, but actually in the rink when I spoke to him in Edmonton – he’s stay-at-home defenseman big,” Weekes said. “I’m 6-foot-1 and I can go anywhere between 215 and 225. I’m muscular, but this guy is muscular and tall. He could just as easily be a shutdown ‘D’ crunching guys along the boards.”

I spoke with Weekes about Price because he’s the subject of a cover story for an upcoming goalie-themed issue of The Hockey News. A few other components of that issue include introducing some new-to-the-scene masked men, such as 6-foot-2 Corey Crawford in Chicago, 6-foot-6 Anders Lindback in Nashville and 6-foot-3 Ondrej Pavelec in Atlanta. It also has a top 30 goalie ranking, where players such as 6-foot-2 Jonas Hiller of Anaheim and Lindback’s Nashville buddy, 6-foot-5 Pekka Rinne, receive high praise.

It’s interesting to note that in the post-lockout NHL, players who would have at one time been dismissed for their smaller dimensions are being given a chance to thrive, whereas in goal, you wonder if the opposite is true. Not that long ago, the blue paint was home to sub-six-foot stars such as Curtis Joseph, Mike Vernon, Mike Richter and Grant Fuhr. The difference is so pronounced now that 5-foot-10 Chris Osgood, a starting goalie on two Cup-winning Detroit teams, has wondered aloud whether he’d get a second look these days if he was magically transported back to junior.

The shift in goal isn’t just about long and lanky stoppers. Some of the best goalies in the game now are also some of the strongest athletes in hockey, period. Once upon a time, big and bulky seemed counter to quick and nimble, but with goaltending techniques more finely crafted than ever, it’s led to the desire for big, puck-blocking physiques.

“There’s less of a stigma that comes with being a muscular goalie,” Weekes said. “People used to always say, ‘Weeksie, you’re a goalie, why are you lifting weights?’

“Jonas Hiller is a perfect example. Very strong, explosive lower body and that’s what helps him play the style he plays so effectively.”

Goaltending is about the most bottom-line position in sports, so anybody getting the job done consistently is going to find work. But more and more, the big bodies that used to either whack home or clear rebounds in front of the crease can now be found standing directly in it.


Ryan Dixon is a writer and copy editor for The Hockey News magazine, the co-author of the book Hockey's Young Guns and a regular contributor to THN.com. His blog appears Wednesdays.

Re: Articles

Talk of penalizing head shots picks up momentum

By SEAN GORDON January 20, 2011
From Friday's Globe and Mail

Crosby's recent concussion has NHL power brokers considering their options


There are few genuine coincidences in life.

So when people as disparate as National Hockey League general managers, super-agents and organized labour types spontaneously begin using identical analogies to frame an issue, it's fair to say something is afoot.

The analogy: The NHL penalizes even accidental high-sticking, so why couldn't it sanction blows to the head in a similar way?

Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Ray Shero used precisely those terms in arguing for more urgent action against head shots in an interview this week, as did player agent Pat Brisson, who represents injured Pens superstar Sidney Crosby.

Speaking privately, people familiar with the goings-on at the National Hockey League Players' Association - one of whom raised the high-stick comparison - suggested it's probably just a matter of time before the NHL adopts some version of a rule like those already in place in the Ontario Hockey League and elsewhere forbidding checks to the head.

Even if such a rule isn't in the NHL's immediate plans, the discussion about the need to do more to curb head shots is taking place among hockey people - Carolina Hurricanes GM Jim Rutherford and St. Louis Blues president John Davidson have also spoken out - spurred by the recent concussion suffered by Crosby.

Rutherford said he plans to raise the head shot question again at the general managers' meeting in March, and that while "rule 48 is working, can we make it better is the question?"

And while he too stopped short of supporting an outright ban on checks to the head, Rutherford brushed aside the main criticism of that type of rule.

"[Detractors] say it's going to take hitting out of the game. But in my opinion, any time we put in a rule for the players, they always adapt to it," he said. "Whatever we decide to do, the players are going to adjust to it. But at the end of the day, the object is to protect the player and the most important part of their body, the head."

The Hurricanes GM, a longtime advocate for more decisive action on head shots, said "we took a good step last year, but this is a serious issue . . . we don't want players like the best player in the world out of the game because of this injury - or any other player."

Shero is willing to ask the question as to whether a head-checking ban is appropriate, even if he stopped short of answering in the affirmative ("I'm not saying that's the way to go yet.")

Still, he said, "there's an awful lot of players who come to the NHL, whether it's from the OHL, U.S. college or International Ice Hockey Federation countries ... where they've played under those rules."

It's possible for players to change their game to fit new rules, Shero continued, citing the fallout from two cases from last season that made him uncomfortable: the hits by Philadelphia Flyers forward Mike Richards on Florida's David Booth, and by Pittsburgh's Matt Cooke on Boston's Marc Savard.

The NHL adopted its blindside hit rule not long after the latter incident, and Shero said it's had an effect.

"I told Matt [Cooke] that I didn't like the [Savard] hit, and I told him he'll have to change his mentality ... especially in back-pressure situations in the neutral zone. And he has," Shero said, later adding "we see the Flyers a lot, and I have a lot of respect for Mike Richards as a player, and if you watch you can see he's changed how he plays in the neutral zone ... players will adapt."

But at the same time, he continued, the current rule doesn't address other kinds of checks, citing the November check by New York Rangers defenceman Marc Staal on Calgary centre Matt Stajan as an example of legal hits he feels have no place in the NHL.

"I really believe we need to do more to get head shots out of our game," he said.

Brisson, a former player who is broadly considered the most influential agent in hockey, said this week that he favours an unambiguous, unforgiving rule where "even if someone hits someone accidentally, he could be automatically suspended."

The Ontario Hockey League's rule 44B.1 is simply worded, and bans "the act of checking an opponent to the head in any manner." The league's rulebook further specifies that "a hit to the head with a shoulder shall be considered an illegal check and shall be penalized as checking to the head."

Whether the penalty assessed is a minor, a major or a match penalty is left up to the referees.

The rule, which was adopted four years ago, hasn't eliminated concussions in the OHL, nor has it done away with head shots altogether; last week the Kitchener Rangers' Cody Sol was suspended for three games for a head check on an Erie Otters player.

But as OHL commissioner Dave Branch has long argued, nor have the critics' darkest predictions come true: that the regulation would undermine the physical aspect of the game.

Still, several NHL players surveyed informally in recent days remain skeptical; it's reasonable to surmise the rough consensus among players is there is no consensus.

Many appear leery of what they see as a sea change and invoke a "slippery slope" argument, pointing out the difficulties in, for example, 6-foot-9 Boston defenceman Zdeno Chara hitting Buffalo's 5-foot-6 Nathan Gerbe without touching his head.

"How do you police it? There's contact with the head all the time, every game," said a member of the Montreal Canadiens, who, like colleagues interviewed on other teams, didn't wish to have his name used. "It's a contact sport."

With a report from Eric Duhatschek


CTVglobemedia Publishing, Inc

Re: Articles

Tough sport, but no head shots

ROY MacGREGOR Published Friday, Jan. 21, 2011
From Saturday's Globe and Mail



There are, as Canadians continually forget, two officially recognized national sports in this hockey-mad country.

Lacrosse is the other one.

And just perhaps, in this time of greater hockey madness than most winters, the one national game has a lesson to pass on to the other national game.

Lacrosse, or baggataway, as it was once known, is no stranger to violence and injury. Blood runs from the game’s role in the capture of Fort Michilimackinac nearly 250 years ago to recent decades in the lacrosse boxes of small-town and suburban Canada. I grew up in one such community myself – Huntsville, Ont. – where hockey was the winter game, lacrosse the summer game, and lacrosse considered the tougher of the two sports to survive.

But no more. Something happened in recent years that has seen a flip-flop between the two national games, with lacrosse dealing with its violence and injury issues and hockey seemingly without the foggiest notion of what to do – even the answer is as obvious as simply saying no, no more.

The National Lacrosse League – as well as various other lacrosse organizations – long ago moved against hits to the head because, as John Tavares, one of the game’s all-time greats, says, “It was simply getting out of hand.

“It was common for players to go for the head,” says the NLL’s career scoring leader. “I’ve personally taken my own shots at other guys. It had to stop.”

The league now has Rule 77 dealing with “dangerous contact to the head” and a myriad of other rules and regulations that have dramatically changed the way the game is played around the head, without significantly affecting how it is played around the net.

A player who dangerously strikes another in the head or neck is considered to have engaged in “egregious conduct.” Not only is it a major penalty, but on first offence the player is given a one-game suspension and fined $1,000.

A $1,000 fine for a professional lacrosse player is roughly the equivalent of an NHLer crashing his Hummer through the front window of his Muskoka cottage.

As well, all players are required to wear a proper helmet, facemask and chin guard. Mouth guards are also compulsory. And you do up your strap, tightly, in lacrosse – or else.

There are strong penalties against high-sticking in the head area, elbowing and boarding. The strict rules cannot prevent all head injuries – two Canadians in the NLL, the Philadelphia Wings’ Merrick Thomson and the Colorado Mammoth’s Dan Carey have missed long periods because of concussion – but they are most certainly a long step forward when compared to hockey’s seemingly frozen ability to act.

“I think it’s great,” says Mr. Tavares, who stars for the Buffalo Bandits. “When you consider the number of head shots we see in all sports, it’s obviously out of hand.”

Putting an end to such hits isn’t only for the benefit of the players, he says, but for their families and whatever work they do when not playing lacrosse. The 42-year-old Mr. Tavares is himself a high-school math teacher in Mississauga and knows only too well the effects of concussion. He has been through it twice.

“It’s not fun,” he says. “Once you’ve had one, the symptoms return easier each time. Last weekend, I got hit a couple of times – head-to-head collisions during play – and my vision in my left eye began to go blurry. I knew what it was. It went away, but it was because of those previous concussions.”

Last October, he was watching the New York Islanders’ home opener against the Dallas Stars when his 20-year-old nephew, also named John Tavares, got clipped by Dallas’s Adam Burish. The younger Mr. Tavares, the NHL’s No. 1 draft pick in 2009, had just suffered the league’s first concussion of the 2010-11 season. It was, fortunately, fairly minor; he only missed the next three games.

“I saw the hit,” says the older Mr. Tavares. “It was whiplash effect more than anything else. My advice to him was simple: take your time coming back.

“One thing with concussions is that you think you’re better, you’re convinced you’re better, and you go out and play and then, a week later, you’re playing again and you realize you weren’t back at all when you thought you were.”

Mr. Tavares, the lacrosse player, says he learned this lesson several years ago when he felt well enough to play again and even convinced himself that, “I was well enough that I could cut through the middle again” – basically bull-ing his way toward the opposition net. “My body knew different. I shouldn’t have tried. The following week I realized that now I felt 100-per-cent better than I had when I tried to convince myself I was already to play.”

The solution in any game where concussions are a threat, he says, is obvious: “There should be no hits to the head.”

And while the total elimination of such hits is impossible in games as fast and physical as Canada’s two national sports, there are ways to reduce the number of concussions significantly.

“The penalties have to be more severe,” he says. “Two minutes? That’s no big deal. Five minutes? Well, some teams would be willing to take that risk, so long as it meant getting a good player out of the game. It’s got to be severe.

“The National Lacrosse League has done a good job, in my opinion. Seven or eight years ago there were guys taking head shots every game – me included – and now you don’t see it.

“So, No. 1 – it’s good for the game.”

Roy MacGregor usually appears Tuesdays and Saturdays in The Globe and Mail’s Sports section

Re: Articles

MCKENZIE: FOUR RULE CHANGES SCOTTY BOWMAN WOULD LIKE TO SEE

BOB MCKENZIE TSN
1/24/2011

I had the pleasure of watching a hockey game with Scotty Bowman on Saturday night and as you would expect when sitting with the greatest NHL coach of all time, it was a fascinating night of talking about the game and the way it's played.

Bowman is, of course, a consultant of sorts for the Chicago Blackhawks and his son, Hawks GM Stan Bowman, but what Scotty mostly does now at age 77 is watch hockey, a lot of hockey. It doesn't matter what league or what level or what teams, it's all just hockey to him. He is as fascinated by it now as we are when he offers up the changes he would make to the game, which aren't so much innovations as they are a return to the way things once were.

"There are only four changes I would make," he said, and here they are:

1. Put the redline back in for two-line pass offside until the puck carrier reaches the top of the face-off circle in his own end.

"I don't like that," Bowman said, pointing to a defenceman on his own goalline firing the puck hard up the boards to a teammate at the far blueline, who tips the puck into the offensive zone. "I want to see defencemen make a play. Force him to get the puck to the top of the circles in his own end before you open up the whole netural zone for a pass."

Bowman also thinks that might encourage more forechecking to prevent a player from getting to the top of the circles and putting the whole neutral zone in play.

2. Take out the trapezoid and allow goaltenders to handle the puck anywhere on the ice.

Bowman said it would help protect defencemen from being pulverized on the forecheck and while a good puckhandling goalie could neutralize an opposing team's forecheck, a bad puckhandling goalie could result in turnovers and more offence.

3. Eliminate the automatic delay of game penalty for a player in the defensive zone, who shoots the puck out of play.

"I would like to see it be at the referee's discretion," Bowman said. "The refs know if it's an accident or intentional. Let the ref make the call."

4. Return to traditional offside -- get rid of the tag-up.

"Again, I want to see defencemen make a play with the puck, not just slap it into the offensive zone and just stand there waiting (for teammates to clear the zone)," Bowman said. "Hold onto the puck, try to make something happen, maybe he makes a play, maybe he turns it over. But force him to make a play."

5. Return to 10 feet between the goalline and end boards at each end and have three equal zones of 60-feet apiece, as opposed to the smaller neutral zone/larger offensive zones we now have.

"The offensive zone is too big now," Bowman said. "That's why you see all five guys collapse to the front of the net and you have forwards playing goalie. If the zone were smaller, they (the defensive players) might spread out a bit and go after pucks up top. There would also be more forechecking."

Wait a minute, Bowman originally said he had only four changes he would make. Yeah, well, you tell the greatest coach of all time he doesn't get last change.

Re: Articles

Current, former NHL players lose more than $13-million in resort deal

DAVID SHOALTS AND ERIC DUHATSCHEK
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Jan. 26, 2011


Len Barrie’s misadventures in leading the Bear Mountain golf resort and real-estate development into bankruptcy left more than 100 angry investors and creditors in his wake, including 18 current and former National Hockey League players who lost a total of more than $13-million.

Sean Burke, goaltender coach for the Phoenix Coyotes, is one of the unfortunate 18, having lost more than $600,000. What angers him more than losing the money is the impression Barrie, who used his share of Bear Mountain to help buy part of the Tampa Bay Lightning in 2008, is not going to face any consequences.

“How does a guy get away with being able to build something to that level, with everybody else’s money, and then not be accountable at the end of the day?” Burke said. “He’s walking away with a hell of a lot more than he ever walked in [with], whereas everybody else is walking away with nothing.”

Burke and his fellow investors will see nothing from the bankruptcy settlement. The majority of Bear Mountain was taken over by its biggest creditor, HSBC Canada, last fall. The bank agreed to pay a group of unsecured creditors $500 each with a promise that if a sale of the assets exceeded $195-million in the next three years, some of the excess would go to them. No such promises were made to the investors.

However, on Friday afternoon in a Victoria courtroom, Barrie, 41, will have to provide answers for at least some of his actions at the nearby resort. He is facing charges under the Income Tax Act for not filing tax returns for 2008 and 2009 for Bear Mountain Projects, a small company connected to Bear Mountain Master Partnership, the parent company of the development.

There may be more trouble on the horizon for the former NHL player and owner in addition to a Canada Revenue Agency investigation. The RCMP’s commercial crime unit on Vancouver Island is interviewing people connected with Barrie and Bear Mountain.

Scott Bye, a former member of Bear Mountain’s executive committee, confirmed Tuesday he was interviewed by the RCMP, as did another source who did not want to be identified. In September of 2009, several months before Bear Mountain wobbled into bankruptcy protection, Bye said Barrie admitted using company funds to buy his share of the Lightning.

Barrie denied any wrongdoing at the time and did so again Tuesday. He also said the tax returns in question are now filed. “Everything should be done and filed,” Barrie said.

Barrie added that he is not aware of an RCMP investigation. The RCMP did not respond to a request for comment.

As for Burke and the other unhappy investors, Barrie said that is just the way the ball bounces in the real-estate game. Bear Mountain was caught in the vise of the recession, which dried up bank credit, and falling real-estate prices.

“No one’s very happy,” Barrie said. “What can you do? The world blew up. It was one of those things that happens. It didn’t work out.

“I don’t think Sean Burke understands everything. You’ve just got to start all over again. Things were great for eight years and then the world blew up.”

What Burke doesn’t understand is how Barrie can maintain what appears to be an upscale lifestyle in the wake of the resort’s collapse and the loss of so much money.

“Basically, what he did was turn all this into his own personal bank account,” Burke said. “At the end of the day, when all is said and done, he just funded a lifestyle for himself with everybody else’s money. He was able to buy an NHL hockey club. He was able to do other investments around B.C.

“And here you’ve got these investors, ex-hockey players, who lost anywhere between $650,000 to a million.”

Burke says he’s come to terms with the fact that his investment is lost for good.

“Okay, I lost some money,” Burke said. “I’ve lost money in other investments. You go into investments, you know there’s some risk.”

Barrie still has a home at Bear Mountain that was worth millions of dollars at one time. It was thought to be under foreclosure proceedings, but Barrie said Tuesday it is not even for sale. “We’ll see,” he replied when asked if it could wind up on the block.

As for whether he made a deal with HSBC in connection with the loans in excess of $300-million the bank made to Bear Mountain, Barrie declined to comment.

Burke is waiting to see what happens next for Barrie.

“My opinion with Lennie is, I hope he hasn’t done anything that lands him in jail,” Burke said. “But if that’s the case, then you walk away and say, well, it’s a lesson in investing.”

With a report from Brennan Clarke

NHL INVESTORS AMOUNT INVESTED
Mike Vernon $2-million (plus $7.6-million loan guarantee with HSBC)
Ray Whitney $3-million
Rob Blake $600,000
Sean Burke $600,000
Trevor Kidd $600,000
Scott Mellanby $600,000
Joe Nieuwendyk $600,000
Gary Roberts $600,000
Brian Savage $600,000
Ryan Smyth $600,000
Brian Carlin $600,000
Wes Walz $500,000
Jeff Finley $300,000
Todd Simpson $300,000
Matt Pettinger $150,000
Rob Niedermayer Unknown
Greg Adams Unknown

Source: Supreme Court of B.C. documents

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/current-former-nhl-players-lose-more-than-13-million-in-resort-deal/article1883049/

Re: Articles

Gretzky deserves an $8M birthday present

By STEVE SIMMONS, QMI Agency Jan 26 2011


TORONTO - What do you buy for the Wayne Gretzky who has everything on his 50th birthday?

If you’re the National Hockey League, maybe you start by writing a cheque for the $8 million or so dollars that were never paid out in the bankruptcy proceedings of the Phoenix Coyotes, wrap it all up in a birthday card and call it a day.

Maybe you start by making peace with The Great One, the most important NHL player in modern history, by doing the right thing, the overdue thing, to bring him back to your hockey family, making good on a debt the league essentially strung him out on.

Gretzky, as is his custom, has taken the high road on the matter of the millions he walked away from, after being deemed an unsecured creditor in Phoenix. That’s what he does in most situations, avoids controversy, and fortunately for him, it’s what he can afford to do financially. He could have sued the league. He certainly could have gone public and embarrassed the league.

Instead, as the career good soldier, he went quietly and rather inconspicuously away and removed himself from the Coyotes franchise and from the business of NHL hockey.

Today is Gretzky’s 50th birthday — like you didn’t know — and what better time for an on-the-rise NHL to come to terms with a debt that only makes them look weak. This is one day after an NHL press release indicated just how well the league is, in fact, doing.

For all we like to scream about trouble here and trouble there in the hockey world, the NHL release tells a different story. Their story. These are their words. This is expected to be the highest revenue season in hockey history. Sponsorship revenue is up 32%. Advertising on nhl.com and the NHL Network is up 55%. League-generated revenue is expected to grow 14% over last year and last year was a pretty impressive year economically. In the past four years, in an economic downturn, NHL revenues have increased by 85%.

Which should mean that writing a cheque for Gretzky would be a rather simple piece of business. A birthday present and a peace offering all at the same time.

He is, at least, part of the reason there are three NHL teams in California, not just the one he started with. He is, at least, part of the reason why there are more young Americans playing hockey than ever before, the numbers are on the rise annually. He is, at least, part of the reason why youth hockey is on the upswing in California and there are now first-round draft picks coming out of one of the least likely of states.

For all we like to attach to Gretzky about being the great Canadian — he’s lived 24 of his 50 years in the U.S. — he has had a greater impact on American hockey, on the growth of American franchises, rightly or wrongly in the NHL, on the southern expansion of the game, than he has, truly, on anything Canadian. In fact, you can make a case that if Gretzky never came along, and the NHL never went big time, there would still be franchises in Quebec City and Winnipeg. But the symbol of Gretzky and Canadian hockey lives, as all the 50th birthday tributes in print, radio and television have proven in recent days.

In the case of Gretzky vs. the NHL, the Great One did nothing wrong and also nothing right. He coached the Phoenix Coyotes. He was to be a part-owner of the team. He was paid hugely for learning on the job. But when he put aside his salary for the good of an operation running out of money, and because he could afford it, that changed everything. That meant he was owed, the way Mario Lemieux was once owed in Pittsburgh. The league didn’t make good with Lemieux, either, in that situation. Lemieux was wise enough to make his own ownership in a better market work for him.

Gretzky didn’t have any kind of similar opportunity.

Now as the previous Phoenix owner sues the NHL and the NHL sues back, the Gretzky money gets volleyed around as a part of legal sport. In the meantime, nobody wins. The NHL has a chance to make good with their greatest star. League revenue this year will be just under $3 billion. Why not take $8 million from that — or whatever the exact figure is — and send Wayne Gretzky a birthday present? It’s long overdue.

Re: Articles

Life still 'pretty good' for Brent

But Preds' Peterson says some days on the ice it's like 'walking in a straitjacket'

By Tony Gallagher, The Province January 26, 2011


There are some courageous people in the NHL but you'd have to go some to top former Vancouver Canuck centre and now Nashville assistant coach Brent Peterson.

As many know he's still coaching in this league eight years on after being diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, a mean piece of business for which there is no cure and not a whole lot to look forward to save a lot of heartache and torture for both the afflicted and his or her family members.

For Peterson's part, he would just as soon talk about hockey, how the Preds are having another great year behind defencemen Shea Weber, Ryan Suter and Kevin Klein who are stalwarts in front of the goaltending provided largely by Pekka Rinne.

When you try to give him some credit he quickly says, "Barry [head coach Trotz] is the guy," and then goes on to say his team almost beat Chicago last year in the first round and Detroit the year before that and that they are genuinely due to win a first-round matchup one of these years.

They didn't keep faceoff stats in his time, but he never lost a crucial draw in the defensive zone as a Canuck and he is almost certainly one of the all-time best at that part of the game. No Predator can take a draw unless they beat him four out of seven in practice, but now that the disease is taking its toll, more and more guys are beating him and that part really sucks for him.

As far as the rest goes, well, nobody tells it better than Brent himself.

"I'm still getting on the ice every day and enjoying keeping busy, but I'll be brutally honest, this is a progressive disease and it's progressing," says Peterson who, true to form, wants to be sure he doesn't stay on too long so as to do anything to hurt the team's chances. "Some days are real good, some days aren't so good and yes, there are more bad days than there were, but life is still pretty good. I do have some days where I get the freezing (your body freezes up making movement extremely difficult) and it's mostly on my right side, but I'm still going about my business getting my job done and it's been a real blessing.

"On those bad days I can still walk, but it's like you're in a straitjacket. Most days I'm just too busy to think about the future, and that's real good because I'm doing pretty well for a guy eight years on.

"I have friends who were diagnosed two, three years ago and they're in wheelchairs already, so I've been very lucky. And I really don't know where this is going. I don't really have a plan, all I know is that this is the last year on my contract and I want to make sure I don't stay on too long and hurt the team. I'd never do that.

"The bummer in all this is that it's robbed me of a chance of ever being a head coach, which was my goal and now it's taking away my work here. But I don't have time to think about it and brood, and that's the best part. It's what's kept me going. I think if I did, that is what gets people. Today is a good day because we've played back to back and today is a day off so I'm feeling good. I'm managing to get my sleep. I sleep a couple of hours here and there, and then I'll make up for it with a nap during the day. I get what I need most days.

"The thing about it is that it's not like cancer. With that disease, either you get better or you get worse and pass away, but with this, it doesn't kill you, it just eats away at you, makes life difficult, as everything you run into is an obstacle.

"I mean, it takes me an hour to shave in the morning and sometimes 45 minutes to get dressed for a game. My son designed a new way to do a top button because it was taking me forever to do that on my shirt because of the shaking. My hands, they just don't work.

"And of course it's tough on my wife, it's always so tough on the caregivers because of course they go through a lot of pain, but she's been great. She's such a beautiful, vivacious person and my kids, you can imagine but they've been great. My son Ryan is a doctor, Bradley works for us [the Preds] so he's right there with us and Kristin is 22 now. She just got married, so we're pretty happy about that.

"We've had great success with our Foundation, though. In three years we've raised over $100,000 for Parkinson's research with a run and a golf tournament. The website is PetersonforParkinsons.org and we give some of the money to the Michael J. Fox foundation and most to my doctor who heads up the Vanderbilt Parkinson's Research centre. Brian Grant [a retired NBA forward diagnosed two years ago with Parkinson's] came last year and we're trying to get Michael Fox this year. But all the guys come and we have a great day."

Those who know the disease know where it goes from here for everyone involved. Those who don't should be giving thanks to God for their good fortune. But go where it may, you'll be hard pressed to get Brent Peterson on a down day.

Re: Articles

The ethics of WHL trading


January 25, 2011

Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/life/ethics+trading/4167104/story.html#ixzz1CHwXn5hu


By Terry Bell

Sports Reporter

The WHL's Vancouver Giants have made 15 trades since July 30, but team general manager Scott Bonner says it's an ethical process.

He says they rarely trade younger players who are still attending school. Players range in age from 16 to 20.

"Our league frowns heavily upon trading kids who are in school," Bonner said Tuesday. "You avoid trading them at all costs, unless they come to you [and ask to be moved].

"We generally try not to ever move a school-age kid, unless they come to us and say it's just not working for them."

Bonner said players sometimes request a trade because they've come to Vancouver from a small town and can't adjust. Sometimes it's because they're having difficulty fitting in on the team.

"If you look at our track record we've done that [traded a school-age player] four or five times over the 10 years and in most of those cases it's because the kid wanted to move on," Bonner said.

"There is a no trade clause in most cases for kids who are attending high school. Usually when a trade is done both parties have agreed to it. Sometimes a trade is the best thing because the kid is not having fun and it's not his fit."

The Giants traded five-year veteran forward Craig Cunningham, 20, to Portland on Dec. 28. Before they made the deal they talked it over with Cunningham, their MVP in 2009-10.

"In Craig's case, we gave him the respect and talked it through with him," said Bonner. "Five years is a long time to play in one place.

"Over the Christmas break we talked a few times and he had elected to give it a shot somewhere else. We wouldn't do that with too many guys, give them that option. But because he's in some ways Giants royalty, he got that."

© Copyright (c) The Province

Re: Articles

Tribute to a lost colleague

Mark Spector January 31, 2011

Linesman Don Henderson paid tribute to former colleague Stephane Provost at the NHL all-star game.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Don Henderson is a big, tough Calgary–born linesman who has manned the lines in the National Hockey League when his back was so messed up one of the other officials had to tie his skates for him.

But Sunday night, after his first All-Star Game, he was standing in the official’s room inside the RBC Center, a Bud Light in his hand and tears rolling down his face.

The question was a simple one: "What did you feel like when you skated out in his sweater?"

"Kind of emotional … for me," Henderson said, choking up. "I cry at the best of times."

Hardly anybody in the arena even noticed, but in Sunday’s NHL All-Star game Henderson wore his own sweater No. 91 for the first and third periods, and the late Stephane Provost’s No. 72 in the second period.

It was very likely the last time the No. 72 will ever be worn by an NHL official, one linesman’s final tribute to a lost colleague, father and friend.

•••

This is the story of two baby zebras — one from Montreal, the other from Calgary — who met as trainees at an NHL officials camp 17 years ago. Henderson had made it to major junior in the WHL, trying to make it as a player, with the same dream his young twin sons aspire to now. (They had their picture taken with the Sedin twins Sunday).

But the only way either he or Provost was going to make it to the NHL, was with a striped jersey and a whistle.

The two showed up together in 1994, a couple of wide-eyed rookies who looked at a veteran like Ray Scapinello and couldn’t believe they were on the same sheet of ice with him. Today, Henderson has 944 NHL games on his resume.

And Provost?

"It’s really a sad story," Henderson said of his buddy, whose career stopped abruptly at 695 games during the lockout of 2004-05.

It was Apr. 22, 2005 in Florida. Provost and a buddy picked up their tickets at Will Call at the Marlins-game, left for him by Alfonso Marquez, a Major League Baseball umpire who wears the same No. 72.

Reports said they all went out after the game. Some time before the 3 a.m. accident, Provost shook Marquez’s hand, slapped him on the back and hopped on to his 2003 Harley Davidson for the ride home.

Provost, who was not wearing a helmet, hit the back of a transport trailer on the way home that night. The bike lit afire and landed on Provost. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

•••

"They had started the same year. There was camaraderie," said Archie Henderson, Don’s brother who is a long-time pro scout. Archie has traveled in from airports with the officials in a cab, and occasionally grabbed dinner with the refs when he and his brother were in the same town.

"They’re a pretty tight group those guys," Archie said. "In hockey, there’s closeness in the locker room. But there’s a real closeness in that referees locker room.

"Their families are close. There is a real bond there."

Another long-time friend of Provost’s, a leading referee in the game today, turned down an interview request for this story. Nearly six years later, it’s still too hard for him to go back.

"This would be his All-Star game with me," Henderson says of Provost. "He got his 15-year ring (given posthumously to Provost’s brother), his playoff ring… We’re trying to do the right thing."

•••

Henderson is standing in an All-Star dressing room, post-game. There are the usual pizza boxes, Gatorades and Budweisers that you see in every official’s room after every game. But on this night the four officials have parents, kids, aunts and uncles in town.

The small room is packed with Doreen and Frank Henderson just sitting in a couple of folding chairs off to the side, drinking in the scene. Their son is an NHL All-Star.

Don may not be a player, but there are 42 players in this game. Only four men in the world get the call as officials, and on this day Henderson, Darren Gibbs, Tom Kowal and Kevin Pollock earned their All-Star stripes.

Thanks to one bad night on a bike, Provost never got his chance.

"He’s got all his accolades now. This is the last one," Henderson said of wearing Provost’s jersey for an All-Star period. "He’s never going to work a Stanley Cup Final."

Henderson sent the uniform through the two dressing rooms for the players to sign, and it will end up with Provost’s widow Sandra, and two young daughters, Ashley and Reily.

The NHL Officials Association holds an annual golf tournament to raise money, much of which has gone to Provost’s family.

"We’ve really adopted his girls, our association," Henderson said. "We’ve raised enough money that they’ll never have to pay to go to school."

-----------

This is a great article. Donnie and I crossed paths some 20 years ago in junior. Then we coincidentally moved in right beside him and renewed acquaintances earleir this year. He has one of the best outdoor rinks in Calgary and his twins are always out there. Funny how there seems to be less than seven degrees of separation in hockey - with all the guys I know and he knows... lots of overlap.

Re: Articles

Lanny McDonald worried about concussions

By Greg Harder, The Leader-Post February 3, 2011



Lanny McDonald marvels at how much the game has changed since his Hall of Fame hockey career ended in 1989.

The trouble is, not all of those changes have been for the better.

"There's a couple things I think about and kind of worry about," McDonald said Wednesday from Calgary. "Obviously everyone is talking about the concussion challenges. The players today are bigger, faster, stronger, in phenomenal shape, moreso than they were 15, 20 years ago. With the speed of the game and the size of the players and how quickly those gaps close out there, they need to take a long hard look at the equipment, even if they take a step backwards (with more padding).

"Now, just a glancing blow with the new, lighter, harder-than-a-table-top equipment, you'll end up with a concussion. That's a big worry. And the respect factor and what we are demonstrating and trying to get across to our young people because they emulate everything that happens in the pros."

That's why McDonald thinks education on concussions needs to start at the top.

"The NHL has a responsibility to push it down to junior hockey, down to midget hockey and all the way down," he continued. "When you start losing the best players in the game, like a Marc Savard, like a (Patrice) Bergeron, like Sidney Crosby, for extended periods of time, holy God, get your head out of the sand, wake up. It is a tough game and they're trying to address it but it seems like they waited too long.

"They have to move faster or the punishment has to be greater so those liberties can't be taken. I don't care who it is, whether you have kids of your own or family around you, this is not only a game, this is a life that you're dealing with."

McDonald should know. The 57-year-old estimates that he suffered at least six or seven concussions during his 16-year NHL career.

"Back then they just gave you smelling salts and said, 'Are you feeling all right? Can you get back out there?' " he recalled. "You didn't realize that there was more of a problem. I remember playing shifts or even an entire period where you just played on instinct and then all of a sudden you start to come around. It's like, 'Holy god, I missed the whole second period,' yet you played. Thank God you didn't get hurt worse than you did."

McDonald also feels fortunate that he hasn't suffered any long-term effects.

"What's your name again?" he jokingly asked the interviewer. "Yeah, very much so. Especially now, we have four kids, we just celebrated the birth of our third grandchild. I want to be able to hang out and play with them forever. So, yeah, I do feel lucky."

Not only that, McDonald also has great memories from playing in one of the NHL's most-celebrated eras.

"I think if you talk to any person, they always believe their era of the game was the best," added McDonald, who recorded 500 goals and 1,006 points in 1,111 regular-season games. "I truly do believe our era through the '70s and the '80s was more than I could have ever asked for. I loved every second of going to the rink whether it was for practice or the games.

"To be fortunate enough to win the Stanley Cup (with the Calgary Flames) in your last year was pretty damn cool. What a great way to go out! When you think of the game back then and the great rivalries like Montreal-Toronto, like Calgary and Edmonton, oh my gosh, it was so good. There were bragging rights on the line. You wanted to be in the city that hopefully gets the last laugh."

Re: Articles

New technology chips in to help assess concussions

U.S. professor working on software to go in helmets

By Sean Fitz-Gerald, National Post February 3, 2011



A mechanical engineering professor in the United States hopes technology he is helping to develop - a chip that can analyze the brain's electrical "signature" - will allow athletic trainers to diagnose concussions as they occur on the field of play, in real time.

Dr. Hashem Ashrafiuon, who works at Villanova University's College of Engineering in suburban Philadelphia, has been using similar software in a study of post-traumatic stress disorder with the U.S. military. It has not been tested in sports, but he said the application would be obvious.

The chip could be planted inside hockey and football helmets, with sensors relaying data from the brain.

"When a person gets a concussion, usually they ask them to count or [ask] what day it is, or 'how many fingers' and things like that, and try to very informally assess if the person might have had concussion or not," Ashrafiuon said. "This, actually, can much more definitively predict whether there has been a concussion."

The technology, known as BCILab software, relies on a headset to monitor brain waves, where something as small as a blinking eyelash creates a signal. Ashrafiuon compares it to the results shown on a heart monitor, except more complex.

"It's not as clear-cut in the brain - cardiac is a lot easier to visualize - but it still has a signature that you can capture, mathematically," he said.

The idea is that the chip would store a sample of the brain activity recorded in an athlete before they stepped on the field, providing a baseline. Any abnormal results fed through the headset to a computer on the sidelines after a big hit could then be read by a trainer, who would know to pull the injured athlete aside.

As it stands, concussion diagnosis often falls to symptoms reported by the athletes. And athletes who want to continue to play might misrepresent or deny those symptoms in an effort to get back on the field.

Complicating matters is the fact many experts have said no two concussions are the same, which raises questions about how a mathematical analysis of brain waves could diagnose concussion. Ashrafiuon said the software remains in the development stage, though his team - which he said includes clinicians - has an eye to expanding into sports.

"We're sort of talking about the future," he said. "This is just what I envision."

He estimated trials in athletes could still be three or four years away, pending approval.

The issue of sports-related concussion has grown to prominence in the U.S. and Canada over the last four years, after a series of medical discoveries associated concussion with conditions such as depression, dementia and Alzheimer's. Chris Nowinski, a retired professional wrestler and football player, has been credited with helping to spur the findings with his advocacy in the U.S. He said he was aware of Ashrafiuon's work.

"I'm certainly hopeful for technological advances to be made in concussion diagnostics," he said Wednesday. "But, having been in this game now for eight years, I've heard a lot of promises. And so far, almost none have been fulfilled."

sfitzgerald@nationalpost.com
© Copyright (c) National Post

Re: Articles

Researcher: Raising the age for body checking a mistake

By ROBERT MacLEOD February 2, 2011
From Thursday's Globe and Mail

Higher number of serious injuries would result if plan implemented, Canadian professor warns



Increasing the age at which bodychecking is introduced into hockey could result in an escalation of serious injuries, a leading concussion researcher warns.

And surprisingly, Barry Willer also said the majority of hockey injuries occur as a result of incidental contact, not the deliberate act of one player trying to bodycheck another.

"I don't think the bodycheck should be the culprit it's made out to be," Willer said in an interview on Wednesday.

Willer, a Canadian who describes himself as a passionate hockey fan, is a professor at the University of Buffalo, where he is the director of research for the concussion clinic. He has been studying brain injuries for 25 years and was introduced to the issues of concussions in hockey in 1997 by Carl Lindros. Lindros's son, Brett, had his National Hockey League career cut short after suffering a number of concussions.

Willer didn't like a USA Hockey proposal that would make bodychecking illegal for players under 13.

"Personally, I think that would be a mistake," Willer said. "All you're doing is putting it [bodychecking] off and putting it off to an age where the players are bigger and stronger and have more testosterone. The injury rates will not only be higher, but I think more serious."

The USA Hockey proposal will be voted on at its annual congress in June and will be monitored closely by officials at Hockey Canada, which allows bodychecking to begin at the peewee level (aged 11 and 12).

The topic of when to introduce body contact to young hockey players has become a hot-button issue in amateur hockey circles as the prevalence of concussions appears to be on the rise.

John Gardner is the president of the Greater Toronto Hockey League, which boasts approximately 40,000 players on 2,800 teams.

"That's getting a little crazy," he said when asked for his thoughts on the USA Hockey proposal. "You wait until the kids get older, instead of it becoming an instinctive reaction or action, it becomes a mechanical one. And that's when the kids get hurt."

USA Hockey says its proposal is based on a series of studies, including research conducted by Carolyn Emery of the University of Calgary. Her study followed 2,000 peewee players over one season, half from Alberta, where bodychecking was permitted, and half from Quebec, where it was not.

In Alberta, 73 players reported concussions during the year compared to 20 in Quebec.

While lauding the Emery study, Willer said it did not go far enough to try to examine the underlying reason behind that increase.

Willer's study, which monitored the rates of injuries among roughly 3,000 kids who played in the Burlington Lions Minor Hockey Association over a five-year period, produced some surprising data.

The study, published last month, noted a "spike" in injuries among players in the first year that bodychecking was introduced. The report added that the majority of those injuries (66 per cent) were the result of "unintentional collisions" and not a result of a deliberate attempt to bodycheck.

Willer explained that "unintentional collisions" included players accidentally running into one another or injuring themselves when they fell to the ice, into the boards or goalposts.

Willer said his findings echo that of a study that was carried out in Kingston and released in 2009. The study looked into the effects of Hockey Canada's bodychecking rule in 2002, when body contact was allowed at the atom level (ages 9 to 11).

The report stated that "overall rates of injury to minor hockey players and also hockey injuries due to bodychecking were, in general, equivalent or even lower in the five years" after bodychecking was introduced at the younger age.

Both Willer and Gardner believe it is important to look at areas other than bodychecking when trying to come up with a solution to reduce the number of concussions.

Gardner believes it all starts with the National Hockey League, where head shots and hits from behind have captured plenty of headlines this season.

"Kids are copying what they see in the NHL," Gardner said. "I don't care what anybody says, that's a fact. And when the kids see it, they don't understand why they can't do it."

Re: Articles

Soccer a no-lose proposition?

By Michael Platt, Calgary Sun

Last Updated: February 9, 2011




Trash the trophies, scrap the standings.

There’s no room for winners, champions or stars when no one is bothering to keep score — and scoreless games are the likely future for young soccer players in Calgary.

That’s the prediction of Calgary Minor Soccer Association boss Daryl Leinweber, when asked about a growing trend towards taking competition out of competitive sports, especially for kids 12 and under.

Manitoba is headed towards scoreless soccer, as confirmed by Sun Media earlier this week, and it seems Calgary is also getting ready to do away with league titles and season standings.

“Possibly, yes,” said Leinweber, executive director of the association.

The soccer boss says a decision on going fully scoreless will be made as early as June and he says there is a strong appetite for no longer counting goals as part of the Under-12 soccer game.

Right now, Under-10 teams in Calgary only record wins and losses, regardless of the score.

The new system would eradicate even that cotton-soft competition.

Other changes would include smaller pitches and fewer players per side, with equal playing time for all, no matter if the child is a budding Beckham, or a budding Bozo the Clown.

The official reason for deflating the importance of winning is an edict from Sport Canada, which seeks change in all youth sport, from tennis to track and field.

Called Long Term Athlete Development, the cradle-to-podium plan aims to make Canada an international sports powerhouse.

By reducing competition in the early stages, Sport Canada believes kids can focus on their skills instead.

At least, that’s the theory.

Logic may suggest winning is what motivates children to improve their skills in the first place — images of a young Wayne Gretzky toiling endlessly in his backyard rink spring to mind.

Alas, that’s apparently an archaic way of thinking — these days, the cloud of despair that comes with loss must be avoided, lest junior abandon the game.

Before you curse today’s kids as mollycoddled milksops, consider the real source of this defeatist angst — because it isn’t the players.

According to Leinweber, it’s not the children who want to scrap scoring, trophies and the like, but parents who can’t handle the notion of their offspring not winning.

“A lot of what we say today is not driven by the kids, it’s driven by the parents — it’s driven by the people who need to win,” said Leinweber.

“The kids themselves, when they play, know who wins and loses, even when no score is kept.”

Left up to the kids, in other words, the game would remain what it has always been — a win-lose prospect with risks and rewards, much like real life.

“It’s not necessarily the pressure of the kids on each other, it’s the pressures around them that have an influence,” said Leinweber.

Asked if fragile parental egos are to blame and he gives a straight-shooting answer.

“I would say so, yes,” said Leinweber.

It’s clear the soccer boss has mixed feelings about doing away with goals and standings, and Leinweber admits to being an old-fashioned guy — though he says more kids are staying in the game as a result of the trend.

“It’s an adjustment I have to make — we answer to our membership,” he said.

“We’ve adapted the game and seen it grow and so I think the changes have been very positive for the growth of the game and the growth of the sport.”

Which is all swell and good if the goal is fewer kids on the couch.

But this is supposed to be about making Canada an international competitor in soccer — the way it already is in hockey.

Hockey, incidentally, won’t be doing away with goals, or standings, or trophies.

Christina Rogers, spokeswoman for Hockey Calgary, says the system which moulds young players into the kind of athletes who go on to play in the NHL and Olympics is rooted in that drive to win.

“If there’s no winning, that doesn’t teach the kids to compete,” said Rogers.

Re: Articles

Hockey coach dislikes 'less-competitive' approach

By ROSS ROMANIUK, QMI Agency Feb 9 2011

WINNIPEG — At least one prominent Winnipeg hockey instructor is taking shots at a proposed Hockey Manitoba move toward a less competition-focused structure for young kids on the ice.

Billy Keane says he "struggles with the concept" of what the province's governing hockey organization is considering in stressing skills development over trophies for pre-teen players.

"To not nurture the competitive spirit, they've really got to be careful," he said, adding such a change could actually hamper player development rather than help. "There's a reason why there are beer leagues and competitive leagues at the adult level. When they're kids, it's still important to instill that competitive component."

Keane, who has long run Winnipeg hockey schools and is an older brother of retired NHL and AHL player Mike Keane, describes Manitoba as a "leader in the last 10 years" in Canada's development of young players — so if the system isn't broken, he says, don't fix it.

"We've put a lot of our Manitobans on the provincial and national stage, and for good reason," he said. "Why change it?"

Hockey Manitoba president Brian Franklin said Monday it's a "strong possibility" that the organization will move toward a greater focus on development and participation than on competition for players at younger ages.

Details haven't been worked out, though Hockey Manitoba executive director Peter Woods said such a move would be co-ordinated "hand in hand" with Hockey Canada, and would not "completely remove the competitiveness of the game by not keeping score or statistics."

Rather, Woods stressed, the change would be aimed at providing young players with more opportunities to develop than through game situations, and even improve their skills.

"A lot of athletes are competing on 12-month scales at a very early age, and are exposed to burnout, muscle overuse or injuries," he said. "Athletes have a tendency to maybe get burned out at a younger age, and the model they're proposing ... is an opportunity for a complete athlete to be developed," he added.

Brad Rice, co-owner of Winnipeg hockey training facility The Rink, echoed Keane's concerns about making changes. If the system could be improved to better develop players, he suggested, it's in providing a more equitable amount of practice ice for teams across the city.

"They hand out schedules of when you play," Rice said. "They could do more to co-ordinate practice ice."

Re: Articles

Please, let's end the craziness

Gregg Drinnan Thursday, February 10, 2011


Bob Clarke has become the voice of reason in the debate over headshots and ugly hits that is dominating conversation about the game of hockey.

Clarke, who went by Bobby when he was a whacking and hacking point machine with the Philadelphia Flyers (aka the Broad Street Bullies) back in the day, has been telling people that the puck has become irrelevant.

And he is correct.

Players today are more concerned with eliminating an opponent than they are with gaining possession of the puck. And, hey, if that opponent gets injured, well, gee, hockey is a physical game.

But there are times — hello there, Matt Cooke! — when you wonder if hockey isn’t on its way to becoming UFC on skates.

You watch as forward Daniel Paille of the Boston Bruins launches himself at Dallas Stars winger Raymond Sawada and you notice that the puck is right there, three or four feet in front of Sawada. However, Paille ignores it. That’s because the name of the game far too often is to try to separate the opposing player from his head rather than the puck.

And there is Cooke, who plays for the Pittsburgh Penguins. One night he is initiating knee-to-knee contact with Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin. A couple of nights later, he is launching himself at Columbus Blue Jackets defenceman Fedor Tyutin.

(Remember when Cooke played for the Vancouver Canucks and everyone loved the Cooker? That doesn’t seem to be the case any more as the Twitterverse lit up with Cooke-related vitriol on Wednesday.)

We saw it right here in Kamloops on Friday night when defenceman Brandon Manning of the Chilliwack Bruins went in on the forecheck and hammered Blazers defenceman Austin Madaisky.

Manning had dumped the puck into Madaisky’s corner and, as the Kamloops defender turned, Manning streaked across the zone. Manning, completely ignoring the puck, initiated contact and that momentum spun Madaisky around, which meant he crashed awkwardly into the end boards, his back taking the brunt of the impact.

This wasn’t a case of one slug hammering another. Manning, 20, has signed a free-agent deal with the Flyers. In his three WHL seasons, the Prince George native has become known as an offensive defenceman who won’t shy away from the rough stuff. Madaisky, 18, was a fifth-round selection by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2010 NHL draft and arguably has been the Blazers’ best defenceman.

That isn’t the case any longer, however, as Madaisky came out of that collision with a fractured C-7 vertebrae and won’t play again this season. He is fortunate that he still is able to walk.

Colin Campbell, who doles out discipline on behalf of Gary Bettman’s NHL, suspended Paille for four games. Coincidentally, Cooke also drew a four-game suspension.

Richard Doerksen, who is the WHL’s disciplinarian, handed Manning a seven-game suspension.

Men like Campbell and Doerksen are charged with a huge responsibility. They want to be fair and, at the same time, they want to make the punishment fit the crime.

That being the case, the time has come for them to lower the boom.

Four- and seven-game suspensions simply aren’t enough when one player shows such a lack of respect for another.

In the first eight days of February, the WHL played 35 games over five nights. According to the WHL’s online scoresheets, referees handed out 15 minor penalties and one major for checking from behind. That doesn’t count other incidents, such as charging or boarding, during which players — like Madaisky — were put at risk.

It is time, too, to stop categorizing these hits as headshots, hits from behind, etc. They all are dangerous hits and should be treated as such.

Brad Hornung, then a centre with the Regina Pats, was hit from behind on March 1, 1987. Left a quadriplegic, he has been in a wheelchair ever since that horrific night.

I was covering that game for the Regina Leader-Post and can tell you that the check by Moose Jaw Warriors forward Troy Edwards wasn’t anywhere near as violent or as frightening as much of what we see today. In fact, it was more of a nudge in the back than a hit from behind.

But heaven forbid anyone should have to go through what Hornung and Edwards did in the aftermath of that hit. Yes, there were two victims that night; they and their families both experienced their own versions of living hell.

But it is obvious today that the message isn’t getting through. There are far too many of these incidents and it’s only been through a stroke of luck that no one has been seriously injured. Although you can certainly make a case that Madaisky, who now is wearing a cervical collar, was seriously injured.

Earlier this season, Doerksen suspended Tri-City Americans forward Brendan Shinnimin for 12 games for an ugly hit on Josh Nicholls of the Saskatoon Blades. Nicholls was left with a concussion and missed only one game because the Blades were in a soft spot in their schedule.

Defenceman Wes Vannieuwenhuizen of the Vancouver Giants drew a seven-game sentence after he drilled Chilliwack forward Robin Soudek from behind on Nov. 11. A concussed Soudek sat out four games.

It would seem then that (a) Manning got off rather lightly, and (b) the message simply isn’t getting through to teams and players.
The onus then is on Doerksen to up the ante. Sooner or later, he is going to have to drop a 20-game bomb on someone, or perhaps end someone’s season.

Please, Mr. Doerksen, do it before more seasons end the way Austin Madaisky’s did.

Or worse.

(Gregg Drinnan is sports editor of The Daily News. He is at gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca and gdrinnan.blogspot.com. You are able to follow him at twitter.com/gdrinnan)

Re: Articles

A Battle Across the Border in Recruiting

By ANDREW PODNIEKS New York Times February 9, 2011


Patrick McCarron, 16, is a defenseman with the St. Michael’s Buzzers in Toronto, a team owned by his father that plays in provincial Junior A hockey. Last summer, McCarron was drafted by the Oshawa Generals of the Ontario Hockey League. The Generals put a contract in front of him, but he would not sign it.

“I told them I didn’t want to sign yet because I’d lose my N.C.A.A. eligibility,” McCarron said, “and I was seriously considering going the college route.”

In the eyes of the N.C.A.A., playing major junior hockey in Canada is considered professional, and increasingly young Canadian players are weighing their options.

The number of Americans playing in Canada’s major junior leagues has been growing for years, and American colleges are increasingly fighting back by recruiting Canadian players.

According to Paul Kelly, executive director of College Hockey Inc., there were 67 American players in Canada’s junior leagues six years ago. Now, he said, there are 131.

“As a result, there was a feeling among college coaches that the N.C.A.A. product had become diluted,” Kelly said, adding that that was why College Hockey hired him. He works for the six conferences that comprise N.C.A.A. Division I hockey in an effort to counter the Canadian Hockey League’s encroachment on American talent.

The C.H.L. is an umbrella organization for three Canadian leagues: the Western Hockey League, the Ontario Hockey League and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. The C.H.L. has developed more pro hockey players than any other organization in the world, primarily for the N.H.L.

“My objective is twofold: to stem the flow of players leaving for the C.H.L. and to attract elite Canadians to college hockey,” said Kelly, a former chief of the N.H.L. players union.

Kelly’s job is complicated by the C.H.L.’s history and tradition — and the allure of being the most successful route to the N.H.L.

“We are the No. 1 development league in the world,” C.H.L. Commissioner David Branch said in a telephone interview from Toronto. “We offer the best coaching, most advanced technology, finest facilities, most competitive environment, academic advisers and every aspect of nutrition, psychology and antidoping.”

Kelly acknowledges the traditional role of junior hockey in Canada. “But times change,” he said. “There are other options now. Recruiting from both sides of the border has ramped up significantly because we are both trying to attract the same pool of elite players. You have about 60 teams in the C.H.L. and 60 teams in Division I, and they all want the best players. There is unavoidable tension.

“All we can do is explain all options to a kid and tell him not to give up eligibility too soon. For some players, the C.H.L. is absolutely the way to go, but for many others, if you can get an education and play hockey, college is the better route.”

Kelly’s best example might be the Chicago Blackhawks’ captain, Jonathan Toews, who is from Winnipeg, Manitoba, but who chose to play at North Dakota for two seasons before being selected third over all in the 2006 N.H.L. draft.

Kelly points out that only 6 percent of players in the college and major junior ranks will ever play in the N.H.L.

“These are daunting odds,” he said. “If I’m in a room with 100 people and I tell a kid that only six will make it, he’ll say he’s one of them, and he doesn’t care who the other five are. At 16, every kid thinks he’ll play in the N.H.L.”

On one hand, Kelly is offering an education as well as a hockey experience. On the other, he is challenging a tradition of getting to the N.H.L. as old as the N.H.L. itself.

Ultimately, McCarron went the college route.

“For me, N.C.A.A. is going to be the best choice,” he said. “I’ll come out of college with a degree, and if I want to take a run at the N.H.L., I can. If it doesn’t work out, I still have that piece of paper in my hand and can get a job.”

Kelly held what he called a summit in Toronto last September, the first in Canada, with 25 college coaches there to scout and answer questions. He said 71 players from the Greater Toronto Hockey League attended, McCarron being one of them. He called it “a real eye-opener.”

“A lot of the kids had no idea that college was an option,” he said. “For them, it’s all O.H.L., O.H.L., O.H.L., but they don’t know that 30 percent of players in the N.H.L. went to college.”

That number reflects Canadians and Americans. Of 1,568 Division I players this year, 481 are Canadian.

Branch, though, promoted the education package offered players in the Canadian junior leagues, including a full scholarship for four years at a Canadian college for players who decide not to turn pro. Players in the C.H.L. earn a minimum of $335 a week and receive meal money.

“We feel our education package is not only the best in North America but probably the world,” Branch said.

The recruiting battle for players has not been universally welcomed.

Bob Nicholson, president of Hockey Canada, which oversees every aspect of hockey in the country, from grass-roots development to the selection of Olympics rosters, said that he supported Kelly’s efforts and that the two have a respectful relationship, but, he added, “What I would like to see is for college hockey to stay out of Canada and for C.H.L. teams to stay out of the U.S.”

Nicholson has just sent a recruiting protocol agreement to USA Hockey in the hope of defining the process better, although he admitted that was probably unenforceable.

Re: Articles

TOM RENNEY:
FROM THE CANADA GAMES TO THE NHL,
VIA THE CANADIAN OLYMPIC TEAM

by Coaches of Canada February 4, 2011

What was the catalyst for you to pursue coaching as a career?

TR: I started to identify with coaching when I was attending the University of North Dakota in the mid-70’s. Like most Canadian kids, I hoped to play in the National Hockey League, but coaching seemed the more legitimate shot to get to the NHL since I was on the small side for a defenseman.

Father David Bauer was an important role model to me. I recall how impressed I was that a priest would be coaching the Canadian National Team. I was impressed by the fact that a man of the cloth was speaking of the virtues of commitment, perseverance, sacrifice, and the pursuit of excellence through hockey. Ultimately and over time, I understood that these were important virtues for me to pursue in my journey through coaching, and I have Father Bauer to thank for that. He was the first coach I had ever heard speak of and demonstrate those most valuable coaching essentials.

Prior to leaving school, I recall writing down the five things I wanted to have accomplished by the time I was thirty five years old. One being, coach Canada’s National Hockey Team. In 1993 I was named head coach of the Canadian Men’s Olympic Hockey Team, destination Lillehammer, Norway.

Can you outline the pathway you took to get to the Canada Games as a hockey coach?

TR: Through the B.C. Best Ever program I had been given many terrific opportunities, one of which was coaching British Columbia’s entry in the Canada Winter Games in Halifax and Sydney, Nova Scotia in 1987. I had been coaching the Trail Junior Smoke Eaters in the Kootenay International Hockey League in the mid- to late-80s, and had met with some reasonable success. I had attended and successfully participated in the National Coaching Certification Program (NCCP) during the 80s, and was chosen along with Derek Spring of Cranbrook to co-coach Team B.C. It was a unique and exhilarating experience in every way, and served to “set the hook” in what would be my life’s passion: coaching.

How did your coaching experience at the Canada Games set the stage for coaching at the next level?

TR: It was the Canada Games experience that convinced me that coaching in the highest competitive stream possible was what I wanted to do, and to coach the Canadian Olympic Team was my goal. Since a visit to my minor hockey banquet in Cranbrook, B.C., in 1967 by Father David Bauer, the then coach of Team Canada, I could identify with coaching, and would often think of that visit. And I actually still do when it comes to my continued motivation to coach. From the Canada Winter Games, came the Quebec Esso Cup, the national under-17 festival, the National Under-18 Team, National Junior Team, National Teams, Olympic Teams and numerous IIHF World Championship teams, and luckily enough, the National Hockey League ... all as a head coach. All in all, I have coached in 10 world championships and Olympics for Canada. I feel very lucky.

How would you sum up your coaching career to this point in your life?

TR: When I think back on my coaching career the one thing I really hoped to do was help win a gold medal for my country. We came oh so close in Lillehammer in 1994. With under two minutes to go, we were ahead of the Swedes 2-1 when we were called for a holding penalty. We were crushed when they scored to tie the game at two and although we pushed as hard as we could to win, the famous Peter Forsberg goal in the first shootout in Olympic history erased any hope of Canada’s first gold medal in hockey in 39 years. This feat would finally be recognized by Team Canada in Salt Lake City in 2002. The great irony from a personal point of view is that I was never driven to coach in the NHL ... only for my country. Coaching in the NHL appears to a by-product of that determination and drive.
-----


On June 22, 2010, Tom Renney became the 10th head coach in Edmonton Oilers’ franchise history, after joining the Oilers as an associate coach for the 2009-10 season.

Tom spent the previous nine seasons with the New York Rangers, the last four as their head coach. After being named the 33rd head coach in franchise history on July 6, 2004, he led the Rangers to 40-or-more wins in three consecutive seasons, a feat last accomplished by the club in 1974. Over the course of 327 games he guided the Rangers to a 164-117-0-46 record including three straight post-season appearances from 2005-08; the second best winning percentage in the history of the Rangers, behind only Emile Francis.

Recently, Tom has served his country on Team Canada’s coaching staff at the 2004 and 2005 IIHF World Championships. At the 2004 tournament in Czech Republic, he helped guide the team to Canada’s second consecutive gold medal at the prestigious tournament. In 2005, Tom and Team Canada once again appeared in the gold medal game, but were left with the silver medal after falling to the Czech Republic.

Tom and his wife Glenda have two daughters, Jessica and Jamie.

Puck Protection

Coaching the elements of puck protection




This week;s guest writer is Ted Belisle, assistant coach at Bemidji State University. Ted played at BSU from 1997-2001 (captain in 2001) then worked in the USHL for two years before joining his alma mater as an assistant coach in 2007. He is also the BSU recruiting coordinator.



By Ted Belisle

Bemidji State University



During the Edmonton Oilers; 2006 run to the Stanley Cup, a question was posed to then-head coach Craig McTavish about his definition of the perfect player. His answer was, ;My definition of the perfect player is one whom the play never dies with&#; His answer made so much sense to me and is a great mindset leading into the topic of teaching puck protection.

When I watch youth and high school players doing puck protection drills during practice, the most popular drill I see is a player with the puck standing on a faceoff dot, fending off an opposing player by standing still. While the drill does allow a player to learn how to fend off a defender, it ignores the single most important element of puck protection creating time and space! There are more elements of puck protection that a player must understand in order to become one of those players ;whom the play never dies with
To teach puck protection properly, we must understand the main reason as to why we protect the puck! A player protects the puck to create enough time and space from the defender in order to make the next play. In order to create time and space, I believe that there are five elements of puck protection that enable a player to become a very good puck protector.



1. Teaching the ;puck safe zone
The first element that must be taught is recognition of the ;puck safe zone.; My definition of the puck safe zone is: any area in which the defender cannot reach the puck!

A great puck protector always understands that the odds of losing possession of the puck increase substantially when the puck is fronted or exposed to the reach of the defender;s stick.

The ;puck safe zone; changes constantly, depending on body position, reach of the defender and placement of the puck. Being able to handle the puck quickly into the safe zone (away from the defender;s reach) will help maintain puck possession and the ability to make the next play.

A phrase I use a lot to our players is, ;Don;t front the puck.; When a player fronts the puck, they are immediately exposing themselves and are at greater risk of losing possession of the puck within the reach of the defender.



2. How to create a body shield

With the days of ;hitting and pinning; behind us, the puck carrier has more ability to maintain a safe zone that creates more possession time. The most efficient way to create a safe zone is to create a ;body shield&; between you and the defender.

Creating the ;body shield; is quite simply putting your body between the defender and the puck. The easiest way to create a body shield is to pivot your backside into the defender. This will prevent the defender from being able to enter the player�s safe zone. The puck possessor has now created separation from the defender and should be able to keep their head up and look for the next play.



3. Fending off the defender

After creating a ;puck safe zone; with a ;body shield,; we must be able to prevent the defender from gaining access to the ;puck safe zone.; The puck carrier must learn the element of how to fend off a defender;s attempt to gain possession of our puck.

The puck protector can fend off a defender by using their body to prevent access of the defenders stick into the ;puck safe zone; Focus on teaching the player how to use their own arms and legs to fend off advances by the defender. It is important to create this habit in a player for successful puck protection.

In order for the puck protector to successfully use arms and legs to fend of defenders, it is very important to teach players the skill of handling the puck with one hand. As coaches, we must incorporate drills in which a player handles the puck while using only their top hand or bottom hand.



4. Leveraging the wall

There are times when defenders still find a way to get an opposing player pinned or pinched along the boards. To develop an excellent puck protector, we must teach them how to use the wall (boards) to their advantage. We do this by using the wall as leverage.

The best way to use the wall as leverage is by using both of your hands to push off the wall. This is very much like a push-up or a bench press motion. While we push away from the wall we must also simultaneously push our backside into the defender to create more time and space from the wall to make the next play. By leveraging the wall, we can create enough time and space along the wall to make the next play and keep possession of the puck.



5. Cut-backs:

I believe the ;cut-back; is the most important element of puck protection we can teach. The ;cut-back; incorporates using legs and speed to help create more time and space in order to make the next play. The use of ;cut-backs; enables the puck protector to create ice behind them to escape into by turning away from the defender while not fronting the puck. ;Cut-backs; use misdirection by quickly utilizing a ;C; cut in the ice to change direction away from the defender to create more time and space.

To successfully use the ;cut-back,; we must teach the proper elements. The puck carrier must use deception in order to get the opposing player committed to defending a certain area. I call this ;selling the cutback.;

We must bait the defender into thinking we are attacking the ice in a certain direction. We accomplish this by ;staying busy; and attacking an area while keeping the puck in the safe zone, using our body as a shield and fending off the defender;s advances. By attacking a certain area, we are forcing the defender to protect the area that we are skating into. As such, we have sold the defender on protecting that area.

When the defender commits to that area, we have created ice behind us to cut-back into. When the puck protector decides to cut-back, it is very important to teach them to stay busy and attack the other direction.

While attacking the other direction, they have created enough time and space to make the next play while continuing to use the other elements to maintain the possession of the puck. A player can use many ;cut-backs; in a single possession of the puck until the next play is available.

The best way to teach these habits is by using resistance drills with space to roam. Allow your players to use these habits all together while moving their feet, thus creating more time and space.

You can use one-on-one drills, but some of the best ways to teach puck possession is by creating outnumbered situations. For example have a 1vs2 drill in a corner or a 2vs3 drill low, in which there are more defenders than puck protectors. These drills isolate the emphasis on puck protection and force the puck carrier to have tough odds in maintaining possession of the puck.



Let's Play Hockey wants to publish your hockey stories. From tournament reports, to feature stories on teams, players or coaches, to opinion pieces on the game of hockey, Let;s Play Hockey accepts submissions from readers throughout the hockey community. To submit your hockey story and/or photo(s), e-mail us at editor@letsplayhockey.com.

Re: Articles

(Ironically, this was written PRIOR to the Islanders / Pens brawl, according to the author...)
-----


How to break Neanderthals' grip on hockey?

By ROY MACGREGOR
From Saturday's Globe and Mail February 11, 2011


Head shots are a polarizing issue that's ruining a child's game



If hockey is truly "a man's game," then why are the games brought to us by Cialis and Viagra?

Erectile dysfunction appears to have become to the modern National Hockey League what Imperial Esso's "Happy Motoring" once was to the Original Six - Viagra plastered to the rink boards, Cialis wink-wink ads filling every stop in play on the television, Levitra promising you'll be ready to play should the coach tap you on the shoulder ...

This has been another terrible week for the "man's game." Despite unprecedented criticism of professional hockey's unwillingness to address a matter that is threatening its players, the situation continues unabated: New Jersey's Anton Volchenkov suspended three games for a head shot to Zach Boychuk of the Carolina Hurricanes; Pittsburgh's Matt Cooke (hockey's serial offender) suspended four games for leaving his feet in an attempt to crush the cranium of Columbus defenceman Fedor Tyutin from behind.

It was a week in which one elite player, Marc Savard, packed it in for the season due to concussion, a week in which rumours spread concerning the game's most elite player, Sidney Crosby, possibly losing the remainder of what should have been his greatest season to concussion.

And it was a week in which one sensible player, Boston's Andrew Ference, was attacked on Hockey Night in Canada for daring to say a head shot delivered by teammate Daniel Paillé on the Dallas Stars' Raymond Sawada was "a bad hit."

A wonderful week, indeed, to head into the CBC's Hockey Day in Canada, in which the national game will be sentimentalized, lionized, glorified and worshipped.

It is a great game, but it surely needs some work.

The problem is that head shots have become the global warming of hockey, a polarizing issue that pits the disbelievers against the believers, with no results to show for all the braying back and forth.

Hockey Night in Canada, with its vast array of old-school thinkers, has become Fox News. The mainstream media, with their editorials demanding action against head shots, have become Al Gore.

So nothing ever seems to get done.

The loudest shouting has come from the naysayers. Mike Milbury has groaned about the "pansification" of the game and dismissed those who disagree with him as "soccer moms." Don Cherry - who began his media career with Rock 'Em, Sock 'Em videos - blows a gasket over Ference speaking his mind, suggesting it breaks some imagined "code" of the sacred hockey dressing room.

The quieter voices are more numerous, but have gained little. The NHL did bring in a specific rule against blatant headhunting, but still lags far behind other team sports when it comes to offering protection for vulnerable brains.

For weeks the debate has been about what happened to Sidney Crosby's head, whether the concussive blow was delivered, perhaps by accident, by Washington's David Steckel during the New Year's Winter Classic or by intent when Tampa Bay's Victor Hedman crushed him into the boards a few days later.

No longer. Instead of looking back, the hockey world now looks ahead: When will Sidney Crosby come back? Will he come back at all this year?

He himself says he expects to, but can offer no date. "There's no timetable," he said on Thursday. "I hope I'm back."

So should the league. Crosby was in the midst of a seminal year. He was running away with the scoring race. He had just come off a 25-game scoring streak when the first blow landed at the Winter Classic. His only serious rival over the past few years, Alexander Ovechkin, had been reduced to star status from superstar - of which hockey now had only one.

While hockey is a team game and golf an individual sport, comparing Sidney Crosby's impact on hockey in 2010-11 is not that much of a stretch from Tiger Woods's impact on golf in the years leading up to his self-inflicted blow to his image. When Woods departed the golf scene for a significant time, the PGA went into freefall in terms of interest and TV viewership. The falloff would not be so dramatic if Crosby were lost for the season, but it would be significant. The Crosby-Ovechkin storyline had been compelling for years; that storyline is, for the moment, lost.

It is no stretch at all, however, to compare Crosby's concussion problems to those of earlier players such as Paul Kariya and Eric Lindros. Kariya, it will be recalled, was on the cusp of NHL superstardom when he was struck down. Lindros had reached NHL superstardom when he suffered the first of several concussions. Neither was ever to reach those heights again.

It could be, before all this is over, that Sidney Crosby's greatest contribution to the game will not be the Olympic gold-medal winning goal of a year ago, but his sad situation forcing the NHL - the braying naysayers included - to wake up to what hits to the head have done and are doing to hockey.

It's not a man's game at all.

It's a child's game.

And it has become dysfunctional.

Re: Articles

From outsider to QMJHL scout

By SEAN GORDON
From Saturday's Globe and Mail February 11, 2011

The life of a hockey bird-dog isn't glamorous. It starts with a love of the sport, is nurtured with strong opinions and lastly, paying attention, alone, to many, many games involving young players




He's seen their eyes glaze over, heard the mumbled excuses from friends who had wearied of being prodded to go sit in out-of-the-way arenas to watch midget hockey.

This particular passion, he quickly realized, was one he'd mostly have to follow on his own.

But a couple of decades later, Simon Boisvert wouldn't have it any other way.

The 45-year-old translator and model of persistence has fulfilled a lifelong ambition by working his way into the cloistered world that is big-time hockey.

And he's done it in a thoroughly modern way - his Lana Turner soda-fountain moment coming courtesy of the comments section on a popular Quebec hockey blog.

Boisvert, you see, recently landed a paying gig as a part-time scout for the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.

But unlike most people in the hockey industry, he has never played, never coached, never volunteered in a minor hockey association.

He stands as the embodiment of every hard-core fan's dream: an uber-passionate and freakishly knowledgeable outsider who managed to get professional hockey people to actually listen to what he has to say.

And he has quite a lot to say.

As in: Scouts often lack the imagination to spot subtleties ... veteran free agents are almost always over-priced and almost never worth it ... most general-managers are determinedly following yesterday's trends ... goalies should never be drafted in the first round.

"It used to make my teeth grate in the early 2000s when I'd see a team pick a Rick DiPietro or a Kari Lehtonen with the first or second pick overall ... last year you had [Philadelphia's Michael] Leighton and [Chicago's Antti] Niemi in the Cup final, and all of a sudden everyone started saying 'you don't need an elite goalie to win.' I was saying that 10 years ago, and people would throw tomatoes at me," said Boisvert, who lives in Montreal's north end.

The gregarious, animated Boisvert, a high-energy type who owns his translation business, is perhaps best described as a free thinker - not a quality frequently associated with the hockey industry.

But it's what made Richard Liboiron, the Screaming Eagles's director of hockey operations, sit up and take notice.

"I was struck by just how passionate he is," said Liboiron, who agreed to meet with Boisvert on a lark last autumn, and essentially ended up hiring him on the spot 90 minutes later. "He has a lot of interesting ideas and very impressive knowledge of players. I call it a hard disk in his head."

While Liboiron is the first to acknowledge most of the people who work in and around major junior and pro leagues follow the more conventional path - through connections, word-of-mouth, working with former teammates and coaches and the like - but adds he's always been attracted to original thinkers.

"Anyone can follow the template and give you the empirical information, it's much harder to find people who can give a detailed overall picture and extrapolate a given player's profile," Liboiron said. "Simon can do that. His reports are like a turnkey project - it's all there, just move in."

From the first time he sent him to check out players on a trial basis, Liboiron says he could tell he and Boisvert were on the same wavelength.

And Cape Breton, currently languishing in 16th place in the 18-team QMJHL, can use all the help it can find in digging up uncut gems.

Boisvert is eager to pitch in, but he also has a broader goal: to become a chief scout or GM in the QMJHL, or a chief scout in the NHL.

And if Boisvert can harbour those ambitions - which Liboiron suggests are reasonable if he's prepared to be patient - it's due in part to alter ego Snake70, his handle on the blog run by Mathias Brunet, a hockey columnist at La Presse who often writes about junior and minor-league prospects.

Snake70 began standing out a couple of years ago as an acerbic and aggressively opinionated voice who trashed other commentators with panache and delighted in demolishing conventional wisdom.

The ad hominem attacks were an act, the crusades against the hockey consensus weren't (he has since retired Snake70 in favour of a regular satellite-radio gig).

Brunet, who is friendly with Liboiron, eventually put the two in touch.

Among the Snake's many predictions: for all the hype, the best player of the 2009 draft wouldn't be top picks John Tavares or Victor Hedman, but Matt Duchene, picked third overall. So far, he's right.

In 2010, Snake harangued commentators who were touting one of Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin as the best prospect, arguing the true franchise player in the draft was a certain Jeff Skinner, picked seventh overall by the Carolina Hurricanes - a surprise in itself, most observers had him as a mid to late first-round pick.

"Almost all the pro scouts saw Skinner as a second-line, 20- or 22-goal guy. I always saw him as a top-line, 40 to 50 goal guy," said Boisvert, who wouldn't have hesitated to pick Skinner first or second overall.

And unlike many armchair prognosticators, Boisvert didn't content himself with just watching the kid on television or YouTube, he decided one weekend to drive to Kingston, Ont., to see him live. Then, a few weeks later, made a second trip.

"What can I say, I just had to see if I was right about my impressions," Boisvert said.

Skinner's rookie numbers are eloquent testimony that he was.

Evaluation is something that comes naturally to Boisvert, who studied commerce and actuarial mathematics at Montreal's Concordia University.

By then Boisvert was already a massive hockey fan and nurturing his ambitions ("it sounds dumb when you say it, but it was addictive, like a drug, I was going to an industrial quantity of midget and bantam games on weekends").

His fascination with hockey began as an eight-year-old in the early 1970s, when he used to go see Norm Dupont and Mario Tremblay light it up for the QMJHL Montreal Bleu Blanc Rouge with his dad.

"Even then I was trying to predict which guys would be good as pros and which ones wouldn't," he said.

In his 20s, Boisvert contacted dozens of hockey and baseball teams - he is also a huge baseball nut, and was once asked by a friend to give a pep talk to a fellow-traveller. Things worked out okay for the kid in question (it was Toronto Blue Jays GM Alex Anthopoulos).

Then followed years of cold-calls and faxing résumés - getting a rejection letter was a minor triumph, most just ignored him (in the end he decided to go into translating).

Through it all, Boisvert kept going to games and honed his evaluative approach, which blends empirical, on-ice factors with intangibles and more esoteric methods.

"The real skill is in projecting how a player is going to develop ... I'm always trying to think a few years ahead, how teams are going to be built and how that will influence the market," he said.

Boisvert has also assimilated the basic Moneyball lessons: prize factors others underestimate, ignore what the others overevaluate, and don't buy into reputations.

"I try and run against the herd," he said.

Boisvert doesn't need a GPS to find obscure arenas. He's been to them all in the course of his quixotic quest.

And lately, his longtime girlfriend has developed a stronger interest in the game, so he doesn't sit alone as much as he once did.

In fact, at a recent midget tournament, she pointed out a player she liked ("it kind of shook me up, because I hadn't even noticed him," he said).

"Listen, if people like Richard were open-minded enough to listen to me, I have to keep an open mind too, right?" he said. "And she was right."

Boisvert won't reveal anything about the player, lest the other scouts catch a whiff.

And his approach has already paid at least one dividend for his new employers: the Eagles this week added a U.S.-based player, whom Boisvert uncovered, to their protected list.

No other team had yet contacted him, and Boisvert spotted him watching games on the Internet.

"I think he's good enough to play on the top line," he said. "But that's just my opinion."


CTVglobemedia Publishing, Inc

Re: Articles

Hockey Canada targeting immigrants' kids to counter declining enrolment


By Dale Oviatt, Postmedia News February 14, 2011


OTTAWA — It's Canada's game. But for how much longer?

Alarmed by sliding enrolment in minor hockey programs across the country, Hockey Canada is launching a charm offensive in a dozen languages, targeting the households of recent immigrants and First Nations families to boost the number of Canadian kids strapping on skates.

Minor hockey registration continues to be on a downward spiral and there are concerns that in the next 10 years, there could be 200,000 fewer kids playing the sport in this country.

"Through the trending we've gone through here, we feel that by 2020-21 if we continue to do what we are doing, we're going to have 360,000 members as opposed to 560,000 members," said Hockey Canada's vice-president of member services Glen McCurdie from his Ottawa office. "That's a fairly significant decrease in numbers over the next 10 years. From our perspective, it's time to change the way that we are doing stuff."

For the first time, Hockey Canada's annual planner, which is mailed to registered minor hockey players under the age of 10, is available in 12 languages.

In addition to the traditional English and French versions, the planners — which are also available for download at hockeycanada.ca — come in Arabic, Chinese (Cantonese and Mandarin), Cree, German, Inuktitut, Italian, Portuguese, Punjabi, Spanish and Tagalog.

Hockey Canada used Canadian census figures to determine their focus.

The mail-outs, which were sent last month to more than 235,000 players from coast to coast, feature a personalized Hockey Canada season planner with hockey-related activities and comic strips.

"This is pretty exciting for us to have done translation in that many different languages," said McCurdie. "Hopefully the benefits (have) some spinoff when we have new Canadians at least thinking about hockey. That's a start for potentially down the road."

This is the fourth year the mail-outs, which also includes pins and stickers, have been sent to young Canadian hockey players.

"When we got into it, we realized that there was a little bit of power here that we could use from the mail out that extended beyond our own members," said McCurdie. "We had anecdotal situations that came back to us, where kids were taking their mail outs to school and showing other kids and creating a bit of a buzz that way.

"From our perspective, it's now serving three purposes. One is an affinity with the national body, but it also has a recruitment angle to it where other kids that are seeing it are excited about the possibility of playing. And I think our members in that age group certainly feel like they are part of something bigger and it's something they might want to stay involved in more readily with stuff like this going on."

Canadian minor hockey registration peaked in 2008-09 when 584,679 players were taking part. Last year, the number dropped to 577,077. This year, it's expected to drop by a further one per cent when the final numbers are determined near the end of the month.

The number of outside influences distracting kids from hockey these days is huge: the Internet, video games, social media, and even other sports.

"We recognized fairly quickly that there is a decreasing pool of kids in the five to 19 age group and that trend was continuing on at a fairly rapid pace here," said McCurdie. "Really, the only increase in population across the country . . . is through immigration.

"We were sort of an organization that is used to, very honestly, opening up our doors and having people flock to us. We've never really been in a boat where we needed to recruit players. I think that's a mindset that we need to get our (provincial) organizations more on board with."

In the eyes of Hockey Canada, getting people on skates is the first step, and that could mean working together with Skate Canada (figure skating), ringette and speedskating to get the message out.

"We feel if we are able to even get kids on skates, we've done our job," said McCurdie. "Hockey is such a part of our country, it's such a vibrant sport, that if we can get people onto skates, that the natural flow will be for them to try hockey at some point."

Re: Articles

Just for laughs.......

NHL Simply Not Going To Bother Reaching Out To Hispanics

Hope you guys are enjoying your seasons.

Re: Articles

Quote by: DMan

Just for laughs.......

NHL Simply Not Going To Bother Reaching Out To Hispanics

Hope you guys are enjoying your seasons.

Dave, That is funny (true enough that Bettman cannot figure out how to connect with white people!) I love the Onion... have not read it for years... kind of forgot about it I guess... neat that you found this article!

Re: Articles

Here's another interesting one from Daniel Coyle:
The Power of Crumminess

Re: Articles

NHL engages ridicule defence

By ROY MACGREGOR
From Tuesday's Globe and Mail February 14, 2011

In shouting down Lemieux, like those who spoke out before him, hockey invites upon itself a blow that could concuss the game


Mario Lemieux, say hello to Senator Hartland Molson.

Some may imagine the owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins is the first NHL owner to speak out against gratuitous violence in the game - "a travesty," Lemieux called Friday night's WWE match between his Pens and the New York Islanders - but Molson beat him by a half-century.

Call me a "pantywaist" if you must, the owner of the Montreal Canadiens told his fellow NHL governors. But also call the rules. Put an end to the mayhem.

"I cannot see any argument," he said, "against criticism of unnecessary roughness."

No argument required, of course - his suggestions were beaten down by the same tool that is being used against Lemieux: ridicule.

Lemieux's tantrum - an Internet posting in which he said the Friday Fiasco made him wonder whether he even wanted "to be a part" of the NHL any more - certainly could have used a little self-flagellation over his own dirty team and, in particular, the antics over the past few years of Pittsburgh's serial offender, Matt Cooke. But simply to dismiss the Penguins owner as a hypocrite is too easy, too convenient for those who use ridicule to butt-end every mouth that opens against violence in hockey.

Speaking out is hardly new to this national game.

As far back as 1904, Ontario hockey head John Ross Robertson was warning that if they didn't clean up the game they would soon have to call in the coroner.

That happened three years later in Cornwall, Ont., when Charles Masson killed Bud McCourt with a blow to the head. The jury recommended that laws be brought in - not hockey rules, but real law - to ensure those engaged in foul play "be severely punished."

It never happened, of course.

As for NHL owners, few thought along the lines of Molson or Lemieux. New York Rangers boss Tex Rickard used to pay ambulance drivers to park outside Madison Square Garden on the theory that the promise of violence brought in the crowds.

Toronto Maple Leafs owner Conn Smythe used the ridicule argument when he stated: "We've got to stamp out this sort of thing, or people are going to keep on buying tickets."

The closest the two differing views at the NHL board of governors table ever got to an airing happened in 1992. A new chair was in place, Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall, with the arrival of a new commissioner, Gary Bettman, was still several months off. It seemed like a good time to discuss changing the violent culture of the game.

Harry Sinden, then-general manager of the "Big, Bad" Boston Bruins somewhat surprisingly suggested a complete ban on fighting. He argued the only way expansion was possible to untried U.S. markets and, in particular, to Europe, was if they cleaned up the "distasteful" side of hockey.

"I'll always love hard-hitting, physical hockey," Sinden said. "But I hate goons and I hate goon tactics."

The board responded by asking that two position papers be prepared for discussion, one "pro" fighting, the other "con."

The "con" side argued it would be in the league's financial interest to get rid of the thuggery. It was pointed out that huge potential sponsors (IBM was one) were shying away from hockey over this issue. European hockey thrives, they said, and doesn't allow fighting.

The "pro" side mostly ridiculed, particularly in its condemnation of European hockey.

Even so, at the next meeting of the board of governors, the "con" side believed it had made some progress. Proposals were tabled that would establish game misconducts for fighting, with an extra game added if the fight took place in the last 10 minutes of a game. They suggested linesmen be allowed to call penalties once play had stopped. They called for a bumping up of multiple penalties, such as cross-checking, to five minutes from two minutes. Penalties for infractions such as hooking and holding, they said, should run their full time allotment rather than end once the team with the advantage has scored.

Of course, nothing ever came of this. The hooking and holding, in fact, took such a strong hold on the game that star various players - Lemieux among them - spoke out about the state of the game and fans grew so increasingly disenchanted that, following the 2004-05 lockout, significant rule changes were made to open the game up again.

In 2010-11, another giant step is required to rid the league of headshots and, with luck, such "travesty" as occurred last Friday.

To simply ridicule and dismiss those who argue such change is necessary - as Hockey Night in Canada analyst Mike Milbury so loves to do on taking hits to the head out of the game - is to invite upon hockey a blow that could concuss the game itself. Minor hockey enrolment is down. By 2016, The Hockey News predicts, at least 30,000 fewer children will be playing the game.

That analysis was made before the current outcry against headshots. The undeniable medical evidence that concussions are life-long and life-threatening have parents everywhere rethinking their child's involvement in a game where, no matter what the lesser leagues do to protect heads, the players themselves continue to copy the open-season style of the NHL.

The league's refusal to act threatens future players and fans - surely it can see this.

However, it has ignored good advice before, such as the 1992 discussion paper against fighting that was prepared by Harry Sinden.

Oh, yes, and by his assistant, Mike Milbury.

But we won't accuse Milbury of hypocrisy.

That word has already been used against Mario Lemieux.

Re: Articles

Both sides resort to myths in the debate over fighting


By PAT HICKEY, The Gazette February 15, 2011


Fighting in the National Hockey League has been in the news in the past two weeks and it's time to look at a couple of myths and misconceptions.

Myth No. 1 is that the NHL is only major professional sport that allows fighting.

In fact, the NHL rule book devotes 51/2 pages to the definition of fighting, the circumstances surrounding fights and the sanctions that result from a fight.

But, while the NHL rules say that fighting is unacceptable, the reality is that the league tolerates fighting. Players who are involved in fights seldom face any consequences.

When a player takes a penalty for hooking, interference or for something as benign as jumping on the ice too soon giving his team too many men, he may incur the wrath of his coach for leaving his team short-handed.

That doesn't happen with fighting. While there is a provision for extra penalties for a player who instigates a fight, this infraction is seldom invoked. When a fighter goes to the penalty box, he usually takes an opponent with him. In these cases, a coach may actually praise the player for giving his team a lift or sticking up for a teammate.

A straw poll of the Canadiens' players yesterday provided a consensus that fighting is part of the game and will never be eliminated.

Captain Brian Gionta fell back on Myth No. 2, which stipulates that fighting serves as a safety valve for pent-up emotions. He played college hockey at Boston College and noted that the NCAA hands out suspensions for fighting and that the result is that there are more stick fouls.

But the pent-up emotion argument doesn't hold to an examination of the facts. Our good friends at hockeyfights.comoffer some interesting statistics about fighting and they show the great disparity between fighting in the regular season and in the playoffs. You would think that emotions would run highest with the Stanley Cup on the line. You would think that the animosity between teams would increase when they face each other up to seven times over a two-week period.

The reality is that fighting practically disappears during the postseason. Over the past five seasons, there has been at least one fight in 40 per cent of the games in the regular season. That number drops to about 10 per cent in the postseason. In the 2008 playoffs, there were 85 games and only six of them (7.1 per cent) included a fight

Why the drop? It's because coaches and players concentrate on winning hockey games and, with the rare exception, fighting doesn't win hockey games.

One reason the NHL tolerates fights is that some fans like them and that may be necessary to sell the game in a season that is too long and features a product that is too watered down.

When Penguins owner Mario Lemieux went off during the weekend, decrying some of the recent goonery around the league, fans weighed in on chat sites and radio talk shows. They denounced him as a whiner and pointed out that he's hypocritical because his team leads the NHL in fighting majors and employs Matt Cooke, who has a reputation for delivering dangerous hits.

But Lemieux, who expressed his frustration as a player by calling the NHL a garage league, offers some food for thought.

Michael Cammalleri said he had been talking to some friends who said that fighting must be on the rise this season. The reality is that the incidence of fighting has been steady the past five seasons at about .58 fights a game.

But something is wrong when there are three fights in the first four seconds of a game or when two teams rack up more than 360 penalty minutes. Suspensions are up but it's difficult to say whether that's because there's more dirty play or because the NHL is coming down harder on offenders. The anecdotal evidence would suggest there have been more injuries to key players but, again, it's sometimes difficult to separate foul play from misadventure.

The NHL can't afford to lose Sidney Crosby because of a hit from behind, and Matt Cooke should have answered for trying to take down Alexander Ovechkin with his knee. And there should be a way to cut out the overwhelming number of fights that are unnecessary and stupid.

In the meantime, fans can take comfort in the fact that the best is yet to come -the playoffs start in two months.

phickey@montrealgazette.com

Re: Articles

Quote by: DMan

Here's another interesting one from Daniel Coyle:
The Power of Crumminess

Dave - good one! Here it is... Thanks for alerting us!

Dean
--------

THE POWER OF CRUMMINESS

Here’s a little-appreciated fact about talent hotbeds: their facilities tend to be rundown. Rusty. Makeshift. Overcrowded.

In a word, crummy.

Exhibit A could be the North Baltimore Aquatic Club, which has produced Michael Phelps and a squadron of other top national swimmers despite its considerably-less-than-lovely setting. Or Anand Kumar’s tin-roof math class in India where an astounding 78 percent of the students are accepted to India’s Harvard, the Indian Institutes of Technology. Or any of another dozen other hotbeds where this precise atmosphere is repeated so often that it stops feeling like a coincidence, and starts to feel more like a fingerprint, or a mathematical equation: Crumminess + Crowdedness = Beautiful Talent.

This strikes most of us as surprising, because to the modern American/European mind, crumminess and crowdedness are considered deeply undesirable. We instinctively strive for groomed fields, top-level technology, comfortable surroundings — and enough space where each age group can gather in splendid isolation.

The question is, is talent developed better in roomy, well-appointed facilities? Or is there something else going on in these remote hotbeds? To put it simply, are there any advantages to being crummy and crowded?

We get an interesting data point from Vermont’s Burke Mountain Academy, a bona fide hotbed of downhill skiing talent (it’s produced 40-plus Olympians in its 30 years). Burke’s facility is far from rundown (though the classrooms and dorms tend toward the spartan), but it has two features that set it apart: an undersized ski hill, and an ancient, creaking beast of a ski lift that, by all appearances, should have been replaced long ago. It’s an old-fashioned poma lift, and it works like this: you stand on the snow, grab onto a bar/seat contraption, and get dragged uphill.

Most visitors who come to Burke see the old poma lift and presume that it’ll be replaced soon by something faster and more efficient. But the teachers and coaches of Burke would never think of it. To their minds, the poma lift might be their most valuable resource.

From the poma lift, young skiers get a catbird seat to watch the older, better skiers make turns. That physical closeness transforms the small ski hill into a rich kingdom of watching and learning, not to mention motivation. Kids on that poma lift receive the privilege of seeing up close who they might become, if they work hard.

We’re all acquainted with the phenomenon of the scruffy underdog from the remote country who rises up and defeats big, rich Goliath — we see it all the time in sports, music, and business. And we naturally interpret their success as evidence of the superior hunger of poor countries. They want it more. They’re tougher. They’re quintessential underdogs.

But I think Burke and the other hotbeds gives us a new way to think about underdogs. Crumminess and crowdedness, used properly, can be advantages. The skiers from Burke only look like underdogs — in fact, they’re the overdogs, because they’ve designed the perfect space to create deeper, better practice and ignite more motivation.

So what do the rest of us do? Should we demolish our good facilities and replace them with crowded, tin-roofed structures? Well, not quite. I think it’s more useful to look closely at the useful elements from the hotbeds and try to copy them. A few ideas:

* 1. Find ways to mix age groups. Isolation diminishes motivation. Nothing creates effort and intensity like staring at older talent, someone who you want to become. Putting groups together — even in passing, as on the poma lift — injects a burst of motivational electricity.
* 2. Aim to make facilities spartan and simple. Research shows that luxurious surroundings diminish effort — and why not? It’s a signal to our unconscious minds that we’ve got it made — why should we keep taking risks and working hard?
* 3. When given the choice, invest in people over facilities. Teachers are the real engine of the day-by-day learning process that drives any hotbed. The addition of one master teacher creates more talent than a million dollars’ worth of bricks and mortar.

P.S. — Okay, what do you think? What would you do if you received a check for $50,000 tomorrow to help develop talent in your team/school? Please rank the following possibilities from most-effective to least-effective:

* 1. Pay for new facilities/equipment
* 2. Hire the single best teacher/coach you can find
* 3. Bring in a top-notch series of camps/seminars for students and teachers
* 4. Pay existing teachers/coaches more
-----

Dean's rankings (assuming I had primarily average teachers / coaches and one or two whom were above average; assuming I had the basics so far as equipment; knowing $50k would be a mere drop in the bucket so far as a new facility):

1. Hire the single best teacher/coach you can find. (Release those who are average.)
2. Pay the two above average existing teachers/coaches more. (#1 & #2 - It is about identifying, recruiting and retaining GOOD PEOPLE first.)
3. Bring in a top-notch series of camps / seminars for students and teachers
4. Pay for new facilities/equipment (if I didn't NEED new stuff.)

Re: Articles

Kids inspired by NHL headhunters

It isn’t just Sidney Crosby and Marc Savard who’ve had their brains rattled. A Calgary Atom has too and is asking everyone to stop for the good of the game

By CHRIS STEVENSON, QMI Agency February 18, 2011



The kid never saw it coming.

A blindside hit to the head left 10-year-old Matthew, an Atom 1 player in the Calgary area, slightly dazed, but not confused.

An articulate young man, Matthew (the family didn’t want its last name used) said he knows why he was the victim of a blow to the head: Kids his age watch the NHL. They want to be NHLers and they do what the NHLers do.

“I definitely think that. There have been a lot of incidents of hits to the head. NHL players are doing it and of course the kids watch it,” said Matthew in an interview with QMI Agency, a followup after he sent a thoughtful and well-written e-mail to me about headshots and the state of the game, from the NHL on down.

“They are trying to be like the NHL superstars. I really think they watch them and they copy them.”

Does anybody think NHL general managers or members of the board of governors or league executives are concerned about the trickle-down effect of headshots at the NHL level through the feeding chain?

Anybody?

Matthew missed school Monday with a headache after getting hit on a play that saw his aggressor kicked out of the game with a major penalty. Matthew used the time at home to craft his email to me.

He said he was feeling much better Tuesday.

“I read your article on blindside hits and I had a blindside hit done on me the same weekend you wrote your article,” wrote Matthew.

“Kids know how to hurt someone because they watch it on TV, so when they play hockey, they try to do the same thing. Lucky for me, the referee did see the hit and gave the kid a game suspension. So should these gorillas keep elbowing?

“They were coming towards us and I wasn’t looking at him. I was looking at the puck,” said Matthew.

“They had the puck and I couldn’t see him. He came across the blue line and hit me with an elbow to the head. My head was hurting a little bit and I was kind of dizzy. I went to the bench and after the first few seconds I was set to get back into it.”

Lucky for Matthew, his dad, Paul, has been involved in rugby and has an idea of what a concussion looks like. He watched Matthew closely and decided a trip to the hospital wasn’t necessary.

Other kids aren’t so lucky.

We’ve been hearing a lot about concussions, particularly since Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby has been out with one since early January, but kids being affected at the minor hockey level are seldom mentioned.

Dr. Renata Frankovich, director of the Physiotherapy and Sports Injury Centres in Ottawa, met with a concussed 16-year hockey player the other day.

Speaking at Algonquin College’s sports business symposium on the business implications of head injuries in sport, she said in most cases, symptoms clear up in seven to 10 days. But they hadn’t for this young player.

“He had a hockey injury and I can’t tell him when he’s going to be better,” she said. “It’s a very scary situation for young athletes. With a (knee) injury, you can give them some idea of how long it will be to recover. That’s not the case here. This is a difficult time that can make a young athlete depressed and scared.”

Minor hockey coaches and parents should educate themselves on the symptoms of a concussion and what to do if a player is suspected of having sustained one (thinkfirst.ca is a good place to start).

Coaches and parents should know it does not require a direct blow to the head to cause a concussion.

Of course, the best way to handle a concussion is not to get one in the first place, because there is no treatment other than rest.

Even after going through what he did, Matthew isn’t deterred from playing the game. He said he’s not intimidated or scared and the joy he gets from the playing trumps any lingering negative feelings he might have after the incident.

“Oh, yeah, I love it. I’ve always loved hockey from the first time I stepped on the ice,” said Matthew.

“I’ll always play. I’m just not really worried about (getting a blow to the head) again. It happened and I was shocked, but I’m not worried it’s going to happen every game.”

Paul, Matthew’s dad, said he was disappointed by what he heard from one of the coaches of the opposing team.

“He said his player shouldn’t have been suspended because Matthew got up. What if he had collapsed at home later? It’s that thinking, ‘If there’s no blood, it’s not a foul.’

“I’ve been a part of the those player evaluation committees and I hear people saying, ‘That kid is going to make the best team because he’s running around hitting the top players.’ Certain signals are being sold to the kids.”

Matthew, through the eyes of a 10-year-old, probably sees things much clearer than most adults.

His answer to the problem of headshots?

“I think what they should do is probably just kick those guys out of the league,” he said. “Kick them out of the league if they do it on purpose. It’s just a game. They shouldn’t be allowed to play.”

If only it were that simple, huh?

“We don’t mind the physicality. We play rugby,” said Paul. “But when a kid can’t see it coming and gets a blow to the head, it’s ridiculous. It’s a culture. There’s got to be a good discussion about it.”

Matthew should know he has helped push the discussion along.

Re: Articles

Cherry: Get rid of hitting

By IAN BUSBY, Calgary Sun February 18, 2011



Don Cherry has a quick and easy solution for eliminating all head shots and concussions in hockey.

Just get rid of the hitting.

No one wants to do that, especially not Cherry.

But fingers are being pointed starting at the NHL level on down for some of the vicious blindside hits that rattled the likes of Marc Savard and Sidney Crosby.

“Blindside hitting is the one you are trying to get rid of. Head-first into the boards is the other one we need to get rid of,” said Cherry, in Calgary for the Heritage Classic, speaking Friday at the Cold-FX Salute to Hockey Moms luncheon.

While Cherry applauds the 10-year-old Calgary minor hockey player who spoke out after receiving a blindside hit, the CBC commentator said kids need to learn how to protect themselves.

Cherry has tried for years to get rid of checking from behind, going as far as to hand out ‘stop’ stickers for helmets, but it is still a problem.

“If you are going head first into the boards, that goes along with the not let them hit until they are 12 years old,” Cherry said. “They have no idea how to get ready for a hit. They have no idea how to take blind passes up the middle.

“They go into the corners straight. When they hit 13 and they open up hitting, they are with guys that know how to hit, and they don’t know how to receive a hit.”

The 10-year-old who wrote to the Sun said players his age are just emulating what they see in the NHL.

“It’s good that the kid writes in,’ Cherry said.

Cherry would argue that protection has caused a lot of the problems.

When he was a professional player, he didn’t wear a helmet and he said the concussion problems weren’t as bad as they are now.

“In 1979, I predicted they would have concussions,” Cherry said about the league-mandated helmet rule.

“We all had respect for the head. You would never think about blindsiding a guy. You would never think about hitting somebody head-first into the boards.”

Re: Articles

Dangerous on-ice shots crackdown intensifies in city minor hockey


BILL KAUFMANN, Calgary Sun February 18, 2011

Condemning dangerous, cheap on-ice hits will soon be the first star of the city’s minor hockey sportsmanship focus, says the movement’s vice-president.

News of the long-planned phase of the Minor Hockey Association of Calgary’s Respect In Sport program comes after a 10-year-old city-area Atom 1 player told of taking a serious head shot in a recent game and claimed kids are emulating their often violent NHL heroes.

The latest phase in sportsmanship awareness will highlight the dangers of hits-from-behind, blindsidings and head shots by way of literature and arena banners, said Hockey Calgary’s Perry Cavanagh.

It’ll be the next step of a two-year-old program that will either be unveiled in March or for the next hockey season, he said.

“It might have to wait until next year — we’re pretty tied up organizing the coming playoffs right now,” said Cavanagh.

He said the organization has waited until 2011 to roll out the phase because it wants to keep the message fresh and not “gather dust on the shelf.” The Atom 1 player named Matthew said he missed a day of school this week after taking a blinside hit to his head that resulted in the offender being tossed from the game.

Matthew said numerous such incidents in his league result from young players emulating NHL action.

Cavanagh said he doesn’t doubt that, adding it’s a concern for his association.

“Kids see that and they think that’s hockey — kids need to know that’s not part of minor hockey,” he said.

Hockey Calgary, he said, has always taken such conduct seriously and has cracked down, dishing out indefinite suspensions and life-time bans for some offenders, though they’ve been considerably older than Matthew.

Cavanagh said there’s no place for such play in the younger leagues, though the danger it poses is less there.

“The speed and mass — there’s normally not a lot of energy being generated,” he said.

Matthew’s father who’s part of a league committee told the Sun there’s a culture of tolerance, even admiration for cheap hits among adults involved in Calgary minor hockey.

Cavanagh said he disagrees, that the movement has long had a philosophy of taking a hard line on hazardous, dirty play.

“Nobody wants to see headshots in a game — concussion awareness is a major issue,” he said.

“We’re onside with this kid (Matthew).”
-----


I have seen and heard the stuff of which Matthew's dad speaks... the culture of acceptance within the minor hockey ranks. And not just accepted, but taught and promoted!!! Brutal.

I know Perry Cavanagh - he is an intelligent man - but he is either "wishful thinking" or denying it publicly to do damage control. I also know for a fact some of the people I have heard it from are ... teachers. It shocked the Hell out of me.

A few days after I heard and saw the first two instances of this (by teachers, who are also parents - in charge of kids), I read a great quote: "Silence on the presence of wrongdoing is complicity." This provides me with a great line that sadly, I have now had to use since.

(The first two times it happened, I was so shocked I didn't say anything... I didn't know what to say! I was literally stunned. I am sure my body language spoke volumes to the kids and adults involved. The third time I was present when it happened, I spoke out against it and this quote came in handy.)

Can you imagine anyone, let alone teachers, teaching and condoning violence against other kids? BRUTAL. What the Hell is the world coming to? I almost want to home-school my kids now...

Re: Articles

Head injuries a blow to NHL bravado

By Amber Hildebrandt, CBC News February 21, 2011


The loss of NHL star Sidney Crosby to a concussion is a reminder that all players are vulnerable to the injury, and experts are warning that sports culture must change.

Losing NHL star Sidney Crosby to a concussion is a reminder that all players are vulnerable, Canadian hockey Hall of Famer Marcel Dionne says.

"That's the scary part," said the retired NHL player. "Now it's affecting our superstars. It takes that to review what's happening."

But ask Dionne about the NHL's latest high-profile hit on Maple Leaf Mikhail Grabovski - who experts believe suffered a concussion after two hard hits in the Feb. 15 game but was allowed back on the ice and scored the winning goal - and he appears to take a more typically tough-guy approach.

"Absolutely," Grabovski should've been allowed back on the ice after a second hit, Dionne said. "He came back and proved it.

"I watched him play against Buffalo," Dionne said, referring to a later game. "I think he's playing better than ever. They woke him up or something."

Dionne, who played 18 seasons in the NHL, is indicative of a bravado that persists in the National Hockey League - an attitude that experts say needs to change.

Dr. Richard Wennberg, a neurologist and concussion expert at the University of Toronto, says that watching Grabovski slip and slide as he tried to rise to his feet and the rubbing of his neck once he reached the bench were clear indications to him that the hockey player had a concussion.

"By observation, it can be stated with certainty that he had a concussion," Wennberg said. "It would be against current medical management to continue playing the game."

But continue he did. Leafs management said Grabovski responded coherently to questions. Some critics said a doctor should have made the call instead of a trainer and that Grabovski should have been taken away for 15 minutes for an assessment.
NHL urged to adopt return-to-play protocol

Crosby, the Pittsburgh Penguins captain, has been out of action since Jan. 6 after taking hits to the head in successive games. He says he expects to play again this season but admits he can't be sure.

Dustin Fink, a trainer who tracks concussions on his blog Theconcussionblog.com, says the NHL is behind the times when it comes to in-game diagnosis and return-to-play protocol for concussions.

National Football League players who show symptoms of a concussion aren't allowed to return to play the same day. They must be symptom-free and cleared by an independent neurologist before returning to the field.

"The bigger sports tend to be a lot less proactive," Fink said. "They are protecting their multibillion-dollar industries and their players themselves."
Concussion symptoms

Classic concussion symptoms include confusion and amnesia, especially of the event that caused the concussion.

Other immediate symptoms may include:

* Headache.
* Dizziness.
* Ringing in the ears.
* Nausea or vomiting.
* Slurred speech.
* Fatigue.

For more on this and other questions, see our FAQs. [http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/2011/02/17/f-concussions-what-they-are-faq.html]

Professional football and hockey leagues aren't the only ones struggling to minimize the risk of concussions.

U.S. downhill skier Lindsey Vonn participated in the World Cup on Feb. 13, winning silver, despite later admissions she felt foggy after a concussion suffered during training. The U.S. lacrosse league is currently debating whether to require girls to wear helmets - and wondering whether extra armour might actually increase aggression.
33 concussions despite rule

Fink acknowledges the NHL at least introduced Rule 48 - which makes blindside head hits illegal - but says it's not enough. Despite that rule, the league saw 33 reported concussions by Dec. 1, as many by that date as in the previous season in total.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman has said the number of concussions are up this season due to accidental or inadvertent collisions, but the number caused by blindside hits are down.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there may be up to 3.8 million sports and recreation-related concussions in the U.S. each year, with concussions accounting for one in 10 of all sports injuries.

Fink says the hockey league needs to create a standard return-to-play protocol for concussions in line with the NFL's and give medical teams the independent power to decide whether to pull a player.

But he understands the difficulties in changing the culture.

"Hockey is a tough-guy sport. You definitely don't want to show weakness with your opponent," Fink said

In the end, he says, it's an important issue that needs to be taken seriously by players, management and the league.

"I don't care how tough you are," Fink said. "You only have one brain. We can't fix that brain."
Sports culture a major barrier: doctor
Injuries to young athletes

Michael Stuart, chief medical officer at USA Hockey, is behind a proposal to raise the age of bodychecking in U.S. youth hockey. Stuart says there's more than enough evidence for Canada to do the same - and a large reason for that is a study conducted by the University of Calgary that showed bodychecking in Pee Wee hockey more than tripled the risk of concussion and injury. Find out more. [http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/02/21/concussion-hockey-bodycheck-age.html]

However, despite an evolving wealth of knowledge about concussions, the culture in sports remains an impediment, says Paul Echlin, a sports medicine physician based in London, Ont.

"The No. 1 thing is not wanting to leave the playing field or the ice surface or the football field regardless," Echlin said. "Unless somebody drags you off, you're not going to go."

Echlin was the lead author of a study on concussions in hockey players published in the Neurosurgical Focus journal in November 2010 that found a lack of standardized knowledge among athletes, coaches, trainers and parents about the signs and symptoms of a concussion.

The concussion expert says it's what leagues do with the information that is telling.

"When you start to turn your head when you know this knowledge, that's a problem," Echlin said.
Players never had it so good: Dionne

However, Dionne argues, players have never had it so good - with their health so top of mind.
Career-ending concussions

Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young, New England Revolution soccer player Taylor Twellman, Colorado Avalanche forward Steve Moore - a photo gallery showcases these and other professional athletes [http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/photos/82#igimgid_419] whose careers have been hampered or ended by concussions.

"We never had this," said Dionne, who played from 1971 to 1989 for the Detroit Red Wings, Los Angeles Kings and New York Rangers. "I think the players' association recognizes that we have to protect our players, so is the league, the insurance companies.... And on top of that, the doctors are right there."

But Dionne, who says he suffered a single concussion during an NHL career nearly two decades long, worries that concussions are becoming more prevalent because the sport is getting faster, players are bigger and stronger, and hard equipment is less forgiving.

"There will always be concussions," said neurologist Wennberg. "There's no way to legislate concussions out of the game."

Both Dionne and Wennberg suggest part of the solution could be to increase the rink size, a change that studies show reduces contact.

Dionne, though, may have a simpler idea.

"The little guys have the stop sign," Dionne laughed, referring to use in the minor leagues of a stop sign to reduce hits from behind. "Maybe we're going to have to do this ourselves!"

Re: Articles

Winning & losing streaks. Any rhyme or reason?

http://sciencewitness.com/2011/02/22/winning-losing-streaks-any-rhyme-or-reason/

Let's Play Hockey Magazine articles by John Russo

John Russo writes a lot of good articles for the "Let's Play Hockey" magazine from Minnesota.

http://www.letsplayhockey.com/russoarchive.html he covers a lot of topics and has good ideas.

Re: Articles

Another good one from Daniel Coyle:

Breaking Ceilings
We got a ping-pong table at Christmas, and within days my 15-year-old son and I were seriously, hopelessly addicted. At first, I beat him regularly — 21-15 would be a typical score. Occasionally, I even dialed my game back a notch, so the game would stay excitingly close.

But then one fateful week something changed. The games were suddenly getting closer. Uncomfortably close. Then, with quiet inevitability, something tipped. The kid started winning. Not just winning, but thumping me with increasing ease, to the point where I began to suspect he was dialing it back for me.

Something had changed — or rather hadn’t changed. While my son kept getting better, I’d stopped improving. I had to face the unpleasant truth: I’d bumped into my ceiling.

We bump into ceilings all the time — at work, in sports, in music, in every area of performance. But when we look deeper, this area is wrapped in mystery. What’s causing the ceiling, and how do we get through it? The mystery is deepened by the fact that our skills in navigating that encounter — our ceiling IQ — might be one of the most important factors of our longterm performance.

When we encounter a performance ceiling, we instinctively make a couple natural presumptions:

1) That we’ve reached our natural limit — the point where our skills plateau.

2) That the best way past the limit is to keep grinding – to grit our teeth, stick with our methods and to defeat the ceiling through sheer cussed persistence.

The question is, are our instincts right? Or are there other, smarter ways to crack through our ceilings?

We get some insights from this article written by Josh Foer called Secrets of Mind-Gamer. Foer, a twenty-something science journalist, transforms himself into a memory champion in the space of a single year (memorizing, among other things, a shuffled deck of playing cards as quickly as possible).

At one point in his journey, Foer hit a ceiling. No matter what he tried, he couldn’t memorize a deck of cards any faster. He then sought out an expert (who in a parallel familiar to Talent Code readers, turns out to be Dr. Anders Ericsson). The ever-resourceful Ericsson gives Foer some surprising advice: speed up your practice. Force yourself to go too fast. Force yourself to make mistakes. Analyze those mistakes, find your weak points, and fix them.

Foer and Ericsson’s speed strategy works beautifully. Foer goes on to win the memory championships and set a new American speed record for card-memorization. It’s an intriguing story (and looks to be a fascinating book). But mostly it’s useful because it shines a light on a new way to think about ceilings.

Foer and Ericsson didn’t think of the ceiling to be a limit. Instead, they thought of it as a level of automaticity — a point at which Foer became fast, unthinking, and proficient. Automaticity – sort of like our brain’s autopilot for specific tasks — is usually a good thing. It helps us walk and talk without thinking too much. But when we want to improve beyond a certain level, automaticity becomes a barrier. We try harder — we grind away — but that just reinforces the automatic circuit. Progress stops.

The solution, then, is not to grind, but to disrupt. To choose a new strategy that breaks up the automaticity, reveals our shortcomings, and allows us to rewire our circuit. To change some factor — in Foer’s case, speeding up time — so that he’s prevented from being automatic, and thus can improve.

And in light of that, here are a few disruptive tools for ceiling-busting, stolen from various hotbeds:

* Use Overspeed: Foer’s technique is relatively common among musicians and athletes. Going too fast breaks up the normal rhythms of a skill and allows them to be rebuilt and improved.
* Use Underspeed: slowing way down to develop new feel; common to musicians (who, perhaps by many-laddered nature of the work, tend to become ferocious ceiling-busters. For example, world-champion speed typist Albert Tangora likes to type at half-speed when he hits a plateau.
* Single Out: Focusing on one key element and working on it in isolation. For example, major-league batters will practice identifying various pitches. They are singling out the visual, pattern-recognition element of hitting.
* Seek Fresh Feedback: Finding new metrics — such as videotaping your performance, or seeking out a consult from a new teacher — can quickly lead to new insights and experiments.
* Give it Time: Ceilings are as much emotional challenges as anything else, best encountered with a sense of perspective. As George Leonard points out in his book, Mastery, “this is the inexorable fact of the journey: you also have to be willing to spend most of your time on a plateau, to keep practicing even when you seem to be getting nowhere.”

Normally, we think of stories like Foer’s as inspiration: he tried harder, so he broke through. But this story is not about inspiration; it’s really about strategy. He didn’t succeed merely because he tried harder, but because he tried in a highly methodic way that was consistent with the way our brains learn — by getting in the zone where we make mistakes and fix them. Talent’s not a possession — it’s a construction project.

As for my ceiling: it turns out that one half of our ping-pong table can be raised into a vertical position, creating a practice wall. At first it felt strange — the ball, rebounding from a few feet closer than I was accustomed to, shot back at me so quickly that I could barely catch up. It was overspeed in excelsis. But I’ve done it for a few days now, and I’m hitting the ball pretty well. Playing a real game seems weirdly slow.

Okay, so I still haven’t beaten the kid. But the last two games were 21-19 and 22-20. Now I just have to make sure he doesn’t find out about my secret practice technique.

PS — From the kid: “Hey Dad, if you don’t want me to find out about your practice technique, maybe you shouldn’t write about it in your blog!”

Source:http://thetalentcode.com/2011/02/24/breaking-ceilings/

Re: Articles

Ban bodychecking? Absolutely

By Kim Gray Thursday, Feb 24 2011
Kim Gray's Modern Family Blog


Here's something to think about if you haven't been following the news and you happen to be a hockey parent.

Bodychecking is legal at 11 years old across Canada - except in Quebec.

Bodychecking is not permitted in La Belle Province until the kids are 13 years of age.

A recent University of Calgary study showed that Alberta Pee Wee leagues (where kids are 11 and 12 years old) suffered 73 concussions over the same period of time only 20 of these injuries occurred in Quebec among the same age group.

Curiously, USA Hockey - a body which governs U.S. amateur hockey - will be voting on a proposed rule to ban bodychecking nationwide until players turn 13 years old.

This vote, to take place in June, is in part a response to the Canadian study just referenced.

Chief medical officer for USA Hockey - Michael Stuart - has said he's concerned younger players don't have the physical and mental awareness required to execute safe and legal bodychecks, which results in risky and sometimes damaging collisions on ice between players.

All factors considered, it seems a country-wide decision to ban bodychecking until players are 13 is a no-brainer.

Care to comment?

Body Checking

My thought is that age 13 is the absolute worst time to bring in body checking. I taught jr. high for 22 of my 34 years of teaching. At ages 12-13 you have the biggest difference in size between children than you ever will have. I have had 6'4" - 193 cm. 13 year old boy's with 5' - 153 cm, classmates/ The growth difference is +/- 3 years (sometimes more). So one boy can have the body of a 16 year old while another has the body of a 10 year old. The boy with the 16 year old body is also coming into puberty and the testosterone is flowing and increasing the aggressiveness. (I do 2 practices a week with 11-14 year olds now and see the huge difference in physical maturity)

They have got to be kidding.

I remember my son, who didn't grow until he was 17 lining up at the face off dot in the bantam championship game vs a boy who was bigger than my asst. coach (who was a 6'3" 220 lb. former NHL defenseman). That was 12 years ago and the rule then was body checking starting at age 13.

The people running hockey need to either have body checking from the start, and teach good technique and eliminate charging and boarding which passes off as body checking in minor hockey, OR and I think this is better, introduce body checking at age 15 when the growth differences have evened off a lot. There was always checking when I grew up and it wasn't the focus but now with a starting age it is such a big deal that hitting becomes the game instead of the "game".

You can learn this game with body contact, as in angling, riding off, blocking without the hitting. I have seen too many players quit because they are afraid (i.e. boys playing vs men) and too many minor hockey games that look more like roller ball than hockey, with players running around crashing into opponents with no angles or defensive side considerations.

Brendan Shannahan played with no body checking while growing up and was one of the toughest skilled forwards to ever play the game and promotes no hitting in youth hockey while demonstrating through his carreer that it isn't important at an early age. The kid's need to learn contact from the D side hockey; not collision hockey.

Re: Articles

American model growing game at youth level

Saturday, 01.29.2011
By Mike G. Morreale - NHL.com Staff Writer


RALEIGH, N.C. -- Carolina Hurricanes owner Peter Karmanos Jr. can't wait for the day when General Manager Jim Rutherford can step to the podium at the NHL Entry Draft and announce the name of a player born and trained from within the state.

The thing is, that day is quickly approaching due in large part to the increased support and widespread implementation of the American Developmental Model (ADM), a new philosophy in age-appropriate athlete development launched by USA Hockey in January 2009.

Within the last year, athletes from Carolina Youth Hockey programs have earned scholarships to the University of North Dakota men's program and the women's program at Boston College.

As part of this year's NHL All-Star Weekend, an ADM conference and clinic was held at the Raleigh RecZone on Saturday afternoon, marking the second time ADM regional manager Scott Paluch has helped conduct a clinic in the area.

"We want to get more kids on the ice to play, teach them how to play better and get them to love the game and play it longer," USA Hockey executive director Dave Ogrean said. "Hockey in America is growing and getting better. We're interested in having more Americans in the NHL; 80 percent of the clubs in the NHL are from the U.S. Our relationship with the League is better than it's ever been. The growth has been great."

Along with Karmanos Jr., Paluch and Ogrean, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke also spoke to the crowd inside the lobby area of the RecZone.

"Everything an athlete in another sport is asked to do, we ask our athletes to do on a piece of steel about an eighth-of-an-inch wide," Burke said. "This is the way forward; this is not a shot in the dark. This is not something a bunch of people who never played hockey sat around and thought about. We studied how they developed players in Europe, in Sweden and Finland, and put this program together. We believe it's the right way forward. A ton a research went into this and the goal is to get as many kids on the ice and have them enjoy the game."

With USA Hockey's Red, White and Blue initiative, coaches can promote creativity among players, increase player involvement and create a positive environment to learn and play.

"We view this as a revolutionary model," Commissioner Bettman said. "USA Hockey developed a proven system for developing young athletes. The ADM will have the effect of increasing player participation, creating a positive environment for children to learn and play hockey, and it will facilitate skill development among young players. Thanks to the hard work of NHL member clubs, coaches and players and alumni, ADM clinics and demos around the NHL have been an on-going and important role to validate this model and increase youth participation."

The model includes shrinking the ice surface during practices that now see players split up and rotate throughout six different stations to hone a specific set of skills. Now, less time is wasted during practice and all players touch the puck more. USA Hockey believes that dynamic will foster a greater passion for the sport among young players.

The smaller-ice philosophy is especially important in teaching players skill without worrying about the technical aspects of the game, such as positioning, staying in lanes or skating offside.

"We think it's an exciting development for hockey in this country," Bettman continued. "We view the relationship with USA Hockey to not only be important, but vital. The more we do at the grass-roots level, the more players develop into NHL players."
---

RALEIGH, N.C. -- There's a pretty significant proposal up for vote during USA Hockey's Annual Congress meeting June 8-11 in Colorado Springs, Co.

It includes a proposed modification that would prohibit body checking in games for youth hockey players until they reach bantam level (13-14 years old). The current rule allows checking in games at the pee-wee level (11-12 years old).

"Body contact and body checking is a fundamental and special skill and you have to be able to teach it … not just say, 'Go and do it,' " USA Hockey Executive Director Dave Ogrean told NHL.com

The proposal appears to be a foregone conclusion.

"There's been a lot of safety and health-related issues and feedback from former players, who are now coaches, about the distraction away from mastering other skills because you focus on (checking) too early," Ogrean said. "We also know instances where parents have said, 'I don't want my kid to play hockey because I don't want them to check too early.'

"This has been a result of a lot of study," he continued. "We know that not everyone shares a uniform opinion, but based on the health and safety research we've done, and the input from a lot of people who are experts in the game, taking body checking out of the pee wee level and, instead, teaching body contact and then implementing the checking a year later is the proper path."

Scott Paluch, a regional manager for USA Hockey's American Development Model, feels taking this step is an important one for the maturation of young players in this country.

"It's an emotional topic for a lot of people who have grown up in our game," Paluch told NHL.com. "The piece of legislation that doesn't get talked about enough is that we want to introduce body contact at a younger age. We want to start the education sooner, so when they start from mite, we can begin talking about how you come together in body contact. We would increase that education at the squirt level, discussing the proper angling and how to accept contact. At the pee-wee level, we would actually talk about introducing checking at practice and then, finally, full checking in games in bantam."

-- Mike G. Morreale

Re: Articles

Tom,

Good post regarding the age of introduction of checking. Wait till 15 (Minor Midget) but only if all the 15 year-olds play together - not with 14 year-olds or with 16 / 17 year-olds - so they are all in the same boat. But I guess you could still have some pretty big gaps in size and strength here. Waiting later (15) does introduce the "testosterone factor" where the kids want to test each others mettle physically - so they might be more prone to try to separate the body from the head instead of the puck from the man - especially since it is a novelty and they have been waiting for this! Maybe younger is better - less testosterone, smaller bodies, less mass, less acceleration, less distance to fall (lower centre of gravity), etc.

A friend I teach with asked why we don't teach checking earlier when the kids are closer in size - say in Atom (ages 9-10?) - prior to Peewee. Good point as the growth spurt usually hasn't hit yet.

What I see now is the kids and their parents (and to a lesser extent, the coaches) panicking as they graduate from Atom into Peewee (age 12 turning 13 - when the current checking age is set.) Often, the coaches haven't been selected yet; they can't get their checking certification until after tryouts and by then, the new incoming kids from Atom have already had to try out in checking conditions for which they are unprepared (and afraid.) I had a few parents try to rent ice this summer to have me teach their kids in advance.

Regardless of the age, coaches need to be selected well enough in advance such that they can complete a checking clinic prior to tryouts. The kids should be able to attend a checking skills camp prior to tryouts. This would put more people at ease - including the parents.

Re: Articles

Tom & Dean,

What is the "Checking Certification" that coaches have to go through? I'm a little unsure about starting body contact later, as I do think the testosterone factor is there. I also think it allows kids to play for too long with their heads down and be very vulnerable to injury. Tom, what do they do in Europe?

Obviously there is no easy answer, but I do think off ice clinics can help. Our players are pretty rough around the edges since they haven't been playing all that long. When we were taking too many penalties for high hits & head contact this season we started doing the UAS Hockey off-ice checking drills and the improvement was immediate. The video is available here:
http://usahockey.cachefly.net/webofficecheckingvideo.wmv
I'm sure hockey Canada has something similar?

When it comes to the NHL, one discussion I never hear is talk about going to Olympic size ice. It's so much tougher to make contact with the little bit of extra space. Just a thought....an expensive one, but when you see your most talented players sitting on the sidelines all options should be open for discussion.

Dave

Re: Articles

Checking Certification is a 7.5 hour course (Hockey Alberta is the only one I can comment on) which consists of about 5 hours of classroom time and 1.5 hours on-ice. The intent is to teach the coaches the theory and techniques of checking from contact confidence to body checking (give and receive a check.) I haven't been to one since they started doing this as I am not required to have this certification since I don't coach at peewee. (I just saw the manual last week for the first time.) I did work on several instructional videos for Hockey Canada in the early to mid 1990's and have been teaching the various levels of coach certification, so I am familiar with the terminology, etc.

I believe the head coach of each peewee team needs to attend this clinic prior to coaching their team. Hockey Canada is evolving their coaching certification to mandate regular updating of coaching certification - unlike up till now, once you achieve a certification, it doesn't expire (except for medical training / CPR, police checks, etc.) Not sure how frequently you will have to update - ongoing annually or every two or three years - and I don't know the scope of the renewals (repeat certification or take shorter update courses.)

I did watch the video link - most of these exercises were included in the Hockey Canada video back in the early 1990's. Bjorn did a generic rewrite of a few topics and then various organizations branded them with their national colours.

In an ideal world, all of the checking certification would happen before tryouts and assistant coaches (and then players) would also attend. Unfortunately, many coaches aren't named much before tryouts start in September and the local Minor Hockey Associations overwhelm Hockey Alberta with Checking Clinic requests at the last minute - then wonder why HA can't supply them with an instructor 'tomorrow'! Even though if the local MHA's name their coaches earlier, they can request a clinic at any time of the year! (Sometimes the MHA's forget to ask until tryouts are over!) Crazy!

Olympic size ice - they should have done this in the mid 1980's when everyone started building new rinks, luxury boxes, etc. Make them Olympic size, but have expanding / contracting seating to format to NHL size - like they did in Calgary when they built the Saddledome for the Olympics. They took this expandability out several years ago. Too late now because of the cost. Can't re-jig existing arenas because you would have to remove seats and this hits the owners in the pocketbook. Now with players bigger, stronger and faster than ever before, Olympic ice is an even better idea.

Soap box time:

You know what I really like... watching 4 on 4 overtime. Crazy quick transitions and more scoring chances with the ice opened up (less bodies and the players need to skate... get rid of the goons and eradicate fighting, head shots and stick work - 5 mins and a GM each infraction with escalating suspensions each occurance - if the NHL truly wanted to eliminate fighting, head shots, etc, this is all it would take!) Maybe we will end up playing 4x4 full-time on the the traditional NHL sized surface in lieu of 5x5... shrink the rosters to 16 skaters / team (NHLPA will be pissed!) ... while we are at it, contract 6 teams and do a dispersal draft... Can you imagine how crazy good the hockey skills would be??!!

We have the model for great hockey already

Dean I watch Detroit play and they demonstrate that no rule changes are needed; just better coaching and playing full speed with good habits.

Re: Articles

Detroit is good. Too bad most of the other teams don't have the ability to scout / draft and coach like them!

Re: Articles

Fighting in hockey begins long before games

By Robert Mays / Globe Correspondent / February 26, 2011


In mid-January, the Division 1 Legislative Council made a decision that made little noise among the conversation of major college sports, lost among news of basketball upsets and football recruiting.

But for college hockey, the verdict could not have been louder. The failure of the proposal — which would have disallowed college coaches to verbally offer a scholarship to a player before July 1 between that player’s junior and senior year of high school — provides the sport’s coaches with a chance to keep significant ground in its fight for the game’s best young talent.

The last five years have seen an increased departure of the country’s best prospective players to the Canadian Hockey League in order to play professionally for a league with a proven track record of sending players to the NHL.

To stem the threat of CHL drafts that select players at age 15, college coaches began recruiting more younger players than ever. Players gave verbal commitments to four years of college before they could drive to the rink. Still, the migration continued. According to Paul Kelly, director of College Hockey Inc., about 50 Americans were playing in the CHL five years ago. That number has increased to more than 125.

“We’re not going to be able to survive that rule and recruit the best young players,’’ Notre Dame coach Jeff Jackson said before the legislation was defeated. “It could be devastating to college hockey.’’

While the legislation’s defeat doesn’t solve the problems college hockey has encountered in the last five years, for many coaches it stands as a victory in the battle the sport is waging to keep its most promising young stars.

Tough opponent
One of the first players to force Red Berenson’s hand is a face that dominates Kelly’s presentation. Jack Johnson, a member of the 2010 US Olympic hockey team and the Los Angeles Kings, was 15 when Berenson, the coach at Michigan, received a call from Johnson’s father.

“He said, ‘There’s a CHL scout here waiting for Jack at his 7 a.m. job at the golf course, and he’s trying to recruit him to play in the CHL,’ ’’ Berenson said.

Johnson had attended Michigan hockey camps since elementary school, and because of the extended exposure, Berenson offered him a scholarship without much concern. Despite the comfort, Berenson felt a new paradigm entering college hockey.

“We had to respond,’’ Berenson said. “We knew Jack, and we knew he would be a good player, but we weren’t anticipating offering him a scholarship at age 15. The system put us in a position where we had to.’’

Berenson speaks with a knowing respect for the drawing power of the CHL.

“We definitely have a competitor that is relentless,’’ Berenson said.

The CHL, which is made up of three separate professional hockey leagues — the Western Hockey League, the Ontario Hockey League, and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League — markets its product to elite young players as the surest route to a career in professional hockey. For the last 40 years, that claim has met few disputes.

According to the OHL, half of all NHL players drafted since 1969 have come from the CHL, and in 2010, CHL players made up 51 percent of players drafted.

The success is credited to a hockey lifestyle that best mirrors what players will see at the NHL level.

OHL teams play an average of 68 games a year. A Division 1 program will play about 40. The schedule, style of play, and exposure to coaches and personnel departments with professional experience are all points on which the CHL claims an advantage.

Kelly concedes that historically, the CHL’s position as the best route to professional hockey may hold, despite recent gains from college hockey. According to his numbers, roughly one-third of players in the NHL are products of the collegiate game, a trend he sees growing because of the increased age and physical play of the NCAA product compared with the CHL.

But for Kelly and many of college hockey’s top coaches, the biggest gap doesn’t involve the players who eventually make it to the NHL. It involves the players who don’t.

To a degree
The challenge for those recruiting the best 15-year-old talent in the country is making players and parents understand the realities of their future.

“We tell them to use hockey,’’ Kelly said. “Get yourself admitted to a college. Use a scholarship to get you to a college. Don’t let hockey use you.

“Roughly 5 percent make it, and given that circumstance, education should never take a back seat.’’

From the educational packages to the institutions that provide them, Kelly believes schooling is what makes college hockey the superior option to time in the CHL.

Kelly claims that 84 percent of all NCAA hockey players will leave college with a degree, while the number in the CHL is approximately 16 percent. He also cites the limitations of educational benefits given to players at the major junior level. There, scholarships are given for each year of service to a team, and those scholarships, according to Kelly, are capped at around $4,500 and are only given for the institution closest to the home of the player’s parents.

“We’ll graduate more kids from our school each year than their whole league will,’’ Berenson said.

Each of those figures, and the claims such as Berenson’s that arise from them, are disputed by the WHL and CHL. Although the QMJHL limits its scholarships to $2,500 per semester, the WHL and CHL have policies they say give scholarships equivalent to tuition, books, and fees for the state university in which a player’s parents reside.

According to Joe Birch, the Director of Recruitment and Education Services for the OHL, for an OHL player from Michigan, a minimum scholarship of approximately $12,700 — the equivalent of a year of tuition, books, and fees at the University of Michigan — would be awarded per year of service in the OHL. Birch also claims the statement that only 16 percent of CHL players earn a diploma is “so far from the truth, it’s scary.’’

Birch’s figures show that 219 former CHL players accessed their scholarship funding during the 2010-11 school year, and that the league has a 95 percent success rate at the post-secondary level.

Luke Lynes is one of those players. A Washington, D.C., native, Lynes was drafted by the Brampton Battalion of the OHL in 2004 at age 16. He played four years for the team before trying his hand at professional hockey with the Edmonton Oilers and eventually choosing to use his education package to attend the University of New Brunswick.

Lynes says he is one of the lucky ones. His status as a third-round draft pick included a contract that comfortably covered his tuition and fees at UNB. For many of the midlevel players, however, their contract doesn’t come with the guarantee of a package that will cover their education costs after leaving the league.

“It ends up with a lot of guys that don’t get taken care of,’’ Lynes said. “I know there are a ton of guys that end up becoming police officers or firemen because that’s the only option available to them.

“I’ve got guys I played two or three years with, and I’ve got no ideas where some of these guys are. They’re definitely not in school.’’

Opinions vary
Jerry York has spent more than 30 years setting himself apart. The Boston College coach has more wins at the Division 1 level than any coach ever. Before the vote from the council came down last month, he was in scarce company again.

“It’s become a crazy situation for everyone that’s involved in it,’’ York said. “[The new legislation] would be terrific.’’

But for many of college hockey’s top coaches, the decision is one that preserves a fighting chance against the powerful opponent they face in addition to each other.

“The problem I would have with that legislation is that we’re already handicapped in our ability to recruit elite young players vs. the Canadian Hockey League,’’ Maine coach Tim Whitehead said. “If we implement those rules on ourselves, it would further restrict our options.’’

“I think we’re just playing into their hands,’’ Berenson said before the vote. “We have to be able to fight fire with fire. We can’t legislate ourselves out of the battle.’’

© Copyright 2011 Globe Newspaper Company.

Re: Articles

Someone in this forum pointed out a blog by Swen Nater, former UCLA basketball player under John Wooden.
http://blog.coachswen.com/

Lately he's been making some interesting posts under the heading of "The Ten Principles of Leadership I Learned from Coach Wooden." I have condensed the posts into a single document and attached it (minus a poem or two....sorry Swen) just because I think it's something I'll refer to every now and them over time.

Dave

Re: Articles

Good stuff Dave! I am reading another Wooden book right now...

Re: Articles

Crosby's concussion felt at youth hockey level

By ROY MACGREGOR Globe and Mail February 27, 2011


With their Canadian hockey hero on the sidelines, kids are starting to worry about concussions. 'They're all afraid of hits to the head. And it's all because of Sidney Crosby.'

"They're watching," she says, "and it's all because of Sidney Crosby."

She calls herself a "hockey mom" - but Edite Ozols is much more than that. She is watching her son, Markus, and all his 10-year-old teammates on the AAA Mississauga Rebels. This is a level where, if what we usually read and hear is true, the coaches are control-freak tyrants, the parents are insanely and pathetically ambitious and the kids play so much that by the time the postseason arrives they are as burnt out as Victoria Day fireworks.

But this is not what she is seeing. She is watching something else - something to do with hero worship among 10-year-olds for the player who scored Canada's golden goal exactly one year ago, Sidney Crosby, the greatest player in the game today yet is not, sadly, actually in the game today because of concussion symptoms.

"Maybe our situation is a bit atypical," Ozols says of her and her family's minor-hockey experience, "but Markus plays on a wonderful team, he has wonderful coaches and the parents are wonderful.

"Hockey has been a joyous experience for us."

Why, then, the hesitation? What has she seen that so obviously troubles her?

Edite Ozols is also a trained psychologist. Her university research was in neuropsychology. Before she went to work in the school system, she worked directly with patients who had suffered head trauma, often severe, and usually in motor-vehicle accidents.

She has noticed something of late. Her son and his teammates had been looking forward, keenly, to the introduction of body-checking next year. Anyone who has ever coached at the minor-league levels knows of this phenomenon: the almost visceral excitement that comes over a team about to move into more competitive, more NHL-style hockey. It is also the time when so many youngsters, especially those down the growth curve, decide to bail on the game when, in a seeming instant, it jumps from no contact to full body contact.

Crosby, she says, is a living god to these youngsters, whether they play in Mississauga or Moncton or Maple Ridge. "These are all boys who live and dream hockey 24 hours a day, and he is their hero.

"They all were looking forward to checking next year. They wanted it. But now they're all afraid of hits to the head. And it's all because of Sidney Crosby."

The kids talk about the two hits to the head that have put Crosby out of action since Jan. 5, one a glancing blow during the New Year's Day Winter Classic when Crosby's Pittsburgh Penguins played the Washington Capitals, the second a more direct hit when the Penguins met the Tampa Bay Lightning four days later. The hits had nothing to do with fighting. The hits appeared to have nothing to do with deliberate headhunting.

No hit-to-the-head penalties were called. The hits, in other words, were hits that could happen to anyone - an NHL superstar, an 11-year-old kid in his first year of full-contact hockey.

One of the kids on the Rebels team has even written an essay on hockey hits to the head - the teacher allowed him to pick his own topic - and discovered that the International Ice Hockey Federation, unlike the NHL, penalizes any hit to the head or neck area. ("There is no such thing as a clean hit to the head in IIHF hockey," federation president Rene Fasel says. "The rule really is a no-brainer.") The kids have talked about this. Makes sense to them. They will play in leagues from now on with stricter rules on head hits than the NHL has, but all, it goes without saying, dream of one day playing at the NHL level.

Research on concussions is in its infancy, little understood. However, Dr. Charles Tator, a leading Toronto neurosurgeon who has emerged as the Canadian expert on hockey concussion, told a safety seminar held in Ottawa last week that evidence suggests young brains are more susceptible to injury. There is also a cumulative effect to concussions, suggesting each successive one displays worsening symptoms. If you have a first head injury at 11 or 12, a second or third later on can soon put an end to the dreams one had at 10.

Youngsters dropping out of hockey has long been a concern in the game, but it appears that fear of concussion has heightened matters. At the Ottawa gathering hosted by Reebok-CCM Hockey and the University of Ottawa's Neurotrauma Impact Science Laboratory, Reebok-CCM vice-president Len Rhodes said that there are some 1.6-million players registered in the game - roughly 500,000 each in Canada, the United States and the rest of the hockey world - and growth has flat-lined. Rhodes makes no bones about why his company is getting involved in increased safety research - "Yes, there is something in it for us" - as fear-factor and ugly headlines are having an impact on involvement. The many positives of the game - team values, exercise, simple fun - are being overwhelmed by the negatives, concussion leading the charge.

"I have seen the effects of head injury," Edite Ozols says. "Concussions are a horrible thing. It's nothing like a broken bone that you can repair. It's a hidden injury. You don't just lose your memory, you lose your essence as a person."

She would like to see Hockey Canada consider raising the age of full body contact, something that many others - such as past Canada Safety Council president Emile Therien - have been advocating. Quebec delays full contact another two years, but she would like it raised to a level where the youngsters have largely completed their growth spurts. She knows it's an unrealistic wish, but that doesn't make it an insincere wish.

"I want Markus to have hockey for his teenage years," she says. "It's a good place to be. He's healthy, active, surrounded by good people and good friends and away from the streets and drugs.

"But we just don't know all that much about concussions. We don't know how many hits to the head a body can take. It's a field that is changing so rapidly we can't even imagine what we'll know down the road. There needs to be a culture change. It has to be with the coaches and officials as well as with the players and the parents. We need to protect these youngsters.

"I always said, 'As soon as my son gets even one concussion, that's it.' But I now think that's the wrong approach.

"We need to prevent that first concussion."

egg head helmet

Where the old "egg head" helmets anymore safe than the two piece, light as a feather buckets we have now? (See attached pic) I had one of the Protec helmets like the guy on the left in the photo and it was amazing. The shells were all one size you just changed the padding on the inside. They were hot, but they were light. Unfortunately they were very ugly too. Lots of room for decals though!

------------------------------------
Good picture Dman.
I have read a lot of articles in the Physician and Sports Medicine about football helments. The fact that the helmets are ROUND is the most important feature. This deflects the forces to a greater area instead of in a straight line where the brain crashes into the front of the skull and back. The of Mikita helmet that had a suspension around the head was even better because the helmet moved and diffused the forces to protect the brain.

The worst helmet possible is the kids bike helment with syrafoam on the outside or inside which collapses under pressure and the brain goes in a straight line.

I have 5 players out with concusiions now and I think the helmets with flat surfaces are the cause of a few. (not the one where the player hit her head on the toilet bowl when she fainted in the bathroom. Very few people where a helmet to visit the head)

helmets

Quote by: Dman

Where the old "egg head" helmets anymore safe than the two piece, light as a feather buckets we have now? (See attached pic) I had one of the Protec helmets like the guy on the left in the photo and it was amazing. The shells were all one size you just changed the padding on the inside. They were hot, but they were light. Unfortunately they were very ugly too. Lots of room for decals though!

------------------------------------
Good picture Dman.
I have read a lot of articles in the Physician and Sports Medicine about football helments. The fact that the helmets are ROUND is the most important feature. This deflects the forces to a greater area instead of in a straight line where the brain crashes into the front of the skull and back. The of Mikita helmet that had a suspension around the head was even better because the helmet moved and diffused the forces to protect the brain.

The worst helmet possible is the kids bike helment with syrafoam on the outside or inside which collapses under pressure and the brain goes in a straight line.

I have 5 players out with concusiions now and I think the helmets with flat surfaces are the cause of a few. (not the one where the player hit her head on the toilet bowl when she fainted in the bathroom. Very few people where a helmet to visit the head)

OK the setup is there and I have to take it!
--------------------------------------------------------

Tom,

Maybe your player(s) should wear their helmets - round or not - to the bathroom! Perhaps at all times when they are away from the rink?!!!
------------------------------------------------
Dean, I can't disagree with you. Our affiliate player has a concussion as well.

Re: Articles

The quirky Moose Jaw Civic Centre is closing after 52 years

Cory Wolfe, The StarPhoenix Feb 28, 2011


MOOSE JAW — When architect Joseph Pettick designed the Moose Jaw Civic Centre’s sunken roof, he didn’t intend it to be retractable.

Lorne Molleken swears, however, that he’s seen daylight through the corrugated-metal ceiling.

“It’s held up by cables and when they would move, you could see outside sometimes,” said Molleken, whose first WHL coaching job was with the Moose Jaw Warriors from 1988-91. “I remember being up at the top (of the stands) and when the wind was blowing, you could see daylight.”

Molleken, who now guides the Saskatoon Blades, made his final regular-season visit to the Civic Centre on Saturday. The Warriors will abandon the 52-year-old arena after this season and move into a new downtown arena. City workers plan to transplant the Civic Centre’s ice plant into the new facility following the Warriors’ playoff run. The old rink’s pipes will be drained and civic officials have no intention of turning on the heat next September.

Although the city has invited private-sector proposals for the Civic Centre, demolition seems more likely. All in all, it’s a rather inglorious ending for one of junior hockey’s most recognizable buildings.

“It’s been a special place over the years, but it’s time for a change,” conceded Molleken, whose Blades beat the Warriors 2-1 in a shootout Saturday.

Nicknamed the Crushed Can for obvious reasons, the Civic Centre earned a reputation as one of the WHL’s most intimidating arenas. It seats only 2,705, but few rinks — regardless of size — can match the Civic Centre for noise and atmosphere.

“It’s a great old barn,” said Conrad Vautour, one of the building’s longtime security guards.

Even supporters of the new facility concede that the Civic Centre’s raucous atmosphere will be tough to replicate.

“It can be intimidating for some of the younger players, especially kids from B.C. or Alberta,” said Molleken. “They walk into this rink and say, ‘Holy smokes. What have I gotten myself into?’ It’s intimidating because everything happens quickly here and the fans are right on top of you. It’s a loud, loud building and it’s deep in tradition.”

Jazz great Louis Armstrong headlined the gala opening of the Civic Centre on Sept. 19, 1959. Hockey has been the building’s lifeblood, though, and the concourse walls are plastered with photos of colourfully named characters such as Strap Wells and Beans Clarke, as well as more contemporary stars such as Theoren Fleury.

A young Molleken — wearing a black blazer embroidered with the Warriors’ logo — also shows up in several team photos. Mike Babcock coached there, too, 15 years before guiding the Detroit Red Wings to the 2008 Stanley Cup.

The walls don’t advertise, however, that convicted sex offender Graham James was the Warriors’ first head coach when they moved to Moose Jaw from Winnipeg in 1984. During his one season at the helm, James was convicted of common assault after reaching over the Civic Centre glass and hitting a fan with a hockey stick.

That wasn’t the only time that violence has spilled into the stands at the Crushed Can. During one particularly heated battle between the Warriors and the Regina Pats a decade ago, Regina fans attacked the Moose Jaw mascot, Puckhead. Warrior fans vowed vengeance, but Regina mascot K-9 was a healthy scratch the following night because the Pats’ office received phone threats against their canine cheerleader.

Passion has certainly never been a problem at the Civic Centre. Through the 1980s and ’90s, Warriors play-by-play man Rob Carnie hosted a Hot Stove League after each home game. Fans weren’t shy about calling out referees and opponents, as well as their own coaches and players.

“The place was packed and you couldn’t see out because of all the (cigarette) smoke,” recalled Molleken. “When people got a few Molson Canadians under their belts, it got pretty interesting in there some nights after games.”

Engineers probably weren’t counting on hot air from fired-up fans to help heat the seating area. There was a sensible theory behind the building’s U-shaped design, however. Because warm air rises, they believed it would disperse to the upper seating levels while keeping ice level cool.

It’s a plausible theory because the end walls have been known to get mighty frigid.

“I thought they painted the wall,” one scout said during a mid-winter visit in the late 1990s. “Then I realized it was just frost.”

Indeed, the Civic Centre will always remembered for greeting visitors with a chilly reception.
-----

I coached there in the mid-90's after Babcock. That was the coldest winter I have ever experienced... inside the rink and out! My truck didn't start (even when plugged in) for several days that winter; with the snow and cold, traffic wasn't running and people just stayed home. I think it was -70C with the wind chill on many occasions. Numerous practices had to be cancelled and even a few games (later rescheduled) due to weather.

You could see your breath in the coaches office in the basement! We had electric heaters but it wasn't enough. I was never a coffee drinker before the year. I drank a ton of it from the scouts room just to stay warm. I had to wear layers to work; I bought wool underwear (1-piece with the poop flap!) from an army surplus and wore snow pants, a ski jacket, touque and gloves. It was an interesting 5-minute process to go to the can - and even then, you didn't want to leave 'anything' exposed for any longer than necessary!!!! Brutal! At least the dressing room was warm for the players.

That was the coldest (longest, dreariest) year of my life. Weird because when I got there in August for training camp, it was over 30C and was really nice until late September (15C), staying nice through the fall until about the start of November. I guess that's the prairies for you!

Re: Articles

Probert had degenerative brain disease: researchers
Late NHL enforcer played for Detroit, Chicago

The Associated Press Mar 2, 2011



Researchers at Boston University have found a degenerative disease in brain tissue donated by former NHL enforcer Bob Probert.

The Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy issued a statement Thursday saying that Probert had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) when he died last July of heart failure at age 45.

Probert, who lived in Windsor, Ont., played 16 seasons in the NHL for Detroit and Chicago between 1995-2002. His 3,300 penalty minutes make him fifth on the league's career list.

Probert, who struggled with drinking problems during his career, is the second hockey player from the Boston University program to be diagnosed with the disease after death. The other was Reggie Fleming, a 1960s enforcer who played before helmets became mandatory.

Details of Probert's brain tissue analysis won't be made public until they are reviewed by an academic medical journal, the centre said in its statement, but the Probert family requested that the CTE diagnosis be made public to raise awareness of the danger of brain trauma in sports.

"This is what he wanted," Probert's widow, Dani Probert, told CBC Windsor's Early Shift radio program. "This is why he wanted to donate his brain, and I'm definitely proud of the fact that he's a part of this study, and to get more information."

Dr. Robert Cantu, co-director of the Boston University program, said it's difficult to determine exactly what caused the damage to Probert's brain tissue.

"How much is the hockey and how much is the fighting, we don't really know," Cantu told the New York Times for a story posted on its website Wednesday night. "We haven't definitely established that the skills of hockey as a sport lead to a certain percentage of participants developing CTE. But it can happen to hockey players, and while they're still relatively young."

GMs to further discuss head contact

The Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy is a collaboration between Boston University Medical School and the Sports Legacy Institute that is attempting to address the "concussion crisis" in sports. The group has been at the forefront of research into head trauma in sports, and has received a $1 million US gift from the NFL, which it has pushed for better treatment of concussions.

The family of former Chicago Bears safety Dave Duerson agreed to donate his brain to the study after he committed suicide last month at age 50.

"We are only beginning to appreciate the consequences of brain trauma in sports," said Chris Nowinski, one of the founders of the Sports Legacy Institute. "Early evidence indicated that the historical decision not to discourage contact to the head was an enormous mistake, and we hope aggressive change continue to be made to protect athletes, especially at the youth level."

Although the NHL has instituted a new rule making blindside lateral hits to the head illegal, and the league's general managers will discuss later this month whether further contact to the head should be banned, fighting has long been a major part of the pro game.

There have been no signs that the NHL is interested in changing or eliminating that popular aspect of the sport.

"The findings are interesting and certainly something we'll add to a much broader body of knowledge," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told The Associated Press in an email. "But we're not going to react or make changes based on findings related to one player, especially when it's impossible to identify or isolate one of many variables that may have factored into the conclusions reached, and when there is no real 'control group' to compare his results to.

"The diagnosis of CTE in Probert's brain is not necessarily an indictment of hockey, as he received brain trauma during hockey fights as well as outside of sports, including a major car accident," Nowinski said. "Reggie Fleming, the only other NHL player diagnosed with CTE, also was an enforcer, so we need further study before this research can truly inform that ongoing, and important, debate."

Fleming died in 2009 with dementia, after 30 years of worsening behavioural and cognitive difficulties.

Dani Probert said her husband showed a mental decline in his 40s, and displayed new and growing problems with short-term memory, attention and a short temper. Those are all symptoms consistent with those of other athletes with CTE.

During the last year of Probert's life, Dani Probert said her husband told her he thought he had three or four "significant concussions." But when talking about "getting his bell rung," which the institute says is a concussion by definition, Probert told his wife that his total jumped to "over a dozen."

"In my heart of hearts, I don't believe fighting is what did this to Bob," Dani Probert told the New York Times. "It was hockey — all the checking and hits, things like that."

Nowinski said last month more than 300 athletes, including 100 current and former NFL players, are on the CSTE's brain donation registry. There are 65 cases currently being studied. The CSTE "brain bank" currently has 68 specimens.
30 of 40 brains show CTE signs

Dr. Ann McKee, the co-director of the CTSE, which it says is the largest brain bank in the world, has analyzed the brains of 40 former athletes and found that more than 30 showed signs of CTE. That includes 13 of 14 former NFL players, college and high school football players, hockey players, pro wrestlers and boxers.

CTE, originally referred to as "dementia pugilistica" because it was thought to only affect boxers, is a progressive brain disease believed to be caused by repetitive trauma to the brain, including concussions or subconcussive blows.

It also is believed that other undetermined factors, such as genetic predisposition, put some people at greater risk of developing the disease.

Keith Primeau, a former hockey all-star who was forced to retire in 2006 because of concussions during a 15-season NHL career, is among those who have decided to donate their brains.

Primeau and Probert were Red Wings teammates for four seasons.

"Hockey continues to make positive steps to protect players from concussion and brain trauma," he said. "I hope the findings from the study of my friend, Bob Probert, will accelerate that momentum throughout all levels of the game."

Re: Articles

How can concussion problem in hockey be fixed?

CBC SPORTS.ca Elliotte Friedman * October 25, 2010


It was a nationally televised U.S. college football game between Texas Christian and Southern Methodist. TCU's star running back, Ed Wesley, fell on his head after a tackle and was knocked out.

The team physician, Dr. Samuel Haraldson, told The American Medical News what happened next.

"[Wesley] was knocked unconscious, and any loss of consciousness is automatically considered a concussion. He had an unsteady gait and a few memory problems."

According to NCAA rules, once a player is diagnosed with a concussion, he is not allowed to return.

"Then five or six plays later," Dr. Haraldson added, "I literally was verbally accosted by the coach, screaming at me insanely at the top of his lungs that he doesn't think [Wesley] has a concussion and what right do I have to hold him out."

Days later, the coach, Gary Patterson, told ESPN, "As far as I'm concerned, he was fine 10 minutes after he got hurt."

The good news is that more of us are realizing that kind of thinking is beyond moronic. The bad news is that we've still got a ways to go.

Philadelphia Eagles Kevin Kolb and Stewart Bradley ignored concussions in Week 1 of this NFL season. Ian Laperriere and Marc Savard tried to play through them in last spring's Stanley Cup playoffs.


Savard needed more rest: Dr. Cantu

Dr. Robert Cantu, author of 23 books about brain trauma, believes Savard would be playing now if he'd rested last spring. (Dr. Cantu has an autographed "thank you" picture in his office from Bruins forward Patrice Bergeron.) savard-marc-100307.jpgAnd that's why another doctor told Hockey Night in Canada that he wants to see more concussions - for now.

His name is Dr. Ruben Echemendia.

The NHL went to him and Dr. Mark Lovell in 1997, asking them to establish the neuropsychological - or "baseline" - test that helps monitor concussion symptoms. It allows teams to get a better handle on when a player is truly recovered.

This was his first-ever TV interview.

The NHL is averaging 75 recognized concussions per season since the lockout, down from a high of 109 in 2000-01. This year's total is poised to smash the record.

When I asked Dr. Echemendia if he had a target number he wanted to drop to, he blew me away by saying he wanted to see the total increase in the short term.

"It sounds counter-intuitive, but the reason I say that is that means we have more awareness. We know that we're doing our job when the rate of concussions increases. But, if we start seeing an increase in the severity of the concussions, or a longer duration of the symptoms, then I would certainly be concerned."

Is that happening?

"Not in our league," he said, which seems surprising, considering high-profile cases like Willie Mitchell, David Booth, Savard, Laperriere and Paul Kariya. "We're seeing lesser and lesser symptom burdens. Because we're evaluating them earlier... their symptoms don't last as long."

Here is the total number of man-games lost due to concussions in that past four seasons:

2006-07 - 615
2007-08 - 548
2008-09 - 487
2009-10 - 407

Can't imagine that number dropping again this season, with almost 20 concussions so far. Plus, Kariya and Laperriere will miss 164 between them.


Teenagers push for early return

After really thinking about it and talking to a few players, I can understand where Dr. Echemendia is coming from. The hockey (and football) mentality is tough. No one likes to miss games when it really matters. (I wrote here that if I was Laperriere, I probably would have done the same thing.) That's not limited to professionals. Dr. Echemendia says he sees 13-year-olds who try to convince him to return too early.

But it does have to change if there's to be a decrease. That's going to be very hard.

It is impossible to do justice on this topic in a six-minute television feature.

Some other things I learned while compiling my report:

• Dr. Cantu on fighting: "With enforcers who've had a lot of fights, roughly one in four fights, they'll take a blow that stuns them - in essence a concussion. They'll go the penalty box, put their five minutes in and then, when they come back to the bench, they won't acknowledge that they've been concussed. So we really find a high incidence of concussions happening, roughly 20-25 per cent of the time." Think Derek Engelland-Colton Orr. In the symposium held last week at the Mayo Clinic, only six per cent of concussions were linked to fighting. If Dr. Cantu is right - and I have no reason to believe he's wrong - that number is way off.

• There were 300 diagnosed concussions in the NHL between 1997-2004. Baseline testing showed that in 30 per cent of them, players who thought they were recovered still had symptoms. And it's not that anyone believes they're lying, it's just that they don't realize it until pushed by a test.

• If there is one crack in the baseline exam, it's that there is no accepted method of testing a player's balance on skates. Both doctors say that measuring balance is an important part of determining a full recovery.

• Players from certain countries tend to downplay any kind of head trauma. So, if they come to the bench/room complaining about wooziness, etc., teams are told to be very careful. (the doctor wouldn't tell me which countries).

• Only 25 per cent of the hits that caused concussions involved players who had the puck. Of the rest, the vast majority (76 per cent) came within half a second of the victim releasing the puck. This is the tough one for the NHL. The league still considers that possession, because the game moves so quickly. Any contact to the head after half a second is when you get in trouble, which is why Shane Doan got three games for hitting Dan Sexton. (It might be a good idea to have any contact after half a second be grounds for suspension, so Erik Cole can't get away with what he did to Drew Doughty).

• Last year, there were almost 55,000 hits made in NHL games. The year before the lockout, there were 38,831. That's an increase of 40 per cent.

• Most concussions occur in the first period. Dr. Echemendia's believes it's because teams come out hard at the start of a game, wanting to set the physical tone.

• The real danger area is in women's hockey, especially at the college level. There are several theories, but two stand out. First, since there is theoretically no hitting allowed, the players are not taught to properly protect themselves from contact. Second, as Cassie Campbell-Pascall points out, most teams don't travel with anyone qualified to diagnose a concussion.

• In football, first-stringers go through hundreds of head hits a year, including practice. There are fewer in hockey, but the force of those collisions is much greater because of the speed at impact.


Game-changer

The Mike Richards hit on Booth was the game-changer. "That's when the attitude amongst GMs really turned," said one NHL executive.

But has it turned enough? Mitchell had a really interesting quote when asked about Rick Rypien getting into a physical altercation with a fan last week.

"My opinion is that everyone has made a big issue out of this and I think there's other things that are going on in our game that are much more severe, whether it's headshots -- and I keep going back to that - and the lack of action on that," Mitchell told The Los Angeles Times. "It's something we've seen the NFL start to do and hopefully our league follows suit. The game's faster, guys are bigger, it would be nice to see if they protected the players a little more."

The GMs broke down 22 randomly selected games from last season. Every hit to the head - no matter how innocent - was noted. Here's what they learned: 62 per cent of them came along the boards, 38 per cent in open ice. What connected with the head? Well, 40 per cent of the time, it was the hands. Next: 30 per cent from the shoulder, 15 per cent from the elbow, 13 per cent stick and two per cent other helmets/knees.

Here's the problem: no one can agree on how severe head contact should be to call a penalty. There's been call for a zero-tolerance policy, but the GMs looked at all of the incidental contact and said, "We're going to throw out guys for that?" Even Dr. Cantu, who said in the piece, "I think that, eventually, all head checks need to be eliminated," admitted there are mitigating factors.

When I played devil's advocate, asking about the speed of the game and the differing heights of players leading to accidental head shots, he said that he was talking about situations where the head was targeted and it could be left to the discretion of the referees.

Of course, retired referee Kerry Fraser, who joined Ron MacLean in studio immediately after our Inside Hockey piece, completely disagrees. It just shows how little consensus there is.

How do we fix the problem? I like the idea of stiffer suspensions for those who do target the head.

Brad May thinks some degree of interference must be allowed back in the game. That adds even more subjectivity to the rulebook, but is that the answer?

Can we remove concussions from hockey?

"No," says Dr. Echemendia, shaking his head. "When you have players that size and that speed playing the game, you're not going to get rid of concussions. It's not going to happen unless we fundamentally change the game in such a way that you won't recognize it."

That's the big question for everyone: fans, media, players and execs. We love the way the game is played. We're all concerned about the head injuries. What's our choice?

Re: Articles

Concussions are not solely a problem in hockey...



Vonn case shows concussion culture must change


CBC SPORTS.ca Kelly Vanderbeek * February 10, 2011


At what point do we say enough is enough?

I understand that the culture of sport is to tough it out, and nowhere is this more the case than in alpine skiing, where minor surgeries are barely a by-line on injury lists.

But the brain is different. This is where I draw the line as an athlete, and as someone who plans to use my brain long after my knees, shoulders and back have given out. I know I'll survive long beyond my sporting career (bum knee and all) because I have a head on my shoulders. Sport isn't worth putting that at danger.

This is why I'm a bit angry right now.

Lindsey Vonn, the most famous women's alpine skier, admitted to experiencing concussion symptoms in an interview with EuroSport on Tuesday, an hour before hurtling herself down the super-G course in the world championships in Garmish-Partenkirchen, Germany. After the race, Vonn admitted she felt like she was "skiing in a fog".

And for what? A chance at a world title? Who are your handlers? If these symptoms you mentioned are true, who in their right mind would clear you to race? (Plus, there's no such thing as "concussion-like symptoms". If you have symptoms, you have a concussion!)

This makes me question whether the symptoms mentioned are real. However, I expect that her symptoms are very real and that worries me. I worry not only for the athletes' well being (it's their choice to take such risks) but the culture it continues to feed; a culture where concussions are overlooked and athletes feel unwilling to admit and properly deal with brain injuries.


Changes slow to come

Maybe it seem unfair to point the finger at any single athlete, and for that I apologize, but change must come. This type of behaviour is completely unacceptable. Even if an athlete is willing to risk another concussion (as most athletes are in their drive to impress and maintain tough appearances), support staff should never allow it.

Concussions are a huge topic as sports like hockey, football and alpine try to shift their cultures and perceptions so that players, coaches, and doctors alike feel safe in properly assessing concussion and addressing them. Let's be honest - enough information has been available about concussions and their possible long-term effects to have caused fundamental shift in sport over a decade ago. However, the debate rages on and changes are slow to come.

I'm happy to say that Alpine Canada has been at the forefront of properly handling concussions throughout my 11 years with the team. I'm glad to know that I can trust my organization to protect my noggin, but it seems like other athletes aren't so lucky.

Although I know I'd be a better ski racer if I stopped using my brain so much, I'd still like to have it available for later use.

We need changes in alpine skiing to better address the health and safety of the athletes across the board. Concussions are just one part, but they're a key part and a good place to start.

Re: Articles

Concussions: What to watch for

Concussions are injuries to the brain, caused by a blow to the head. The symptoms are varied and you should not return to play until all symptoms have resolved themselves.

By CBC News February 20, 2011


Concussions, head shots, cheap blows. There's been a lot of talk in pro sports lately of doing something to cut down on the number of injuries that occur in games played by very large, very strong and very talented athletes - especially in hockey and football.

Yet, in 2010, two of the highest profile athletes to miss significant chunks of the season were Canadians in a mostly-American game: baseball: Jason Bay of the New York Mets and Justin Morneau of the Minnesota Twins.

Bay missed the last two months of the season after his head bashed into the left-field wall while he made a running catch at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles in late July. Two weeks earlier, Morneau slid hard into second base during a game in Toronto, colliding with the shortstop.

Both players made what are considered good plays: Bay was able to hang on to the ball for the final out of the inning and Morneau's hard slide impeded Toronto's shortstop in his effort to throw out the runner going to first base. And in both incidents, the players - while apparently momentarily dazed - were able to get to their feet and walk off the field. "Always a good sign," as the announcer says at the end of the video of Morneau's incident posted on the official site of Major League Baseball.

Both players were out for the rest of the season because of ongoing symptoms of concussion.


What is a concussion?

A concussion is an injury to the brain resulting from a blow to the head. Your brain is protected from everyday bumps and jolts by the cerebrospinal fluid that it floats in, inside your skull. A hard enough jolt, though, causes your brain to smack into your skull.

Most people don't black out when they suffer a concussion. In fact, they may feel little more than a bit dazed at first and - like Jason Bay and Justin Morneau - be able to get up and walk away with little sign of injury.

A concussion is the mildest form of traumatic brain injury. In medical parlance, traumatic is used to indicate "sudden" as opposed to "chronic" which develops over a long period of time.


What are the symptoms of concussion?

Classic concussion symptoms include confusion and amnesia, especially of the event that caused the concussion.

Other immediate symptoms may include:

* Headache.
* Dizziness.
* Ringing in the ears.
* Nausea or vomiting.
* Slurred speech.
* Fatigue.

Other symptoms may show up in the days and weeks following the incident. They include:

* Memory or concentration problems.
* Sensitivity to light and noise.
* Sleep disturbances.
* Irritability.
* Depression.

Like any head injury, it is important to watch the patient closely for 24 hours. If the patient loses consciousness often or has trouble waking up, you should seek immediate medical attention.


What should I look for if I suspect my child has suffered a concussion?

Kids can be particularly at risk for concussion - even if they're not involved in sports. Falling off a couch or bumping into a table could provide enough of a blow to cause a concussion. Watch for:

* Listlessness, easy to tire.
* Irritability, crankiness.
* A change in eating or sleeping patterns.
* A lack of interest in favourite toys.
* A loss of balance or unsteady walking.

You should seek medical attention if your child loses consciousness, suffers a seizure, vomits repeatedly, has a headache that keeps getting worse, or has lasting or recurrent dizziness.


What is post-concussion syndrome?

It's when a combination of concussion symptoms persist for weeks or months after the injury that caused the concussion. They can persist for a year or more in some people.

It's unclear why the symptoms persist. Some experts believe the event that caused the concussion does structural damage to the brain or disrupts neurotransmitter systems. Others believe the syndrome is related to psychological factors, especially since the most common symptoms - including headache, dizziness and sleep difficulties - are similar to those of people suffering from depression.


When is it safe to resume activity after a concussion?

Definitely not on the same day the concussion is suffered. Beyond that, it depends.

Six stages of return to play

1. Physical and mental rest until symptoms are gone.
2. Light aerobic exercise (e.g. stationary cycle).
3. Sport-specific exercise.
4. Non-contact training drills (start light resistance training).
5. Full contact training after medical clearance.
6. Return to competition.

The Second International Symposium on Sport Concussion, held in Prague in 2004, led to the creation of the Sport Concussion Assessment Tool (SCAT2). It's a standardized tool that medical professionals can use to diagnose athletes - and athlete can use to help determine if they're suffering from a concussion and whether they're ready to resume activity.

SCAT2 includes six steps to take before an athlete should return to play, with at least 24 hours for each stage. However, if symptoms recur, the athlete should return to the first stage. The New York Mets report that Jason Bay has been symptom-free since December, when he resumed working out. He's expected to be at full strength when the baseball season opens in April.

As for Justin Morneau? The Minnesota Twins say he continues to make good progress and has been hitting, fielding and throwing. But they won't know whether he's over his post-concussion issues until he starts playing in games during training camp later this month.

Re: Articles

WHy is this guy still earning a paycheque in hockey? Because somebody is willing to pay him. This speaks to the Old Boys mindset that continues to exist in hockey. Sad. Get these one-dimensional players out in favour of skilled guys...


THE DREGER REPORT

Check THE DREGER REPORT each weekday morning for 'The Three Things You Need To Know' for the day in the National Hockey League from TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger. Darren's reports are posted here at about 11am et/8am pt.

Updated: Thursday, March 03, 2011



1) New York Islanders forward Trevor Gillies is a loyal and well liked teammate. But that doesn't excuse his reckless behavior Wednesday night, nor are his intentions expected to carry much weight in Friday's in-person discipline hearing with the NHL.

Gillies crushed Minnesota's Cal Clutterbuck head first into the glass following Clutterbuck's hit on New York's Justin DiBenedetto.

Clutterbuck receieved a boarding penalty for his hit, while Gillies, in his first game back from a nine-game suspension for his role in last month's debacle with the Pittsburgh Penguins, was assessed a checking from behind major and was tossed from the game.

While Islanders coach Jack Capuano questioned the legitimacy of the penalty, the post-hit reaction has been largely one sided - favouring severe punishment.

The hit on Clutterbuck is similar to the hit on Pittsburgh's Eric Tangradi and can be described as non-hockey play where the head is targeted out of retribution. The Islanders will argue that with the support of video replay, the point of initial impact was the shoulder and not the head and it was Gillies' follow-through with his left hand that made contact with Clutterbuck's head.

It's hard to predict the length of any suspension, but given his recent history, Gillies will probably sit for a long time.

Had Clutterbuck been injured, some believe Gillies' season would have been over.

At age 32 on a two-way contract ($75,000 AHL/$500,000 NHL), fighting for NHL survival, it's easy to say Trevor Gillies should know better - that's common sense. However, Gillies' history in hockey proves he's fought for survival his entire career.

Dating back to 1995-96, the year Gillies began his junior career with the OHL's North Bay Centennials, the rugged and often troubled tough guy has scored a total of 16 goals.

That's Sixteen goals and 47 assists for 63 points in 775 hockey games in various leagues, including the Ontario Hockey League, East Coast Hockey League, American Hockey League, and of course, the NHL.

Conversely, over that same span, Gillies has amassed over 3,300 penalty minutes. (3,302 to be exact).

Gillies' road to Long Island has been a grind, but incidents like Wednesday night's, or the part he played in the mayhem against Pittsburgh, aren't endearing him to NHL managers who respect his role and determination to make it to this level.

With a contract that expires at the end of the season, Gillies may be playing on borrowed time.

Re: Articles

Here's another 'winner' who should also be tossed out of hockey:


Attack on Golden Bears captain investigated

By Nathan Liewicki, edmontonjournal.com February 28, 2011


EDMONTON — The Canada West Universities Athletic Association is looking into the incident where University of Alberta Golden Bears captain Eric Hunter left the ice at UBC’s Thunderbird Arena on Friday night bloodied and concussed.

UBC forward Michael Liambas punched Hunter in the head and drove him into the ice after Hunter tripped Liambas late in the second period.

Hunter wasn’t penalized, but Liambas received 17 minutes in penalties, including an instigator, which carries an automatic two-game ban. Canada West executive director Val Schneider said the association is still looking at the incident.

“The individual has been suspended for two games and it’s subject to further review,” Schneider said, referring to Liambas.

Canada West men’s hockey convenor Bill Seymour said that a committee will meet to discuss whether a harsher discipline will be handed out to the Woodbridge, Ont., native. Liambas sat out UBC’s regular-season finale on Saturday, but because UBC failed to qualify for the playoffs, Seymour said there is no need to rush a decision.

“I’ve spoken with both athletic directors, coaches and referees,” Seymour said. “We’ve started the process and we’re going to do what’s best for our league.”

Both coaches were unable to be reached for comment, but before any possible changes to Canada West hockey, Seymour said the conference’s first concern is the health of Hunter.

Still, Seymour is very perturbed with the way he feels the media has swarmed to the idea that Canada West hockey has a violent side.

“I’m upset our game is being dragged down,” Seymour said. “We’re being black-balled here and I’m angry we’re getting dragged all over the fricking country.”

This was not the first questionable incident involving Liambas. In October 2009, the former Erie Otter was suspended for the rest of the Ontario Hockey League season after slamming then 16-year-old Kitchener Rangers defenceman Ben Fanelli into the boards. Fanelli suffered skull and facial fractures and still has not been medically cleared to return to game action for Kitchener.

In 124 career OHL games, Liambas totalled 357 penalty minutes.

Two months later, while playing with the Bloomington Prairie Thunder of the International Hockey League, Liambas received a five-game suspension for a hit from behind on Muskegon Lumberjacks defenceman Jason Lawmaster. The hit sent Lawmaster to the hospital with a ruptured spleen.

The Bears are home to the Manitoba Bisons in conference semifinal action this weekend, but the availability of Hunter — 10 goals and 13 assists in 25 games this season — to lace up his skates is uncertain.

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal


-----

'Character player' defended after retaliatory punch


By Elliott Pap, Vancouver Sun February 28, 2011

UBC Thunderbirds forward Michael Liambas, a player who was thrown out of the Ontario Hockey League last season for a dangerous hit, was involved in another incident Friday against the Alberta Golden Bears that left Bears captain Eric Hunter with facial cuts and concussionlike symptoms.

Liambas was suspended for two games with the second game carrying over to next year as the T-Birds' season ended Saturday.

They did not make the Canda West playoffs.

According to T-Birds head coach Milan Dragicevic, Liambas punched Hunter from the side in retaliation for a spear to the groin. Dragicevic said the UBC program does not condone Liambas's actions but emphasized it was not a Todd Bertuzzi-Steve Moore type incident.

Liambas received two minutes for instigating, five for fighting and a game misconduct.

"There was no pre-meditation," Dragicevic explained Sunday. "Our player got speared, there was no call and he retaliated. That's what happened. The two players were jostling, they were skating together, side-by-side and Mike dropped his gloves. Their player got knocked to his knees, both players dropped their gloves, there was a tussle and then they were separated.

"Their player skated off on his own and, from accounts, he had a concussion. He sat out Saturday's game for precautionary reasons."

Dragicevic called Liambas 'a character player' and said he is welcome to continue playing for the Thunderbirds. This was Liambas's first year in the program. He is studying human kinetics. The 22-yearold Toronto native finished last season in the International League where, at one point, he received a five-game suspension for a hit that ruptured an opponent's spleen. He was earlier kicked out of the OHL for a hit that fractured the skull of Kitchener's Ben Fanelli.

Dragicevic doesn't feel this latest incident should be viewed as a stain on the UBC hockey program.

"We don't condone what Mike Liambas did to Eric Hunter," said Dragicevic. "That's an action on the ice that nobody is going to condone. However, as a person, Mike Liambas is someone who has character, grit, leadership qualities, volunteers in the community and does a lot of outside activities that don't necessarily get recognized.

"We want Mike Liambas back. He had an 87-per-cent average coming out of high school and was an honours student. Those players are had to find. Sometimes the perception out there is not right. We support Mike Liambas as a person 100 per cent and we are going to support him through this as well."

Dragicevic, who has coached the T-Birds for nine seasons, said he has witnessed incidents worse than the one that went down Friday night.

"I've seen eye-gouging and hair-pulling," he noted.

"It's not the first time a player has retaliated and gotten suspended for it. It happens. Right or wrong, quick decisions are made on the ice and sometimes they are not the right decisions. Maybe Michael Liambas has to control his emotions a little bit more on the ice but, as a person, you're not going to find a more outstanding individual."
-----

Thunderbirds lose Liambas

Seeking pro position

By Elliott Pap, Vancouver Sun March 3, 2011


Controversial forward Michael Liambas, who has a history of violence on the ice, has left the UBC Thunderbirds hockey program after just one season. Liambas, 22, was involved in another incident last Friday against the Alberta Golden Bears in which he injured Bears captain Eric Hunter in an altercation.

Some reports called it an attack while UBC head coach Milan Dragicevic claimed Liambas instigated a fight with Hunter, punching him in the head from the side, after being speared in the groin.

Liambas received two minutes for instigating, five for fighting and a game misconduct. He was subsequently suspended for two games, pending a further investigation. Hunter suffered facial cuts and concussion-like symptoms in the incident.

"Michael has decided to leave UBC and pursue professional hockey," Dragicevic confirmed Wednesday, offering no further comment.

Last season, Liambas was thrown out of the Ontario Hockey League for fracturing the skull of Kitchener's Ben Fanelli. He then went to the International League where he was suspended five games for rupturing an opponent's spleen.

UBC did not make the Canada West playoffs and its season ended Saturday. The Golden Bears play this weekend and it is not yet known whether Hunter will be cleared to play. Liambas is apparently pursuing pro opportunities in the East Coast League.

epap@vancouversun.com
-----

Re: Articles

Steve Moore set for justice
Trial committed for Bertuzzi suit

By STEVE SIMMONS, QMI Agency March 7 2011


TORONTO - The unfortunate anniversary of Steve Moore’s last night of professional hockey comes Tuesday, seven years after his head was pile-driven to the ice by Todd Bertuzzi — and still there is nothing resembling justice.

There is no official trial date set for the civil suit launched by Moore. There is no judge yet assigned to the case. But there is, finally, after so much paper work filed, after so many depositions and counter-claims, some hope that justice is on its way.

To be accurate, the matter has been officially set for trial. Maybe it will begin late this year. More likely, the expected two-month trial that is certain to rock the hockey world, will find its way to court in early 2012. Already, some national networks have talked about applying to have the case televised live, which is highly unusual by Canadian judicial standards.

But this is not just a hockey story anymore. It’s about a career ruined and a life seemingly placed on hold. It’s about a Harvard graduate still having headache issues almost every time he thinks. It’s about the premeditation of an on-ice stalker. And now, with brain injuries and concussions and head shots being so much the focus of the problems of pro hockey, the trial arrives with new information about the largest single issue facing the sport.

Moore’s case is considered by many to be the single largest civil suit involving professional athletes in Canadian legal history. And with each passing year, the price has gone up.

“It has been very difficult for the process to take this long,” said Tim Danson, the lawyer representing Moore in his action against the Detroit Red Wings’ winger. “But actually, we needed the passing of time to fully understand the magnitude of the brain injury. This (incident) just didn’t terminate his NHL career. It impacted everything in his life. It impacted his future and his future employment.

“We’ve had years to look at this now and because Steve Moore has exceptionally high intelligence and is a Harvard graduate, we needed to evaluate all the factors involved. If we went to a jury too early, you wouldn’t have had the answers. It has been a lot of years and a lot of tests and we’ve learned a lot about the brain. I can’t really go into details right now because that will be a live issue at the trial.”

This will be a civil trial of suits and counter-suits, with a litany of lawyers everywhere and fingers pointed in all directions. Moore is suing Bertuzzi and Orca Bay Ltd., the former owner of the Vancouver Canucks, and the figure he is asking for is certain to be enormous. Danson will represent Moore. Geoffrey Adair will represent Bertuzzi, who has blamed then coach Marc Crawford, now head coach in Dallas, for his part in the incident. Crawford is represented by the impressive Jessica Kimmel. Orca Bay is represented by Alan D’Silva.

Understand this: This is an all-star team of litigators, playing for keeps here, with third-party actions involved. Bertuzzi has counter-sued Crawford and Orca Bay has legally pushed to separate itself from Bertuzzi, whose career earnings since the injury to Moore have been just below $20 million US and that includes a season locked out. And dealing with Bertuzzi won’t necessarily be easy.

In one of his depositions, Bertuzzi refused to answer 63 different questions. He won’t be given similar latitude in court.

Right now, Moore, the former Colorado Avalanche player, is going through another round of comprehensive medical tests. He must wonder how many times he must be poked and prodded before he sees anything resembling a settlement. It has been far too long already for a player whose life has been so severely altered by Bertuzzi’s assault.

“This is a unique trial,” Danson said. “The actual event was captured by multiple television cameras. We have video of the game and the assault from seven or eight different angles. There’s not really dispute over what happened.”

Just over how it happened. Why it happened. And who ultimately is responsible?

No doubt the names called to the witness stand in the case will include Bertuzzi, Crawford, Moore, then Canucks’ general manager, Brian Burke, his successor, Dave Nonis, NHL vice-president Colin Campbell. They will be among the headliners.

But this will be a case for the headlines if not the ages, right from beginning to end.

steve.simmons@sunmedia.ca

Re: Articles

More Moose Jaw and the Crushed Can rink... Carns did play-by-play and wrote newspaper stories / did the radio interviews with us "back in the day!"

Carns and the Crushed Can

Gregg Drinnan Blog - Kamloops Daily News March 10 2011


Some of my best WHL memories are from the Crushed Can. And some of them involve Rob Carnie, a friend from days of yore who once was the radio voice of the Moose Jaw Warriors on CHAB. He now is a 'Featured Personality' on CHAB and is the host of the 800 CHAB Morning Show and The Heartland at Noon.

This being today’s hockey world, his nickname was, uhh, Carns. Unless you were the late Bill Hicke, then a co-owner, GM and sometimes coach of the Regina Pats. To Hicke, Carnie was Brother Love. Might have had something to do with the white suits.

Anyway . . . I got a message from Carns on Wednesday that included something he had written on his Crushed Can memories.

This, hockey fans, is what the Crushed Can and memories are all about . . .

“I started attending hockey games and playing hockey at the MJCC in the fall of '74 when the Carnie family moved to Moose Jaw from Regina. I played in ‘Learn to Play’ for a season and among the other boys was my childhood friend Greg Thatcher. I remember his father Colin ‘coaching’ us while smoking a cigar and telling me I would never be able to take a backhander with a ‘damn curve on the blade of your stick." Why the hell do I remember that?

“I CLEARLY remember my next season . . . in the Church Minor Hockey Association with the St. Joseph Seals, my first ‘real’ team! We practised every Monday morning at 7 in one COLD Civic Centre. We won the championship that season.

“I remember everything was painted orange and blue, including the ice cleaning machine which was an old Willy's Jeep with the ice cleaning apparatus welded on. It even had a name . . . The Connor's Pup. I have no idea why it had a name.

“I remember an old gentleman named Sid who took tickets. He was always smiling and always well-dressed.

“I remember the Regina Silver Foxes coming into Moose Jaw to play the Canucks and my sister's boyfriend, Dave Desautels, who wore No. 10 for the Foxes, blowing out a knee in front of my eyes. He taught me to skate.

“I remember the Japanese national team playing at the Civic Centre and a young man named Doug Smail dominating for the home side in a 4-2 victory. The place was packed.

“I remember what a wonderful player Chris Chelios was as a boy . . . he played two seasons in Moose Jaw.

“I remember hundreds of people smoking while watching the games . . . cigarettes, cigars and pipes . . . and the blue haze that hung over the ice after each Canucks game.

“I saw every home game in a five-year stretch where the Moose Jaw Canucks went to the SJHL championship final versus the Prince Albert Raiders every season. We lost every time. I remember a full-scale brawl in the pregame warmup of one of those games. There were sticks and gloves and helmets, blood and hair all over the ice. There were no penalties.

“I remember the Warriors moving here from Winnipeg. I thought we should have called them the Canucks.

“I remember Graham James. Shame.

“I remember stepping into the broadcast booth as a cocky 21-year-old to assist Bryn Griffiths, then the voice of the Warriors, and thinking I was ‘The Goods!’

“I remember some wonderful young men wearing Warriors jerseys and some wonderful young hockey players. No one was more dynamic and entertaining than Theoren Fleury. No one.

“I remember the adrenaline flowing through my body minutes before ‘Showtime’ on 800 CHAB. I loved that. I used to live for it.

“I remember my old Dad walking up the steep stairs before Warriors games and looking up at me in the broadcast booth and grinning. He was proud of me. He never told me that. I just knew it. I loved him more than I can describe. I miss him.

“And . . . I'll miss the Civic Centre!”

Re: Articles

Hockey Calgary considers ban on bodychecking in peewee hockey

By Sean Myers and Deborah Tetley, Calgary Herald March 11, 2011


Hockey Calgary is poised to take a harder look this spring at the contentious issue of bodychecking at the peewee level.

President Perry Cavanagh expects a motion at the annual general meeting in June, which could either call for a committee to study the issue or possibly ask for physical contact to be eliminated from the game for 11-and 12-year-olds.

"It's obviously a risk and safety factor that we are obligated to review, discuss, analyze, debate and make a decision if we want to make any changes or modifications to the existing system in the spirit of understanding the risks," said Cavanagh.

"I suspect that there would be a direction to strike a subcommittee to come back to the board with recommendations for changes. That would be more practical and reasonable to do, rather than jumping to any conclusions or taking a knee-jerk reaction to it."

As of Thursday, Hockey Calgary's website features a page of links to studies, reports and articles on both sides of the body checking debate.

The discussion surfaces as Canada's highest level of hockey, the NHL, deals with outrage from across the country following a devastating check that resulted in yet another in a string of recent high-profile concussions from hits.

Violence in the game is once again front and centre following a vicious-looking check Boston Bruins defenceman Zdeno Chara levelled on Montreal Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty in a National Hockey League game on Tuesday.

Although the head-first hit into a stanchion that left Pacioretty with a severe concussion and a broken vertebra isn't directly connected to body checking among preteens, young players do try to emulate their hockey heroes which can lead to dangerous plays, says Cavanagh.

"That's always a concern we have. The kids are watching that level of play and they expect that to be the standard of play at the minor level and they're definitely emulating it.

"But really they are two separate and distinct issues. Head shots versus checking are different situations. Those things need to be dealt with independently, head shots will happen in a league where there is not body checking."

One peewee coach in Calgary -who supports body checking at that level -says his peers are divided on the issue.

"Some say checking should start at the atom level, when they are Timbits," said Troy Brazzoni, of the Westwood Hockey Association.

Brazzoni said pee wee is an appropriate age for players to bodycheck, but notes that the onus needs to be on the coaches to ensure kids are being taught to hit -and be hit.

"Checking is a big part of the game, so they might as well start learning how to do it and do it properly."

Cavanagh wants a review done that would take into account the latest research, including a study by the University of Buffalo that shows 66 per cent of injuries in hockey result from accidents, not body checking, and one completed last June at the University of Calgary that shows body checking dramatically increases rates of concussions in peewee players.

The author of the U of C study, sport epidemiologist Carolyn Emery, said body checking more than triples the risk of concussion and injury in 11 and 12 year olds.

The study compared injury and concussion rates between players in Quebec -where body checking isn't allowed until bantam -with Alberta peewee players. Emery said an estimated 1,000 game-related injuries and 400 game-related concussions could be prevented per year in 11-and 12-year-old Alberta players if body checking was eliminated.

"Not to say that there's not other aspects that need to be addressed, but certainly the science gives us pretty conclusive evidence that a strong consideration to delaying the age of body checking in competition needs to be considered," said Emery.

If Hockey Calgary did change its rules around body checking, Calgary players would still have to play against teams in other Alberta jurisdictions where it would still be allowed in tournaments and provincial playoffs.

This could be a problem said Hockey Alberta president Annie Orton, who said most parents in the province believe body checking belongs in peewee level hockey.

"It would make it difficult, because 90 per cent of our membership want it there. If Calgary chose to change, it would then make it more difficult for those teams that are playing within Calgary to play anywhere else."

Re: Articles

As NHL GMs prepare to convene in Florida, there's no question what issue will top their agenda.

TSN Mark Spector March 11, 2011


CLEARWATER, FLA — A year ago, on the Sunday before the annual National Hockey League general managers’ meetings, Matt Cooke must have decided the agenda was not to his liking.

It was on Sunday March 7, 2010, when his hit on Marc Savard set the GMs’ mandate, and over the next three days in Boca Raton, Rule 48 was born.

"You have to be conscious of trends, and there was a trend," said Vancouver GM Mike Gillis. "We saw those (back pressure) hits that were resulting in devastating injuries — and they were addressed. Now, that rule is still being worked on. Now we’re seeing a different kind of hit."

They will reconvene on Monday through Wednesday in the same Florida coastal town, and the primary goal hasn’t changed: They’ll remain focused on what the Official NHL Rulebook calls: "Rule 48 — Illegal Check to the Head."

Stand down, anti-fighting lobby. The recent call for eliminating fighting from the NHL is not specifically on the agenda.

"I have not heard anyone suggest that it’s going to be a topic," said Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke. "I assume it will come up … but I certainly do not detect any appetite for the elimination of fighting."

NHL vice president Colin Campbell agreed.

"Anything that is part of the landscape of concussion or hard hits, we will discuss," he said.

Campbell would not divulge the three-day agenda, but he also indicated that the elimination of fighting is not on the National Hockey League’s front burner.

Campbell, who deferred to Mike Murphy on the Zdeno Chara ruling following the hit on Montreal’s Max Pacioretty because Campbell’s son Gregory is Chara’s Boston teammate, also said the recent furor over the Pacioretty incident simply focuses the GMs down a path they have already been travelling.

"Doesn’t change it at all. Not one iota," Campbell said of the furor over the Pacioretty-Chara incident. "It only highlights that people are looking for the NHL to do something (further on head shots). It’s incumbent on us to do something, but not in haste."

Added Gillis: "I do know there is clearly a public outcry. We’ll field that in discussion."

And so on Monday the GMs will view a league presentation chronicling perhaps hundreds of different hits that have resulted in concussions going back through the decades.

Then the GMs will traditionally break into smaller groups charged with examining the different elements of the game that have resulted in concussions.

Rule 48 contains language that states, "A lateral or blind side hit to an opponent where the head is targeted and/or the principle point of contact is not permitted."

This time around, Burke sees three ways the GMs may extend the reach of Rule 48.

"One is status quo, where there is a feeling the rule is working. That some amount of contact has to be permitted," Burke began. "We don’t want this league to be like the OHL or college, where an otherwise clean check that results in contact with the head is penalized."

The second option could be to devise a minor penalty to be called any time the head is contacted during a check. Option No. 3 would be to retain the same standards, but direct Campbell towards protracted suspensions.

"Push for longer, stiffer suspensions. Ask Collie to do more enhanced review," Burke said. "The issue is the role of hitting in our game. We need (north-south, legal hits) in our game. In the OHL that’s a penalty if the head is contacted. We’ve got to keep that hit in our game."

As concussions rise however, the pressure mounts for the NHL to find a solution. And it’s not just coming from inside the game. It is fans, politicians, sponsors — everyone.

That causes Burke and his colleagues to look inward. These guys consider themselves the protectors of the game’s integrity, a role they take very seriously.

"Let’s start with the basic premise that we’re going to have head injuries," Burke said. "The notion that we’re going to get to zero concussions, that’s just ridiculous. You take physical contact out, and people just aren’t interested in watching it."

The GMs will also discuss different overtime formats once again, perhaps moving from 4-on-4 to 3-on-3 at some point in the extra period.

Though Burke admitted his issue with the limited number of post-deadline call-ups will have little traction, he’ll pitch his "bear hug" rule, which would allow a defenceman to wrap his arms around a forward as a protective measure.

We’re doubtful that will fly.

He’ll also re-pitch his "hybrid" icing scheme, which would see the whistle blown if the defensive player is winning the race for the puck at the hashmarks, but allow the race to go the distance if the offensive player is tied or in the lead.

"They use it in the USHL," Burke said. "It eliminates the risk, but saves the race."

Re: Articles

MCKENZIE: WHICH WAY DOES THE NHL GO IN THE HEADSHOT DEBATE?

BOB MCKENZIE TSN 3/11/2011


It has been a fascinating week in the NHL, especially on the crime and punishment front. The Chara-Pacioretty situation is, hour by hour and day by day, evolving and it remains to be seen what impact it may have on how the game is played and/or governed.

Certainly, when an influential owner such as Montreal's Geoff Molson writes an open letter advocating a significant change - owners, as opposed to general managers, being more proactive on rule changes and setting the agenda of how the game is played - it represents a whole new dynamic and much uncertainty.

All of this is unfolding on the eve of annual NHL GM meetings, which take place Monday through Wednesday in Boca Raton, Fla. The following story and the research for it was completed prior to Chara-Pacioretty. It remains to seen what the fallout will be on the events of the last week, but none of that should serve to diminish the issues and how the GMs intended to deal with them. Nevertheless, it was important to simply note the frame of reference for this story and the research were completed prior to Chara-Pacioretty.

The NHL general managers will gather in Boca Raton, Fla., on Monday for three days of meetings. There will be many items concerning the game that will be discussed but the one that is guaranteed to garner more coverage than any other is that of the issue of hits to the head, concussions and the league's rules to combat them.

This comes as no surprise to anyone. Concussions in hockey appear to be epidemic. And there has barely been a week gone by since a year ago at this time, when the NHL introduced Rule 48 to penalize blindside hits to the head, that hits to the head/concussions/Rule 48 haven't been at the forefront of any issue-oriented hockey discussion.

It's gotten to the point where there's a certain level of battle fatigue for many in the game and also many fans when it comes to the subject of concussions and head hits.

It's a fast, physical game that has only gotten faster and more physical and some would suggest it's never been more dangerous to play than it is right now.

But hockey has always been an inherently dangerous, physical game and many would argue that's never going to change.

Yet if many are weary of the head-checking debate and the mere mention of the word concussion causes eyes to glaze over, no one disputes that it's not going away, not in hockey or football or anywhere else.

Societal and medical standards and pressures are going to keep the issue of brain trauma at the forefront, probably for years to come.

So the GMs in Boca will dutifully discuss it, which raises the question: Where do we go from here? Where, specifically, does the NHL go?

There are no easy answers, but TSN went looking for them nonetheless.

We reached out to all 30 NHL general managers to try to get some sense of their collective mindset as they prepare to meet to discuss this and other issues.

This is far too complex a subject to make easy generalizations but we have attempted to frame the issue in some very broad terms to get a barometer of where they're at. The GMs, keep in mind, are effectively the gatekeepers for the game. That isn't to say the players, via the NHL Players' Association and/or the NHL-NHLPA Competition Committee, don't have a huge say in how the game is played. And NHL owners have ultimate power as any recommendations from the GMs require approval by the board of governors before they become law.

But it is the GMs who set the agenda on rule changes and have the greatest impact on how the game is played and governed on everything from rules to suspensions.

In individual phone calls with every GM in the league -- and all 30 responded -- they were asked to classify which position currently comes closest to representing their feelings on the issue of head hits and where the league is going next.

Three options or, for purposes of this exercise, three doors were available to them and the only provision was that their standing would be chronicled anonymously.

Door No. 1 was the status quo. That is to say it represents a level of satisfaction with what the NHL has done with Rule 48 as well as other penalites/suspensions for hits to the head with no strong desire to make any further changes at this time.

Door No. 2 was the extreme position that any hit to the head, whether intentional or unintentional, is unacceptable and illegal and should be punished at the very least with a two-minute head-checking minor penalty, a rule that currently exists in the Ontario Hockey League, U.S. college hockey, International Ice Hockey Federation games and youth hockey in North America.

Door No. 3 was the vast middle ground in between the other two doors, where the only position is that "something more" needs to be acted upon now by the league. Precisely what "more" means was left to the discretion of the GMs who opted for this door and, as you will see, they weren't shy about elaborating on what "more" means specifically to them.

So here are the results:

Ten GMs opted for the status quo of Door No. 1; two chose the extreme position of Door No. 2 and 15 opted for the wide middle ground of Door No. 3; three GMs either couldn't or wouldn't pigeon hole themselves in one category or another, although they were more than happy to offer some perspectives on the issue and what concerns them about it and the ongoing debate.

What we can conclude is that with a total of 17 of 30 GMs classifying themselves as not entirely satisfied with the status quo, the ground would appear to be relatively fertile for change. That said, there are no guarantees that change comes swiftly or decisively. But if there was an overriding theme to the discussion, it was clearly how open-minded so many of the GMs were to hear both sides of any equation.

For example, of the 15 GMs who chose Door No. 3, almost half of them, without provocation, said they would be interested in hearing the arguments for Door No. 2 and perhaps could be swayed more in that direction, for example, than the status quo.

But anyone who's been around GM meetings in the past knows there is a significant aversion to knee-jerk reactions, especially on an issue of this significance and one where there's been quite a media feeding frenzy.

"We have to do what's right for the game, not our individual teams and certainly not because the media is pressuring us to do something," one NHL GM, sounding a popular refrain.

So let's try to characterize the sentiment behind each of the three doors:

Door No. 1: The most common comment from this group of nine was that "we haven't even had one full season of Rule 48 and we really need to let this evolve before we go barging ahead with other things. It's a work in progress. Let's see where it goes."

Another offered the following evaluation:

"There is no question in my mind, because I've seen it on multiple occasions this season, players are modifying their behaviour because of Rule 48. I recently saw Matt Cooke turn away from a hit when he had the guy lined up, so it is having an impact. That's not to say we can't have more debate and follow up. We just need to move cautiously now."

Even those who may have previously been regarded as hard-liners on the head-hit issue acknowledge there needs to be ongoing dialogue because of the gravity of the issue.

But that isn't to say there aren't some who wonder if the league hasn't already overreacted.

"I'm not even sure I am entirely comfortable with the new blindside hit (Rule 48) rule," one GM said. "I believe a player has to be responsible at all times to keep his head up and be aware of the danger around him. You can't ask players to let up on their checks. It's a physical game. I don't want to see people get hurt but I don't want to see us put in a lot of rules where the player stops being responsible for keeping his head up. I think that will lead to even more injuries."

Unquestionably, that issue -- how much onus is on the hitter versus the hittee -- is a constant source of debate amongst GMs. That's why Rule 48 on the blindside hits was, in the eyes of the GM, such a groundbreaking step. It was the first time in the history of the game that the league transferred the responsibility for being hit to the player doing the hitting.

Door No. 2: Only two GMs walked through this portal and they acknowledged the group is probably not ready to accept such an extreme position as a penalty for any hit to the head, but they also suggested there's an air of inevitability, that at some point in the future, whether it's three years or five years or 10 years, it will be unacceptable in pro sports to hit anyone in the head, citing societal, governmental and medical pressures to protect the brains of all people, including elite athletes who ply their trade in dangerous games where high levels of risk are assumed.

The critics of this zero-tolerance policy on head hits fear it will lead to the demise of physical play in the NHL, but the proponents aren't as certain the fabric of the pro hockey game is necessarily at risk.

"I'm just not convinced of that," one GM said. "But it's a good discussion to have. This isn't a crusade, it's just an individual opinion, so let's not be afraid to at least talk about it."

Another GM said the lesson learned from Rule 48 and the intense level of debate on what's a blindside hit and what isn't -- and the referees' ability to correctly make that judgment call on the ice -- is why the universal head checking penalty should be considered. It's hard, the GM said, to get consistency but if every hit to the head is illegal, there would be less gray area and the players would ultimately adjust.

No one thinks for a moment this is a realistic short term possibility but it was interesting to hear a number of GMs in the middle ground area say they are at least intrigued by the notion of discussing a total ban on head hits and want more and better information on how it works in the OHL and other leagues.

"Most of our information we're getting on this is anecdotal," one GM said. "Someone said they saw this game or that game and this is what happened in a single game. I'd like to get some real hard information, maybe study the OHL game to see if there has been a big dropoff in hitting or what it's meant to them in reducing head injuries. I don't think any of us see enough OHL or college hockey to present a true picture of what it's actually like now with these rules in place."

Door No. 3: Exactly half the GMs in the NHL made this choice and, to varying degrees, opined that more is better. As in the NHL should continue to take further steps in the war against head hits and concussions, that more than the status quo is required.

Not surprisingly, there was a wide variance on the definition of “more” but what absolutely came through from repeated comments was there's a growing sentiment for handing out tougher suspensions. Historically, most GMs have had an aversion to long suspensions, or “super” suspensions, as some like to call them. That worm appears to be turning based on our research.

"The key for me is intent,” one GM said. “If we have the same guys hitting high over and over again, and we all know who they are, we can't be giving these guys the benefit of the doubt and we really need to slap some hard suspensions on them."

“We need to start whacking guys harder with tougher suspensions for the head hits we deem to be bad hit,” another added.

Some said they favor as much as double-digit suspensions in cases where it's clear the head has been targeted.

But there were a tremendous array of opinions on which direction the league should be moving towards.

Some want to see Rule 48 broadened to include not just blindside hits to the head but to come up with criteria that would deal with some forms of the traditional north-south hit to the head that, in some instances, is still very much legal in the NHL. More of a 360 degree approach or protection for players.

“You can have a north-south hit where the hitter goes for the head at the last second and the player getting hit has no way to defend himself,” a GM said. “Just because it's north-south doesn't automatically mean it's any less damaging or sneaky than a blindside hit.”

No one who chose Door No. 3 is suggesting every north-south head contact should be penalized but did say just as the GMs worked on very specific criteria on the blindside hit, the same exercise needs to be rolled out for some of the dangerous north-south varieties.

One GM said the league doesn't need any more new rules on head hits so much as it needs to perhaps reinforce the existing rules on elbowing, charging, interference, boarding and checking from behind, suggesting the rule book currently spells out some fairly specific action on hits to the head but that perhaps there needs to be a greater emphasis on referees calling them.

The whole issue of “transfer of responsibility” from the hittee to the hitter will also be explored and while some are saying they must proceed with caution on that front, others note that the game is so fast now that old “keep your head up” standards from previous eras are tougher to apply now.

“It's so fast now,” one GM said. “It's almost impossible now for a player, in every situation on the ice, to not get caught with his head down sometimes.”

One GM said the battle on head hits may be less about new anti-headshot legislation and more about reviewing the rules package put in after the lockout to improve the pace of the game. Mission accomplished on the speed of the game, but many GMs believe taking out the red line, putting in the trapezoid that prevents goalies from handling the puck have contributed to the rash of big hits and concussions.

But as staunchly as some of the GMs argue for doing “more” - whatever more turns out to be - they all acknowledge improvement is a double-edged sword that can come back to haunt you. The more rules that are instituted, the GMs said, the more players will use trickery and fakery, if necessary, to gain an advantage and make a mockery of some well-intentioned efforts.

“We have to be so careful,” a GM said. “So careful. That's why a complete ban on any contact to the head will not get a lot of traction. The minute you put that in, players will be snapping their head back to draw penalties. Players who aren't seriously injured will drop to the ice and stay there to draw the major penalty. Everyone is in favor of getting rid of concussions but just wait until your team loses a game or a playoff series on a phantom head-checking penalty. There are no easy answers."

Another GM said he's not in favor of making any rule changes until the league, and the Players' Association, make sure everything has been done to provide as safe a work environment as possible, citing boards and glass, shoulder pads and elbow pads and helmet technology as areas where more can be done before messing around with the way the game is played.

For all the flak the NHL takes on the issue of head shots/concussions, it was clearly apparent from our interview process that a great many of the NHL GMs do sincerely care about this issue, and are now recognizing the need to be more proactive but also note there are many pitfalls associated with rushing headlong into new rules or action.

And many of them couldn't stress enough how “open-minded” they now are, whether they opted for Door No. 1, Door No. 2 or Door No. 3.

But they also realize the game is inherently dangerous and you can't legislate concussions out of hockey.

"Let's not kid ourselves," one GM said. "The fact Sidney Crosby has been out a long time with a concussion is a huge part of what's happening right now. And I feel terrible Sidney is injured and our game needs him playing. But he got hurt on what I believe was an accidental collision. It's a fast game played by big people in a small area. There are going to be concussions. We can try to reduce the number but we're never going to get rid of them."

Re: Articles

March 11, 2011
Ken Dryden on hockey violence: How could we be so stupid?
By KEN DRYDEN
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
The former NHL goalie recalls when helmets and goalie masks were optional. A generation from now, he writes, today's attitude toward hockey violence will seem equally stupid

The brain weighs about three pounds. It floats inside a boney skull, surrounded by spinal fluid, not quite in contact with the skull. Except when the head is jarred.

Then, the brain moves, ricocheting back and forth, colliding with the sides of the skull, like a superball in a squash court. With hard-enough contact, the brain bleeds. And the parts inside it - the neurons and pathways that we use to think, learn and remember - get damaged.

Why would we ever have thought otherwise?

Why would we ever have believed that when the dizziness goes away, everything goes back as it had been before? All the little hits, scores of them in every game, so inconsequential that we don't even know they've occurred - how could we not have known? How could we be so stupid?

I feel the same when I remember that the effects of smoking or of drunk driving were ignored for so long. I feel it when I think of women in the past having no right to vote and few rights of any kind, and when I think about slavery: How could people 50, 100 or 200 years ago not have known? How could they be so stupid?

I wonder what will make people say that about us 50 years from now. What are the big things we might be getting really wrong? Chemicals in our foods? Genetic modifications gone wrong? Climate change?

In sports, I think, the haunting question will be about head injuries. It wasn't until 1943 in the National Football League that helmets became mandatory; in the National Hockey League, not until 36 years after that, in 1979. The first goalie mask wasn't worn in the NHL until 1959.

And in a whole childhood and adolescence of playing goalie, I didn't wear a mask until 1965, when I had to wear one on my college team. How could I have been so stupid?

Smash, crash, bang, maim

A football wide receiver, 220 pounds, cuts across the middle of the field at 35 kilometres an hour; a linebacker, 240 pounds, cuts the other way at 20 km/hour. The wide receiver focuses on the ball; the linebacker focuses on the wide receiver, knowing that a good hit now won't just break up the pass but will break down the focus and will of that wide receiver for each succeeding pass in the game.

Two hockey players, almost as big as the football players, but going even faster, colliding with each other and with the boards, glass and ice exaggerating the force of every hit.

Boxers, snapping jabs and hooks at each other's head, round after round. (But no hitting below the belt; that's not fair.) Ultimate Fighting: Fist, foot, elbow, knee, bone against bone - get your opponent down, get him defenceless and pound away.

In addition, there are the countless mini-collisions that never make the "Highlights of the Night." They make players feel a little dizzy, but then seconds later, almost every time, they feel fine. So they must be fine.

Years later, they may not be thinking so clearly or remembering so well, at a slightly younger age than other people, perhaps. But in the randomness of everything else in life, who's to know why? It could be genes or bad luck. Hockey player Reggie Fleming, known as "Cement Head"; football players Mike Webster, Owen Thomas or Mike McCoy; wrestler Chris Benoit ...

A few weeks ago, I read about the suicide of Dave Duerson, a former all-pro safety with the Chicago Bears. He was 50. In recent years, Mr. Duerson had worked with the NFL players' union, dealing with retired players and their physical ailments, head injuries among them, and reading their doctors' reports. He had begun to have trouble himself remembering names and putting words together. Then, one day he shot himself, not in the head but the chest, so as to preserve his brain intact for future examination, bequeathing it to the NFL's brain bank.

On the same day, in the same newspapers, there was another story about Ollie Matson, an all-pro running back in the 1950s and 1960s for several NFL teams. He was 80 when he died, and for the last several years of his life he had been suffering from dementia; over the last four years, he hadn't spoken. Mr. Matson's death and dementia, it seemed, had to do with the consequences of old age. No connection was made to football or Dave Duerson.

A few days earlier, there had been a story about the death of Bobby Kuntz. He had been one of my favourite players as a kid. During the late 1950s and 1960s, he played for the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger-Cats, playing "both ways" as players of the time did - a running back on offence and a linebacker on defence.

He was small for the positions he played, and especially small for the way he played them. He'd put his head down and throw himself into the line or into the bodies of ball carriers, the sound of his collisions sharper and more resounding than any others - the kind that, as a fan, made you go "oooh" and laugh. He was fearless. In playground games, I used to pretend I was Bobby Kuntz, head down, fearless in my own mind.

Mr. Kuntz died at 79, having suffered from dementia the last 11 years of his life. The Kuntz family agreed to have his brain donated to a study of athletes and head injuries, the article said.

The myth of the 'nature of the game'

What is our answer to those voices 50 years into the future? We can only say that we didn't want to know. We thought - we hoped - there wasn't a problem, because if there were, something would need to be done, and we didn't want to do it.

To do something would change the nature of the game. It may be all right, or inevitable, for everything in the world around the game to change; but the game itself is "pure" and must remain that way.

Hockey began in Montreal in 1875 because some rugby players wanted a game for the wintertime, and they wanted to hit each other. But the rugby players couldn't skate very fast, their bodies were smaller than ours are today, and they were playing on a smaller ice surface where they had little room to pick up momentum. With no substitutions allowed, the game moved at coasting speed.

Bigger ice surfaces changed the nature of the game; so did the forward pass; so did boards and glass; so did substitutions, shorter shifts and bigger bodies. Helmeted players in today's game are far more vulnerable to serious head injury than helmet-less players were in generations ago.

We choose to ignore the fact that the "nature" of any game is always changing. Today's hockey - in terms of speed, skill, style of play and force of impact - is almost unrecognizable from hockey 50 years ago, let alone 100. Likewise, helmets, facemasks, 300-plus-pound players and off-field, year-round training have transformed football.

These and other sports changed because someone thought of new ways to do things, others followed and nobody stopped them. In many cases, sports have had to change for reasons of safety or economics. For the sake of the players and fans and the game itself, these sports will and do need to change again.

A few days ago, I read the story of Bob Probert. He was a "goon" whose ability to fight got him into the NHL, and gave him the extra years and playing time he needed to learn how to play an all-around game. It has been calculated that Mr. Probert was in 240 NHL fights - few of which he lost - and countless more in his minor hockey years. Before he died last year, his wife reported, he had been forgetting things and frequently losing his temper. In a post-mortem examination, Boston University's School of Medicine recently reported, Mr. Probert was found to have chronic-traumatic-encephalopathy cells in his brain. He was 45.

The voices of the future will not be kind to us about how we understood and dealt with head injuries in sports. They will ask: How is it possible we didn't know, or chose not to know?

For players or former players, owners, managers, coaches, doctors and team doctors, league executives, lawyers, agents, the media, players' wives, partners and families, it's no longer possible not to know and not to be afraid, unless we willfully close our eyes.

Max Pacioretty was only the latest; he will not be the last. Arguments and explanations don't matter any more. The NHL has to risk the big steps that are needed: If some of them prove wrong, they'll still be far less wrong than what we have now.

It is time to stop being stupid.

Ken Dryden is a former NHL goaltender, and is a lawyer, author and member of Parliament.

Re: Articles

Great article on what must be the best team name in hockey....
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

March 11, 2011
The long trail to world championship gold
By JAMES CHRISTIE
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
50 Years On: How a scrappy amateur team from a small B.C. town stunned the Russians

It's a history lesson wrapped around a hockey legend.

The year was 1961 and innocence was on the run in a world that was getting swallowed up by the Cold War and by fear.

Canada's Trail Smoke Eaters were making a stand as amateur hockey players against a Soviet system that was decidedly professional - army men recruited from all of its republics against Canadian farm boys, factory workers and firemen. The 1961 world hockey championship in Geneva, Switzerland, would come to be a touchstone of Canadian hockey. There have been other Olympics and other world championships, but the Smokies are an enduring icon.

In Trail, B.C., a small industrial town in southeastern British Columbia, a scrappy amateur team known as the Trail Smoke Eaters had lost the Allan Cup senior hockey title to the Chatham Maroons. The Maroons were asked by the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association to play for the world championship in Geneva, but the Maroons turned down the trip, opting instead to go to another tournament in the Soviet Union where everything would be paid for.

Canadian hockey officials turned to the Smoke Eaters, but told the company team that it would have to be stronger and bolster its ranks with players from elsewhere in the country. The players would also have to pick up the cost of the trip themselves.

"Nobody believed in us," says Don Fletcher, who will join surviving members of the 1961 team Saturday afternoon at Royal Theatre in Trail to relive the improbable world championship - Canada's last world hockey championship until pros named Joe Sakic, Rod Brind'Amour, Rob Blake, Luc Robitaille and Brendan Shanahan restored Canada's global glory with a world title 33 years later in 1994.

"We're famous for being underdogs. The European press called us murderers and butchers. The Swedish papers called us the worst team ever to leave Canada, thugs and gangsters. But I thought it was the greatest team I ever played for," Fletcher said.

The woodsy town of 15,000 believed in them and staged fundraisers to gather $42,000 for a seven-week trip.

The trip involved 14 European countries and 40 kilometres while the Smokies got used to unfamiliar European foods and big ice rinks, sometimes playing hockey outdoors in front of 18,000, and not being allowed to bodycheck in the attacking zone.

Salaries were covered by the town's big employer, Consolidated Mining and Smelting Co. of Canada Ltd. (later known as Cominco and Teck Resources), where most of the players held jobs.

"It was community driven," says Betty Anne Morino, promotions co-ordinator for the town and one of the organizers of the anniversary. "We think about other world championships and the Olympics and the NHL, but these guys were amateurs. They held down jobs. A lot of them didn't turn pro because, in those days, a good job was worth keeping and paid almost as much as an athlete's salary."

As Fletcher put it: "We played for the love of the game."

The Trail team was largely made up of locals - many of whom still live in the Trail area - and the pickups included Jackie McLeod of Saskatoon, Darryl Sly of Cambridge, Ont., and Montrealers Mike Legace and Claude Cyr. The coach was the hard-nosed Bobby Kromm, who not only whipped the team into shape but pioneered the idea of a practice on game day to get them sharp.

The Smokies - there's some debate whether the nickname came because of the huge smelter stack or because a fan disgruntled with a referee's call tossed a smoking corn cob pipe on the ice, which was taken up by several players - played 20 exhibition games before the world championship in Switzerland.

"The tour of Europe was in different conditions than you have for the pros now - the foods for one thing," Fletcher says. "We got up after landing in Oslo and there was herring for breakfast ... herring! In Tampere [Finland] it was some kind of hotdogs. In Russia, it was supposed to be fried chicken, but I'm positive it was pigeons from off the sill. Thank God that in Moscow there was a U.S. embassy and they invited us over for hamburger and chips. You couldn't believe how good that was."

"We did the tour on rickety old airplanes and buses," adds McLeod, a pickup who scored twice in the decisive game, including the gold medal goal. "Everybody knew European hockey was getting better - and we wouldn't be world champions again for more than 30 years. I recall that maybe 3,000 of our servicemen were at the last game. And when we won it was something else."

The Smoke Eaters won five games and tied just one (against Czechoslovakia) going into their last match against Russia. The gold was to be decided by a differential of goals scored and goals against. The Czechs, who had the same won-loss record as the Canadians, had a two-goal edge in goals scored and were sitting in the stands, anticipating the presentation of the gold. They didn't believe Canada could win by enough goals over Russia to clinch the gold.

"The heat was on," recalls Dave Rusnell, another Smoke Eaters player. "It was Canada versus Russia, but it was a really small town against an entire land with an amazing number of players to draw from. That was an incentive - and the fact we weren't expected to do well. We had some of the best open-ice hitters I ever saw. In Sweden, we caught two of their national team players with their heads down and put them out for the rest of the year."

The Canadians used their brains as much as brawn. "We had three games in Moscow that helped us," Rusnell says. "We learned the Russians wanted to make the perfect shot. They might have the puck 65 per cent of the time, but Seth [Martin, the Trail goalie] always seemed to know where that last shot was coming from."

The Canadians may have been up against the communist system, says Smokies captain Cal Hockley, "but we had the team where everybody was equal, the same work ethic which Bobby [Kromm] drilled into us, the same drive."

He was a coach who made sure you were in the best condition in your life, so we outworked and outskated the Russians and Swedes every time."

The Smoke Eaters prevailed 5-1, giving them not only the victory over Russia but a big enough goals advantage to secure the gold.

"People will always wonder how a team from a town where eight or 10 of the players grew up together did it," Martin says. "We knew we couldn't just beat them by one, but we didn't actually know how many we had to win by. I remember the goals like it was yesterday: Harry Smith; Jackie McLeod; Harold Jones; McLeod again - it turned out to be the tournament winner, and Norm Lenardon with the insurance goal. "In Canada, people don't want to wind up second, they want to win the gold."

The population of Trail was about 15,000 at the time of the 1961 championship. An estimated 25,000 lined the route into town from the airfield at Castlegar, B.C., upon the Smokies return. "It was gratifying to see," Hockley says. "It brought out our opponents to cheer, guys we're played against in Nelson and Rossland and Spokane. I guess it was big."

Re: Articles

Dave,

The Trail Smoke Eaters have the best name and (old) logo in the business! The original one with the smoke coming out of the stacks has been made politically correct when their junior team entered the BCHL many years ago - no smoke now... gotta respect nature and the Green Party crowd!! See the old logo here:

http://icehockey.wikia.com/wiki/1938-39_Trail_Smoke_Eaters

I have met several of the players (and their offspring) from the 1961 team. I know one of the old equipment managers and he gave me a replica jersey (with smoke!) of the 1939 team several years ago. Their is an awesome museum in the Cominco rink that has a lot of sports memorabilia from Trail and the local area. Trail also has a pretty good history and passion for minor baseball - I believe a few of their teams have represented Canada and attended the Little League World Series.

I played some junior in the Kootenay's in the 80's; then I coached in Cranbrook and Invermere (east Kootenay's) in the early 90's and was head coach of a couple of BC U17 teams (Brad Larsen was my Captain one year and Shawn Horcoff another year.) I love the old rinks - Trail and Kimberley were my favourites!

My uncle's playing days in the Kootenay's preceded me; he played against many of these guys as they wrapped up their careers in Senior hockey (Allan Cup) in the late 60's / early 70's. My uncle played one year in Nelson for the Leafs and many years for the Spokane Jets / Flyers. I attended many games as a kid in the old "Boone Street Barn" in Spokane and was amazed by the level of skill and brutality! Senior hockey used to be an amazing spectacle... sad that it has been diminished since the early 80's.

Re: Articles

Ken Dryden on hockey violence: How could we be so stupid?

The former NHL goalie recalls when helmets and goalie masks were optional. A generation from now, he writes, today's attitude toward hockey violence will seem equally stupid

By KEN DRYDEN
From Saturday's Globe and Mail March 11, 2011



Dave,

This article speaks in a tone that cannot / should not be ignored. In 50 years, HOPEFULLY our attitudes will have changed for the better. I HOPE it is only a matter of time. Science is backing up these claims. How can the NHL bury it's head in the sand for much longer?

I plan on using this article in my class this week. Thanks for sharing it with us.

Re: Articles

The Usual Suspects
Milbury gets upper hand in violence debate

BRUCE DOWBIGGIN
From Monday's Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Mar. 13, 2011


Has Mike Milbury surpassed Don Cherry as the go-to guy on Hockey Night in Canada? In light of the Zdeno Chara incident last week (and Milbury’s turn on fighting), anticipation was high Saturday to hear from both Hockey Night personalities over Chara’s devastating hit on Montreal Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty – the closest, some feel, we’ve come to a fatality in an NHL game since Bill Masterton died following a 1968 contest.

While neither Cherry nor the former New York Islanders general manager exactly seized the moment, Milbury nudged ahead on all scorecards with a lucid agenda for the sport’s GMs and owners to deal with criticism from the Canadian Prime Minister, corporate heads and players over the game’s overall safety. Given several days to find a new angle, Cherry simply regurgitated talking points heard throughout the week from others.

Cherry first buried the lead with some predictable fawning on Toronto Maple Leafs goalie James Reimer. When he finally got to the Chara story, Cherry trotted out his usual grab bag of ad hominem attacks. Air Canada, being based in Montreal, was disqualified from comment. Canadiens owner Geoff Molson got a tongue lashing for his arena’s apparent safety failings. Politicians were media hogs.

While Chara’s five-minute foul produced a catastrophic result, Cherry defended the league for its lack of a suspension. It was, he felt, the clichéd “hockey play” like others on his video reel. Bizarrely, he insisted Chara deserved a 20-game suspension or none at all. Just another case of unwinding the police tape with a nothing-to-see-here shake of the head.

Milbury didn’t touch the suspension or the hit, preferring to advance the story by asking GMs this week at the general meeting to decide, “What’s an acceptable risk for players?” Milbury, who seemed restrained in his Hockey Night’s Hotstove segment (perhaps his Boston roots?), urged a panel to create a comprehensive, not knee-jerk reaction. Milbury was cogent and remarkably restrained for his often-voluble self. In doing so he’s pressing Cherry to raise his game.

Ready answer

The GMs already have a partial solution in the Vancouver Canucks and Detroit Red Wings. The NHL’s two best teams don’t goon and intimidate. Hockey Night (and its TSN/ Sportsnet equivalent) don’t seem able to grasp this salient fact. They lionize the Matt Cookes, Trevor Gillies and Colton Orrs as being essential to winning hockey. But the Canucks and Red Wings play another, safer way. And they win. Imagine that.

Tone deaf

Hockey Night’s performance in the face of the (sometimes hysterical) firestorm was still better than that of the NHL, with commissioner Gary Bettman putting his hands over his ears while saying, “La-la-la-la, I can’t hear you” to the Prime Minister, corporate leaders and media commentators last week.

Whether Bettman likes it or not, this is hockey’s Dale Earnhardt moment, the time when the speed of the cars and the aggression of the drivers overwhelms the race track. As NASCAR did when its brightest star Earnhardt was killed at the Daytona 500 in 2001, hockey has to take its foot off the accelerator and take stock of how much risk is acceptable. (Earnhardt was the fourth driver to die in NASCAR within a year; since revising its safety standards, no NASCAR driver has died since.) No matter how impulsive Air Canada’s media onslaught seemed, who wants a dead NHL player photographed lying in front of your corporate logo on the boards? Bettman’s petulant response to the week’s criticism, however, indicates he’s still got the pedal to the floor and his fingers in his ears.

Union due

Neither Cherry nor Milbury addressed the NHLPA’s mediocre history on safety issues. The union’s diligence on workplace safety was left to former player Mathieu Schneider, newly minted as hockey mentor to current executive director Don (What’s a Puck?) Fehr.

On Hockey Night’s pregame show Saturday, Schneider cited Chara’s lack of premeditation as the basis for absolution. But intent is just one element of culpability in courts. Chara’s act illustrates the difference between premeditation and negligence – both punishable. What we really wanted to know – and did not find out – was whether the PA had intervened on behalf of Chara or Pacioretty in the NHL’s hearings last week. The PA has had a lamentable habit of protecting aggressors over victims within its own membership.

Re: Articles

The lessons of one young hockey player’s pain and denial

Rachel Brady
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Mar. 11, 2011


For two weeks, 14-year-old Andrejs Linde was keeping something from his parents. He felt dizzy every time he stood up. He had disorienting headaches nearly all the time. And when he stepped outside, the glare of a sunny, snowy day was overwhelming.

Andrejs knew what was causing the headaches, but he wasn't saying a word. He had been the victim of a nasty check during a hockey game, and at the time, he thought little of the blindside hit that had propelled him sideways, delivering a blow to the left side of his head..

He told coaches that he felt fine that day, and that he could go back out on the ice. Trainers kept a close watch over him, and even followed up later. The teen insisted that he felt okay.

At 5-foot-9 and 120 pounds, Andrejs is one of the biggest kids on Toronto's Leaside Minor Bantam A team. He leads his team in scoring, with 25 goals, and he delivers as many hits as he absorbs. This isn't the kind of kid who gets pushed around.

He kept playing for two weeks after the hit. But his coach noticed that he was backing off plays, and his parents kept asking if he felt all right.

“I could feel players behind me around the boards, even when they weren't there. I realized I was feeling scared,” Andrejs said. “And the headaches weren't going away. I also took a slapshot to my finger, so I kept telling my parents I needed Advil for my finger, when actually I needed it for my head. I didn't want them to know or I would have to stop playing.”

Andrejs's mom, Laima, was persistent. She remembered the hit well and kept asking her son about his head, even weeks later. “He had a look like there was something that needed to be said, like something was really bugging him,” said Ms. Linde, who manages the team. “He finally broke down and said, ‘My head is killing me.'”

So the Lindes took Andrejs to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, where they endured a five-hour wait and discovered that he had post-concussion syndrome. “In triage, the nurse asked him, ‘On a scale of one to 10, how much pain are you in?' And Andrejs has had a broken collarbone, so he knows pain,” Ms. Linde said. “He said, ‘Eight.' I was shocked. You're in that much pain, and you're just telling me now?”

He was told to go home and rest in darkness for two days before a reassessment: no school, no video games and definitely no hockey.

He wasn't getting any better, so the Lindes visited a clinic where Andrejs underwent the same concussion testing used in pro sports leagues. First, he did a balance test. Then he struggled through a 20-minute online test that he found very difficult, clicking on shapes, colours and words to test his verbal memory, visual memory, motor speed and reaction speed. His verbal memory tested fine. But in the other areas, his scores were a concern.

“For a kid who … is very strong in math and sciences, these were not great scores,” said Grant Lum, the medical director at the clinic and an adviser to the National Hockey League Players Association. “But we didn't have a baseline test to show how he performed before the injury, so we couldn't tell for sure just how long he will need to recover.” Dr. Lum recommends that schools and sports associations administer such tests to determine athletes' healthy scores, which could later be used for comparison if the athletes suffer head injuries.

Andrejs was told to go home and do nothing for two weeks, which sounded okay at first: at home all day with no parents or siblings. But it also meant sitting in darkness, and he couldn't use computers, watch TV, play video games or battle his two little brothers in mini-sticks. One night, he begged to watch a few minutes of the hockey game or listen to his iPod. Both denied.

“I just sit here. I either listen to the radio or just sit,” Andrejs said, fidgeting on a couch in a back room with the blinds drawn after his two brothers and sister had headed off to school. “It's hard to fall asleep, because there is so much yet nothing going on. You want to do stuff but you can't,” he said. Naps and eating are his only activities these days, unless you count popping Advil.

“It's more than just missing games, he's missing his life,” said his father, Peter. “The blinds are drawn all day. He's basically hanging out in a cave.” His parents try to stay up late with him to keep his spirits up. His eight-year-old brother, Ilmars, “misses the old him.” Andrejs tried watching a couple of his team's games, but the headaches felt worse after the outings.

“I called all the players into a meeting and told them what the outcome was with Andrejs, and said, ‘if you're not honest with coaches, trainers and your parents, you could be out a long time and do a lot of damage to your health,” coach Brian McKeown said. “After that conversation, another kid anted up to his parents that he's been having symptoms.”

While the Lindes can't imagine taking hockey away from their three sons, they want to prompt discussion and educate parents on the need for baseline testing for concussions. Mr. McKeown wants to have the whole team baseline-tested.

“One big thing we've learned is that you can't rely on any type of self-assessment by the child. Kids love the game, they want to play,” Mr. Linde said. “You can't fault them for that.”

Andrejs will undergo further testing next week. If his scores improve, Dr. Lum will recommend easing back into school. Andrejs said the headaches are slowly getting better. He struggles to describe the feeling. It's not a throbbing pain; it's dull, and he just doesn't feel like himself.

“If I was hit again, I would definitely tell my parents right away, because I could have gotten hit again and made it worse, and I could have been healing and maybe back playing by now,” he said.

The Lindes know Andrejs isn't destined to play in the NHL, but he plans to make hockey a part of his life for many years.

“He can teach other kids that getting hit in the head is no laughing matter,” Mr. Linde said. “There's no reason to hide it. Deal with it – it's a real injury. It means nothing if no one else learns from Andrejs.”

Rachel Brady is a reporter with Globe Sports.

Re: Articles

A 10-step hockey reformation as imagined by John Allemang

JOHN ALLEMANG
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Mar. 11, 2011


Hockey can't go on like this. The daily carnage has become too much to bear, and there's no excuse to look the other way just because the sport attracts fans and fits a monopolistic kind of business model. Never mind that politicians, police and prominent sponsors are challenging the National Hockey League's complacency on injuries and violence, so far without much success. The bigger issue is about how professional hockey lost its way and allowed the game to get so far out of sync with the nation's better values.

1. Get rid of the boards. There are two games of lacrosse, one played in a rink or box, the other on a field. They're two very different, very separate games and each has its fans. The pond-hockey tradition in hockey is beloved even by people who like the high-energy National Hockey League game – which raises the question of whether hockey truly needs boards at all. Most serious hockey injuries happen close to the boards, and if you took away the game's hard boundaries, hitting from behind or crushing a player's head into a stanchion would become relics of the past. The NHL's business plan is based on a game played within boards, but there's no reason not to experiment with a boardless game that's just about ice. Yes, it might look more like field hockey on skates. But isn't that how the great Gordie Howe got his start?

2. Ban head hits. The NHL overlords work themselves into ridiculous contortions to justify hits to the head. Yes, hockey's a fast game, accidents happen and players put themselves in vulnerable positions where injuries can result. But the blame-the-victim strategy is unnecessary, as well as ineffective and inhuman. Simply follow the example of the International Ice Hockey Federation and take a zero-tolerance approach to head hits. A body-contact sport should be just that – contact with the body.

3. Increase ice size. Players are bigger, faster, stronger, but the narrow NHL rink remains unevolved. International hockey is played on rinks that are 15 feet wider, giving skaters much more room to manoeuvre and avoid harmful contact against the boards. Studies by neurologist Richard Wennberg of Toronto Western Hospital have shown that collisions and head injuries decrease in number and severity in the international rinks. Hockey on a bigger ice surface can be a more agile, free-flowing game, better suited to speedy, smaller skill players and less tolerant of the kind of smothering defensive tactics practised by a tentacled behemoth like Zdeno Chara.

4. Go to four on four. Increasing the rink size will take time and money, and there's a persuasive argument to be made that the compact NHL surfaces create a more intense and energetic style of hockey. In that case, do what is now done in overtime games to encourage offence and speed up play: Simply drop one of the skaters. By opening up more room on the ice, you give players more time to handle the puck and protect themselves from incoming threats. And with fewer players, goon tactics will become less valuable and aggressive body contact less useful – the culture of the sport will shift to a more free-flowing skaters' game.

5. Put an end to fighting. It has nothing to do with the sport, it's harmful and contrived, it discourages skilled young athletes from continuing in the game, puts off more fans than it draws in, dumbs down Canadian culture and isn't necessary despite what all the NHL apologists and armchair sadists contend. Other professional sports manage to ban fighting without losing their appeal or sacrificing their macho DNA. So just get rid of it, and let the lovers of mindless brutality get their fix with mixed-martial arts.

6. Treat violence as violence. Punishment rarely fits the crime in NHL hockey, except for rare moments of damage control where public outrage leads to PR-driven clampdowns. If NHL bosses refuse to punish violent acts like Zdeno Chara's hit against Max Pacioretty, then it's right that police should step in and sponsors should walk away, if only to send a message that both players and the league must be more responsible for their actions. If respect for fellow players can't be taught – and there's every reason to think coaches from minor hockey up instill the opposite message – then basic humanity has to be legislated by the courts and demanded by those who associate their corporate name with the sport.

7. No more “finishing the check.” The hockey rule book mandates a safe, orderly and fair game. But the latitude given to officials means that there is often a huge discrepancy between the rules of the sport and the arbitrary judgment calls on the ice. One of the more dangerous examples of this legalized lawlessness occurs when players are permitted to hit someone after he releases the puck. A player is often at his most vulnerable at this moment – much like a quarterback who has just thrown a pass. Yet hockey coaches at every level still encourage these checks and shift the responsibility for avoiding them from the aggressor to the victim. But checkers shouldn't have carte blanche: It must be made clear that there can be no body contact once the puck is released or not in the player's control.

8. Speed the flow of the game. A game like soccer is continuous: Substitutions have to fit into the course of the game and even on-field injuries don't necessarily stop play. Professional hockey has gone in the other direction and turned itself into a stop-and-start sport that breaks for TV ads, coach-mandated time-outs, between-period corporate networking and seemingly endless line changes. At the aesthetic level, the game is at its best when it's moving fast and furious – overtime hockey is compelling viewing. But there's also a safety issue. With modern hockey's short shifts, players are able to play more “physically,” targeting the body more than in a game where shifts drag on (as can be seen in the rebroadcasts of surprisingly gentle 1950s games that now look nothing like old-time hockey's tough-guy image).

9. Softer pads. Players don't need body armour to play good hockey. Hulking shoulder pads, in particular, do more harm than good, because they're less about protection than they are about inflicting damage, especially at the head level. And the more a player's equipment makes him feel protected from retaliation, the more confident he feels about dishing out pain. Hockey equipment is like a Cold War arms race, but the mutual escalation of physical force and physical protection no longer serves its purpose.

10. Get rid of coaches. Okay, it's not going to happen. But there are far too many coaches on the hockey bench intruding themselves into too many aspects of the game. As hockey has become overcoached, it has lost its breathtaking, spontaneous side, the throwback joie de vivre style displayed by the winning Russian team at this year's world junior championships. Players at all levels now feel tied down by defensive strategies where avoiding mistakes is seen as the key to winning. But what's worse from a safety point of view is that when you turn players into robotic automatons, you take away their judgment and responsibility. Most injuries in hockey occur because a player is just doing his job.

John Allemang is a feature writer for The Globe and Mail.

Lesson from Lacrosse

These are the sort of articles written about Lacrosse in the late 1800 and early 1900's. The game didn't adapt to and lost it's popularity as our nationsl sport.

We need to adapt the game to the times. Contact and not Collision. What is the point of two goons agreeing to fight and then dropping the mitts as soon as the puck hits the ice????????????? I find it boring and disrupts the flow of the game.

The game doesn't need the image of a violent sport.

Re: Articles

Here's an interesting article about the use of praise in education. Do you you think the same pertains to hockey?
Original: http://www.nea.org/home/42298.htm

The Praise Paradox: Are we smothering kids in kind words?

By Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Thomas (his middle name) is a fifth-grader at the highly competitive P.S. 334, the Anderson School on West 84th in New York City. Since Thomas could walk, he has constantly heard that he is smart. Not just from his parents but from any adult who has come in contact with this precocious child. When he applied to Anderson for kindergarten, his intelligence was statistically confirmed. The school is reserved for the top 1 percent of all applicants, and an IQ test is required. Thomas didn’t just score in the top 1 percent. He scored in the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent.

But as Thomas has progressed through school, this self-awareness that he’s smart hasn’t always translated into fearless confidence when attacking his schoolwork. In fact, Thomas’s father noticed just the opposite. “Thomas didn’t want to try things he wouldn’t be successful at,” his father says. “Some things came very quickly to him, but when they didn’t, he gave up almost immediately, concluding, ‘I’m not good at this.’” With no more than a glance, Thomas was dividing the world into two—things he was naturally good at and things he wasn’t.

For instance, in the early grades, Thomas wasn’t very good at spelling, so he simply demurred from spelling out loud. When Thomas took his first look at fractions, he balked. The biggest hurdle came in third grade. He was supposed to learn cursive penmanship, but he wouldn’t even try for weeks. By then, his teacher was demanding homework be completed in cursive. Rather than play catch-up on his penmanship, Thomas refused outright. Thomas’s father tried to reason with him. “Look, just because you’re smart doesn’t mean you don’t have to put out some effort.” (Eventually, Thomas mastered cursive, but not without a lot of cajoling from his father.)

Why does this child, who is measurably at the very top of the charts, lack confidence about his ability to tackle routine school challenges?

Thomas is not alone. For a few decades, it’s been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those afflicted with this lack of perceived competence adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent.

When parents praise their children’s intelligence, they believe they are providing the solution to this problem. According to a survey conducted by Columbia University, 85 percent of American parents think it’s important to tell their kids that they’re smart. In and around the New York area, according to my own (admittedly nonscientific) poll, the number is more like 100 percent. Everyone does it, habitually. “You’re so smart, Kiddo,” just seems to roll off the tongue.

“Early and often,” bragged one mom, of how often she praised. Another dad throws praise around “every chance I get.” I heard that kids are going to school with affirming handwritten notes in their lunchboxes and—when they come home—there are star charts on the refrigerator. Boys are earning baseball cards for clearing their plates after dinner, and girls are winning manicures for doing their homework. These kids are saturated with messages that they’re doing great—that they are great, innately so. They have what it takes.

The presumption is that if a child believes he’s smart (having been told so, repeatedly), he won’t be intimidated by new academic challenges. The constant praise is meant to be an angel on the shoulder, ensuring that children do not sell their talents short.

But a growing body of research—and a new study from the trenches of the New York City public school system—strongly suggest it might be the other way around. Giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it.

For the past ten years, Dr. Carol Dweck and her team at Columbia University have studied the effect of praise on students in 20 New York schools. Her seminal work—a series of experiments on 400 fifth-graders—paints the picture most clearly. Prior to these experiments, praise for intelligence had been shown to boost children’s confidence. But Dweck suspected that this would backfire the first moment kids experienced failure or difficulty.

Dweck sent four female research assistants into New York fifth-grade classrooms. The researchers would take a single child out of the classroom for a nonverbal IQ test consisting of a series of puzzles—puzzles easy enough that all the children would do fairly well. Once the child finished the test, the researchers told each student his score, then gave him a single line of praise. Randomly divided into groups, some were praised for their intelligence. They were told, “You must be smart at this.” Other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.”

Why just a single line of praise? “We wanted to see how sensitive children were,” Dweck explained. “We had a hunch that one line might be enough to see an effect.”

Then the students were given a choice of test for the second round. One choice was a test that would be more difficult than the first, but the researchers told the kids that they’d learn a lot from attempting the puzzles. The other choice, Dweck’s team explained, was an easy test, just like the first. Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The “smart” kids took the cop-out.

Why did this happen? “When we praise children for their intelligence,” Dweck wrote in her study summary, “we tell them that this is the name of the game: look smart, don’t risk making mistakes.” And that’s what the fifth-graders had done. They’d chosen to look smart and avoid the risk of being embarrassed.

In a subsequent round, none of the fifth-graders had a choice. The test was difficult, designed for kids two years ahead of their grade level. Predictably, everyone failed. But again, the two groups of children, divided at random at the study’s start, responded differently. Those praised for their effort on the first test assumed they simply hadn’t focused hard enough on this test. “They got very involved, willing to try every solution to the puzzles,” Dweck recalled. “Many of them remarked, unprovoked, ‘This is my favorite test.’” Not so for those praised for their smarts. They assumed their failure was evidence that they weren’t really smart at all. “Just watching them, you could see the strain. They were sweating and miserable.”

Having artificially induced a round of failure, Dweck’s researchers then gave all the fifth-graders a final round of tests that were engineered to be as easy as the first round. Those who had been praised for their effort significantly improved on their first score—by about 30 percent. Those who’d been told they were smart did worse than they had at the very beginning—by about 20 percent.

Dweck had suspected that praise could backfire, but even she was surprised by the magnitude of the effect. “Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control,” she explains. “They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child’s control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure.”

In follow-up interviews, Dweck discovered that those who think that innate intelligence is the key to success begin to discount the importance of effort. I am smart, the kids’ reasoning goes; I don’t need to put out effort. Expending effort becomes stigmatized—it’s public proof that you can’t cut it on your natural gifts.

Repeating her experiments, Dweck found this effect of praise on performance held true for students of every socioeconomic class. It hit both boys and girls—the very brightest girls especially (they collapsed the most following failure). Even preschoolers weren’t immune to the inverse power of praise.

Even those who’ve accepted the new research on praise have trouble putting it into practice. Sue Needleman is both a mother of two and an elementary school teacher with 11 years’ experience. Last year, she was a fourth-grade teacher at Ridge Ranch Elementary in Paramus, New Jersey. She has never heard of Carol Dweck, but the gist of Dweck’s research has trickled down to her school, and Needleman has learned to say, “I like how you keep trying.” She tries to keep her praise specific, rather than general, so that a child knows exactly what she did to earn the praise (and thus can get more). She will occasionally tell a child, “You’re good at math,” but she’ll never tell a child he’s bad at math.

But that’s at school, as a teacher. At home, old habits die hard. Her eight-year-old daughter and her five-year-old son are indeed smart, and sometimes she hears herself saying, “You’re great. You did it. You’re smart.” When I press her on this, Needleman says that what comes out of academia often feels artificial. “When I read the mock dialogues, my first thought is, Oh, please. How corny.”

No such qualms exist for teachers at the Life Sciences Secondary School in East Harlem, because they’ve seen Dweck’s theories applied to their junior high students. Dweck and her protégée, Dr. Lisa Blackwell, published a report in the academic journal Child Development about the effect of a semester-long intervention conducted to improve students’ math scores.

Life Sciences is a health-science magnet school with high aspirations but 700 students whose main attributes are being predominantly minority and low achieving. Blackwell split her kids into two groups for an eight-session workshop. The control group was taught study skills, and the others got study skills and a special module on how intelligence is not innate. These students took turns reading aloud an essay on how the brain grows new neurons when challenged. They saw slides of the brain and acted out skits. “Even as I was teaching these ideas,” Blackwell noted, “I would hear the students joking, calling one another ‘dummy’ or ‘stupid.’” After the module was concluded, Blackwell tracked her students’ grades to see if it had any effect.

It didn’t take long. The teachers—who hadn’t known which students had been assigned to which workshop—could pick out the students who had been taught that intelligence can be developed. They improved their study habits and grades. In a single semester, Blackwell reversed the students’ longtime trend of decreasing math grades.

The only difference between the control group and the test group were two lessons, a total of 50 minutes spent teaching not math but a single idea: that the brain is a muscle. Giving it a harder workout makes you smarter. That alone improved their math scores.

“These are very persuasive findings,” says Columbia’s Dr. Geraldine Downey, a specialist in children’s sensitivity to rejection. “They show how you can take a specific theory and develop a curriculum that works.”

Psychologist Wulf-Uwe Meyer, a pioneer in the field, conducted a series of studies during which children watched other students receive praise. According to Meyer’s findings, by the age of 12, children believe that earning praise from a teacher is not a sign you did well—it’s actually a sign you lack ability and the teacher thinks you need extra encouragement. They’ve picked up the pattern: kids who are falling behind get drowned in praise. Teens, Meyer found, discounted praise to such an extent that they believed it’s a teacher’s criticism that really conveys a positive belief in a student’s aptitude.

Excessive praise also distorts children’s motivation; they begin doing things merely to hear the praise, losing sight of intrinsic enjoyment. Scholars from Reed College and Stanford reviewed over 150 praise studies. Their analysis determined that praised students become risk-averse and lack perceived autonomy. The scholars found consistent correlations between a liberal use of praise and students’ “shorter task persistence, more eye-checking with the teacher, and inflected speech such that answers have the intonation of questions.” When they get to college, heavily praised students commonly drop out of classes rather than suffer a mediocre grade, and they have a hard time picking a major—they’re afraid to commit to something because they’re afraid of not succeeding.

One suburban New Jersey high school English teacher told me she can spot the kids who get overpraised at home. Their parents think they’re just being supportive, but the students sense their parents’ high expectations, and feel so much pressure they can’t concentrate on the subject, only the grade they will receive. “I had a mother say, ‘You are destroying my child’s self-esteem,’ because I’d given her son a C. I told her, ‘Your child is capable of better work.’ I’m not there to make them feel better. I’m there to make them do better.”

When students transition into junior high, some who’d done well in elementary school inevitably struggle in the larger and more demanding environment. Those who equated their earlier success with their innate ability surmise they’ve been dumb all along. Their grades never recover because the likely key to their recovery—increasing effort—they view as just further proof of their failure. In interviews many confess they would “seriously consider cheating.”

Students turn to cheating because they haven’t developed a strategy for handling failure. The problem is compounded when a parent ignores a child’s failures and insists that he’ll do it better next time. Michigan scholar Jennifer Crocker studies this exact scenario and explains that the child may come to believe failure is something so terrible, the family can’t acknowledge its existence. A child deprived of the opportunity to discuss mistakes can’t learn from them.

Offering praise has become a sort of panacea for the anxieties of modern parenting. Out of our children’s lives from breakfast to dinner, we turn it up a notch when we get home. In those few hours together, we want them to hear things we can’t say during the day—We are in your corner, we are here for you, we believe in you.

In a similar way, we put our children in high-pressure environments, seeking out the best schools we can find, then we use the constant praise to soften the intensity of those environments. We expect so much of them, but we hide our expectations behind constant glowing praise. For me, the duplicity became glaring.

I realized that not telling my son he was smart meant I was leaving it up to him to make his own conclusion about his intelligence. Jumping in with praise is like jumping in too soon with the answer to a homework problem—it robs him of the chance to make the deduction himself.

But what if he makes the wrong conclusion?

Can I really leave this up to him, at his age?

I’m still an anxious parent. This morning, I tested him on the way to school: “What happens to your brain, again, when it gets to think about something hard?”

“It gets bigger, like a muscle,” he responded, having aced this one before.