Articles

[hockeygod]

Before I Made It: Colin Wilson
Colin Wilson was the seventh overall pick of the 2008 draft.

With Kevin Kennedy, The Hockey News, Dec 17 2011

I played my first ever hockey game when I was about four years old back in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The only thing I really remember from back then is my very first dangle. I remember putting the puck through somebody’s legs and being really excited on my way home.

I don’t remember my parents missing any games as a kid, but something I’ll never forget are the rides home from the rink with my dad. Depending on the game, my ride home with dad was always interesting. If it was a rural game and I played badly it would feel like a two-hour ride home when it was only actually 45 minutes. My dad would have the clip board with the rink on the back and he’d be going over plays while my mom drove. I took it all in and it made me a better player and since then I’ve been able to deal with coaches being hard on me because of it.

As soon as I got home from school I was out to the backyard pond behind my house. It was a big pond with a lot of houses on it so my dad made a path from the house to the pond where I could work on my puckhandling.
I was born while my father was playing for the New York Rangers and I adopted them as my team as a kid. My favourite player growing up was Jaromir Jagr. If I was born a couple years earlier or later I probably would’ve grown up a Calgary Flames fan because that’s where my dad was playing.

I didn’t watch a lot of NHL hockey as a kid, but I was really into the world junior tournament. I remember my parents would let me come home from school early just so I could watch games. Then I got to play in it and I know everybody says it’s very surreal, but it really is. In your very first game you can’t believe you made it to this level.

I’d have to say my most memorable moment in minor hockey happened in my bantam year. I remember we went to a tournament in Price Albert, Saskatchewan and there were a lot of top teams there. I remember Angelo Esposito, Kyle Turris and Luke Schenn were there. We ended up going to the final and I scored the game-winning goal in overtime. It was amazing.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Iginla stuck with it

RANDY SPORTAK ,Calgary Sun, December 17, 2011

CHICAGO — Anybody who’s followed Jarome Iginla and the Calgary Flames over the past dozen years would find it impossible to fathom.

Iginla is the face of the franchise, the club’s all-time leading scorer and a star on the cusp of scoring goal No. 500, but early in his career, Iginla wasn’t sure he would be a marksman of note.

Iginla figured he may become a grinding winger who provided energy with more grit than goals.

That’s what happens when a player who pots 21 goals in his rookie season scores only 13 times in Year 2.

“My second year was a tough year,” recalled Iginla, whose Flames visit the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday (5 p.m., Sportsnet Flames).

“You’re trying to figure what role you’re going to have in the NHL — whether you could be a goal-scorer — and I was a goal-scorer growing up.

“You start to just be thankful you’re in the NHL but wonder if you’re going to score goals here and lose confidence. I remember thinking, even for a split second, ‘Maybe I’m not going to be a scorer in the NHL. Maybe I’ll be in a role with some fighting and grinding.’ You’re fighting just to stay in the NHL.

“I really enjoy that part of the game (scoring goals). It’s what I did growing up, and I’m thankful for that day and fortunately things turned around.”

Then came a conversation with then-teammate Bill Lindsay, who’d gone from a scorer in junior to a depth-winger role in the NHL.

“He said to me, ‘If you get into a different role, lose your confidence, you become a different player … We were all scorers or offensive players at one point, so it’s important to stick with it,’ ” Iginla said. “He encouraged me to believe I could keep doing it and not shift to just dumping the puck in the zone all the time. There’s a time and place for doing that, but it opened my eyes.”

“That’s humbling for me to have someone of his calibre remember something like that,” said Lindsay, currently part of Florida Panthers TV broadcasts. “He’s probably done that to 20, 30, 50 people along the way, too. I’m sure he’s given back to others, too.”

Lindsay doesn’t recall the conversation but remembers a young player determined to be his best.

“I saw someone committed to the game, who wasn’t going to give up,” Lindsay said. “He worked too hard for someone to say, ‘You’re only going to be able to do this, only able to do that.’ Jarome had too many talents and too much work ethic to let people limit him.”

Limits on Iginla were unfounded.

He’s on the verge of becoming the 42nd player in NHL history to reach the 500-goal milestone, needing four more heading into Sunday’s clash with the Blackhawks.

“I’d like to keep going, too,” Iginla said of the milestone. “I’m thankful I’m close and would like to get there, but I’d like to keep going. I feel I have more in me. I’m enjoying the game, still love it and want to keep playing a lot longer.

“I still feel I can score a lot more goals.”

Nobody could have predicted Iginla would hit the mark which should make him a slam-dunk Hall-of-Famer, but there were signs.

Craig Hartsburg saw one in Iginla’s first games on the big stage. Iginla jumped from the junior ranks into the 1996 NHL playoffs against a Blackhawks squad coached by Hartsburg and scored in his second tilt.

“A snapshot from the slot — somebody passed it to him in the slot, and his release was quick. I think he caught (Blackhawks goaltender) Ed Belfour by surprise,” said Hartsburg, who is now the Flames’ associate coach.

Flames bench boss Brent Sutter was on that Blackhawks team and remembers the talk of Iginla’s arrival.

“You could tell he was a really good player. They had him playing centre that night, and I took a few faceoffs against him,” Sutter said. “I was old, he was young, and now he’s catching up to me.”

And catching up to the NHL’s all-time greats.

“Five hundred goals. It’s mind-boggling,” said Flames centre Brendan Morrison. “I’m a goal away from 200. I’m not a goal-scorer, but to think 300 more goals … that’s a lot.

“And we’re not playing in an era of all-out offence like in the mid-80s. For his generation, he’s probably the premier goal-scorer when you look at his time in the league.”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Will Cunneyworth survive the meat grinder?

CHRIS STEVENSON, QMI Agency, Dec 17 2011

MONTREAL – So maybe we will finally see “ability to speak French” removed as the first criterion to coach the Montreal Canadiens.

It’s a legitimate thought after the Canadiens fired Jacques Martin Saturday and promoted unilingual anglophone assistant coach Randy Cunneyworth to the top job, the first non-French speaking coach of the Habs since Bob Berry in 1984.

“Anyone can learn a language,” said Canadiens GM Pierre “The Ghost” Gauthier when asked about the always sensitive language issue and its implications on coaching candidates.

For now, Cunneyworth will get a chance to show what he can do, his first priority to get the Canadiens underachieving veteran core of forwards back on track.

The Canadiens will revisit the coaching situation in the off-season and you can expect a groundswell of media and public support for former Habs goaltending great Patrick Roy, who’s had a successful run as coach of the QMJHL’s Quebec Remparts, to get the job.

Whether he wants the job is another question.

Coaching in Montreal is a meat grinder with Saturday’s change the eighth in the last 15 years.

That is an incredible turnover for the NHL’s most storied and decorated franchise and speaks to the incessant expectations in the city.

The Habs lost 5-3 to the New Jersey Devils Saturday night in Cunneyworth’s debut. The same issues which took Martin’s feet from beneath him, according to The Ghost, cost the Habs Saturday night: the inability to protect a lead and a poor third period. The Canadiens led 3-2 before giving up a late goal in the second and seeing the winner scored on a bad turnover up the middle by Habs defenceman Chris Campoli.

The Canadiens held a players-only meeting after the game.

Cunneyworth, about as honest and hard-working a guy as there was during his 16-year playing career, which concluded as captain of the Ottawa Senators under Martin, said he’ll bring that same approach to coaching.

“I would hope that my coaching style is similar to the way I played. I felt for the most part I competed very hard. Hopefully, I’ll coach very hard. I think that it’s important this team, when it has the puck, has everybody in involved, we are utilizing all our assets. I think one of our biggest assets is our speed. We’re not a big team but we are certainly a team that can move and move a puck well. We’ll be asking that the players get right to that. Just being on the puck, competing and never giving up is something that I’ll demand.”

Look for that to be one of the changes compared to Martin’s more cautious style. Cunneyworth will want more speed, more of an attacking, north-south game, as he put it.

Canadiens assistant general manager Larry Carriere will be an assistant coach now, though he was upstairs Saturday night and goaltending coach Pierre Groulx was behind the bench.

The Ghost himself now has one foot in that meat grinder.

This is the second time this season Gauthier has made a move behind the bench on a game day. He fired long-time Martin assistant Perry Pearn at the end of October, 90 minutes before a game.

“Jacques is not the reason we weren’t winning games,” said winger Erik Cole, who made three trips to the penalty box Saturday night. “We haven’t been playing well enough. This is a good wakeup call.”

If the job of the coach is to get his best players to play their best, then Martin deserved his fate.

Injuries have been a factor, but the line for the Canadiens veteran offensive players is not good this season:

– Michael Cammalleri: six goals and 11 assists, -4 in 28 games.

– Brian Gionta: eight goals and seven assists, -5 in 29 games.

– Scott Gomez: no goals, four assists, -3 in 13 games.

Martin was ripped here for his dour public personality and Cammalleri made an interesting comment after the game when he was asked if he was disappointed about not getting Cunneyworth a win in his debut.

“Yes,” he said. “He’s got a personality that makes you feel he’s in the game with you. We would have liked to have won that one for him.”

Gauthier said he didn’t like the way things were going for the Habs lately – especially the blowing of leads and their play late in games – and had contemplated making a change behind the bench for the last couple of weeks.

“The primary reason is the team wasn’t performing as well as it should in my mind,” said Gauthier. “One thing that is my observation, especially in the last few weeks, we didn’t really know what was coming out of the box every day, every night and the way we were losing the leads. The way we were approaching the games wasn’t very consistent and that’s what we hope to change.”

But for the first night, it was “plus ca change, plus est la meme chose.”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Habs GM deserves boot

BRUCE GARRIOCH, QMI Agency, Dec 17 2011

Pierre Gauthier proved Saturday he’ll do anything to save his own butt.

Rather than shoulder the responsibility for a season that’s gone terribly wrong and make deals, the Montreal Canadiens sent coach Jacques Martin packing and replaced him with former Senators captain Randy Cunneyworth.

With the Habs struggling as they prepared to face the New Jersey Devils Saturday night at the Bell Centre, Martin joined what’s become a long list of unemployed bench bosses when he was given his walking papers by Gauthier in the morning.

Though Gauthier is the architect of this mess, he continues to do just about anything to lay the blame elsewhere. First, it was assistant coach Perry Pearn. Now, it’s the well-respected Martin who has been left looking for work.

The question is: Will this help and get Montreal to the playoffs? If it doesn’t, you can be certain Gauthier will be the next one looking for work.

Nobody is thrilled with the job he’s done and sooner or later the buck will stop at his office.

The wrong man lost his job, but you have to think at some point or another they’ll come to their senses in Montreal and show Gauthier the door.

OFF THE GLASS

The landscape has changed and the Florida Panthers are doing some Christmas shopping. While the Panthers are usually trying to unload salaries, league sources told QMI Agency that GM Dale Tallon is pursuing another top six forward to make sure his club stays in the playoff race. With the Panthers battling for top spot in the East, Tallon is trying to bring in another scorer to take some of the heat off players up front. Since Tallon wants to minimize the disruption, sources say he’d like to move depth in goal by sending backup Scott Clemmensen packing. If his $1.5-million salary can be taken off the books, the Panthers will call up top prospect Jacob Markstrom for the second half … Los Angeles GM Dean Lombardi tried to make a deal before firing coach Terry Murray. Nobody was willing to bite on LW Dustin Penner and a coaching change was about the only move Lombardi could pull the trigger on. The decision to hire Darryl Sutter could be good in the short-term if that’s the fix the Kings need.

THIS ’N’ THAT

Florida’s Kevin Dineen has to be the top candidate for coach of the year. Sure, the Panthers made a lot of changes, but nobody expected Florida to be this improved and Dineen has been able to bring it all together … Winnipeg GM Kevin Cheveldayoff raised a few eyebrows by claiming LW Antti Miettinen on waivers after he signed a two-year, $3-million deal with Tampa. The move is within the rules, but it’s gutsy for a first-year GM. The Jets weren’t the only club that considered the option. “I’m pretty sure a lot of teams looked,” said a league executive. “It’s the second year of the deal you have to be concerned about.” Bolts GM Steve Yzerman took the risk that nobody would want to pay the $500,000 signing bonus included in the deal. The Jets needed depth up front.

THE MORNING SKATE

Speaking of Tampa, nobody is sure what’s going to happen because Yzerman plays it close to the vest, but there’s a lot of pressure on coach Guy Boucher to get the club back on track. He had success last season, but teams have figured out his system and suddenly Boucher doesn’t look so good … Minnesota Wild GM Chuck Fletcher could make a move to bolster the club’s blue line before the February trade deadline. The Wild has depth in goal with backups Josh Harding and Matt Hackett. If Minny decides to add a blueliner, either could be used as trade bait … There’s been serious talk among GMs about bringing back the red line. It’s been discussed and has a chance of being implemented.

RUMOURS DU JOUR

The talk is Carolina D Jaroslav Spacek shouldn’t get too comfortable in his new home. A pending unrestricted free agent July 1, he and D Tim Gleason (also a looming UFA) could be moved before the deadline. Don’t be surprised if the Wild make a play for both of these guys. Many wonder if GM Jim Rutherford may just order up a rebuild in Raleigh … Keep an eye on Toronto GM Brian Burke at the deadline. League executives believe Burke is going to make a move and he’ll be working hard to find depth at centre. The Leafs aren’t shopping top prospect Nazem Kadri, who is currently with the AHL’s Marlies, but there will be plenty of interest if Burke decides he wants to bolster his club. The Leafs have decided that Joe Colbourne is ahead of Kadri on the depth chart and there’s going to be a lot of interest if Burke wants to move the youngster. As noted here last week, Columbus GM Scott Howson was recently scouting the AHL’s Marlies … Here’s a novel approach: The Jackets are actually going to start playing C Derick Brassard more so they can showcase him and get him moved. Gosh, what a great idea. The Jackets want a player making $600,000 or less or a prospect in return.

This will be the final Rink Wrap column until after the New Year. Have a nice Sunday and a safe, happy holiday season.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Darryl Sutter poised to take over as L.A. Kings coach

Globe and Mail, Dec. 17 2011

Darryl Sutter has signed on as the new head coach of the Los Angeles Kings.

According to a report on the L.A. Kings website, Sutter has signed a multi-year contract and he will be introduced as their new coach on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Hockey insiders said that immigration issues had prevented the Kings from hiring Sutter earlier.

The 53-year-old Viking, Alta., native has already been in communication with members of team management regarding player scouting.

The Kings fired coach Terry Murray on Monday and replaced him with John Stevens on a interim basis.

Kings general manager Dean Lombardi had Sutter as his coach in San Jose from 1997 until he was fired in 2002.

Sutter's last coaching job was with the Calgary Flames but he stepped down in 2006 to focus on being the team's general manager.

In December 2010, he resigned as Flames general manager.

A Kings' hockey insider reported that the only remaining question is the make-up of the rest of the coaching staff. Assistant John Stevens is expected to stay aboard for at least the rest of this season.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Weisbrod’s Florida return conjures up memories:
Flames assistant GM, once at the helm of the Orlando Magic, left the NBA because he liked hockey much more than basketball.

Scott Cruickshank, Calgary Herald December 17, 2011

His managerial experience, even by that point, was substantial.

But suddenly, the man, known as a brash mover and a bold shaker, had been at a loss. Stumped.

Hate mail was arriving by the sack, death threats were being painted on his home. Living under surveillance, living under aliases, while the FBI investigated.

“All the dramatic things,” is how John Weisbrod describes the events of June 2004 in Orlando.

But that wasn’t what shook him.

There had been one thing that he couldn’t easily cowboy through — having to tell his young son that people wanted to harm Daddy.

“It was difficult . . . explaining why we’re not going to the house but going to a hotel instead,” says Weisbrod. “So it was harrowing times from that standpoint. It might have been a moment when I wondered what the heck I was doing there.”

Weisbrod doesn’t spend a lot of time reflecting on this chapter of his life. Or any chapter.

Even though his current employers, the Calgary Flames, happen to be on a swing through Florida, the itinerary had not included a tiptoe down Memory Lane. But he does understand interest in his unlikely story — how a hockey nut, with an English degree from Harvard, ends up running a basketball club.

So, because a reporter is curious, the 43-year-old agrees to rehash.

“I think about this stuff when you bring it up,” says Weisbrod, assistant general manager of the Flames, “but all those days are ancient history. Now it’s on to new things.”

Which is the type of attitude that originally led him to Orlando.

After bagging an American Hockey League title in Albany, Weisbrod wanted to build his own team. And the International Hockey League, full of unaffiliated clubs, provided that opportunity.

His Solar Bears captured the 2001 Turner Cup.

By that time, Weisbrod — as president of the RDV Sports Inc. (“They came and blew in my ear that they would like me to take over the whole thing”) — was already overseeing Orlando’s National Basketball Association and WNBA clubs, a sports complex, a small airline. He was not even 30.

Soon enough, he repaid that faith.

Because the Magic was in need of a general manager.

“Really strange,” recalls Weisbrod. “I didn’t have any interest in basketball and, to be honest, I still don’t. I never would have gone to take a job with the Milwaukee Bucks . . . but I really cared deeply for the owner, Rich DeVos. When he came to me and said, ‘Boy, the Magic is our bread and butter. We’d like you to step over and help with this,’ I did it largely because of my loyalty to him.”

Weisbrod understood that his role was to provide unflinching managerial muscle.

No sweat.

“They had to blow it up and they knew I had a strong enough personality to be a bulldozer,” Weisbrod says. “I’m not a real political guy, I’m not a media guy. I’ve always been willing to think for myself. I have never needed my opinion to be popular. I can’t honestly say that I worried about my ability to get the job done.”

In that regard, Weisbrod had been in the minority.

“There was a lot of outrage, like, ‘Who the heck is this guy? And what’s he doing running our basketball team?’ I remember being on radio talk shows and having fans call me and say, ‘What if somebody hired Jerry West to run the New York Rangers? Should we be happy about that?’ I understood that.

“With my hockey teams, I’ve always been, for lack of a better term, arrogant about knowing what I wanted. But when I got into the basketball world, I tried to be reasonable enough to realize that I’m a six-foot-two white guy, who can’t dribble with his left hand. I made sure I had the right people around me.”

Meaning assistant general managers Dave Twardzik and Otis Smith, currently general manager of the Magic.

But when word leaked out that Weisbrod was planning to draft high-schooler Dwight Howard, instead of Emeka Okafor, with the first overall pick, that he was planning to trade star Tracy McGrady, the fans were in an uproar.

Some took it a step too far.

“I had some scary things written on my front door,” says Weisbrod. “But it was a brief period. I ended up being in a hotel for a couple weeks. Everything settled back down once the trades were made.”

After 14 months, though, he left Orlando.

It wasn’t the death threats.

It was the sport itself. He was never a basketball guy, even though many of his moves did pan out.

“The Magic deserved better than a GM who’d rather be playing hockey,” says Weisbrod. “The biggest day of my week was the day The Hockey News came to my office — that’s not the way it should be when you’re running an NBA team. The whole year and a half was an emotional roller-coaster. I fundamentally didn’t love the game. I remember saying at my press conference . . . that I had to leave was because I would trade three NBA championships for one Stanley Cup ring.”

Which, soon enough, he got with the Boston Bruins. The championship jewelry is stowed away in his safe, and Weisbrod has moved onto the next task — blowing some life into the Flames. But even he can’t disregard those compelling eight years in Orlando.

“It was wonderful,” says Weisbrod. “I look back on it all with great fondness. All the Solar Bear years, winning the championship. Even the basketball, it was a tremendous learning experience. It was heady stuff. I started being depicted as one of these Harvard guys that had some master plan to take over the world. I don’t care about those things. I don’t have any master plan.

“I’ve always aspired to be, when I get out of the shower in the morning, fired up about where I’m going and what I’m doing.”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[DaveM]

Here's Ken Dryden commenting once again on the recent concussion epidemic in the NHL. I apologize if this one's been posted already. Happy holidays to all/

——————————————————————————————————————-

Concussions in the NHL: Waiting for Science
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7352942/waiting-science?view=print

I like Gary Bettman. I was ready to like him before I had ever met him. He had gone to Cornell University; I went to Cornell. That was a good place to start. When I was president of the Toronto Maple Leafs, I dealt with him often, most directly in NHL governors' meetings. He would sit at the middle of a long table at the front of a room with the league governors, usually team owners, beside him. Team owners are rich. In their own communities, they are important. They are also used to seeing themselves as important, and like to see themselves that way. In their communities and in their companies, they are also used to having their own way, and do not give up their way easily. To suggest that directing them is akin to herding cats is to give cats a bad name.

At the front table was this expressive, bug-eyed bundle of nerve endings. He spoke in bursts of words and emotions. Quick-witted, quick-tongued, aggressive, smart, well prepared ? there was never any doubt who commanded that room.

His is a tough job. He presides over a league, but in many ways he also presides over a sport. In Canada, hockey matters. If Canadian NHL teams aren't doing well ? on the ice or off ? the hundreds of thousands of kids and adults who play recreationally don't seem to be doing as well. And because hockey seems to be a metaphor we as Canadians have applied to ourselves, and others have applied to us, when hockey isn't going well, we don't seem to be doing as well, either. As NHL commissioner, Bettman has a responsibility that the commissioners of the NFL, NBA, and MLB do not have.

In the U.S., Bettman has a different challenge. He has to try to make hockey matter for more than just an intensely dedicated minority, in more than just the North and Northeast of the U.S. In the U.S., it's baseball and football, then basketball, then ? hockey. It's MLB and the NFL, then the NBA, then ? the NHL. His is a perpetual struggle for attention and importance. To gain that status, it means having teams in parts of the U.S. where the struggle first must be for survival. Ask any CEO what it's like when one quarter of his or her stores, for example, drag down the others. Ask them what they would do. Shut them down; focus on their business' strengths. Bettman can't do that.

In our dealings, I've disagreed with him at times, sometimes strongly, but I've found him right far more often than wrong. Of all the NHL presidents or commissioners I've seen or dealt with, as a fan, a player, an administrator, and a fan again ? Clarence Campbell, John Ziegler, and (briefly) Gil Stein ? Gary Bettman is easily the best.

Now Bettman, and one day his successors, have a bigger challenge: head injuries. Amid the dangerous mess of the past few years ? the premature deaths of former players, suicides, career-shortening or career-ending concussions, and the grave uncertainty over the future of the NHL's biggest star, Sidney Crosby, I was sure there would come a point when Bettman would say, "Enough." That he would intervene as forcibly as he has on franchise and collective bargaining issues. Instead, he has left matters first to Colin Campbell, an NHL executive formerly in charge of player safety, and now to former star player Brendan Shanahan.

Bettman is a lawyer. A good lawyer understands his client's position and advocates strongly for it. A very good lawyer gets inside his client's position, tests and challenges it, shapes it where it needs to be shaped, and comes to know it, and embody it, as well as the client himself. Bettman is a very good lawyer. His relentless rigor gives him his confidence, his presence and posture. When a meeting begins, he's sure ? he knows ? that he's the smartest guy in the room. For him to be as aggressive and assertive, for him to be him, he needs to know that. That's what allows him to herd his cats.

But on those matters where he can't quite get inside his client as deep as he needs to go, when he can't quite know something as they do, his manner changes. He knows how much hockey means to Canadians, but as an American, he can't quite know. He knows how proud and noble, almost warrior-like, hockey players see themselves, but as someone who has never played the game, he can't quite know. Often criticized in Canada for being an American (and all that means to Canadians), he has been a determined advocate for things Canadian. He knows that hockey's soul resides in Canada. He knows that the NHL isn't strong and healthy unless hockey in Canada is strong and healthy. On matters Canadian, he is respectful and deferential. He listens. About on-ice matters, he is the same. Respectful and deferential, he listens to his "hockey guys."

The problem is that his "hockey guys" are so immersed in a game they have loved and played all of their lives, so steeped in and so respectful of its traditions and understandings, they haven't fully seen all the changes that have occurred. They have seen the changes in technology, strategy, and training that have allowed now bigger players to go faster and with more forceful impact. To Bettman's "hockey guys," these are the natural evolutions of the game. They are good. They are allowed. (Indeed, if you're going to have fighting, why not a better fighter? Why not the best?)

To these natural evolutions, Bettman's "hockey guys" have also seen some unintended consequences ? most notably, more, and more serious, injuries ? and have responded to them with efforts toward better protective equipment, better medical treatment, and, where these are not enough, "tweaks" to the rules. What they haven't seen fully is that technology, strategy, and training, driven by the creativity of coaches, players, scientists, and entrepreneurs, always run ahead of equipment, medical treatment, and "tweaks" to the rules. Better helmets, more muscular necks and shoulders, MRIs, and Rule 48 haven't offered the answer to 220-plus-pound players moving at 30 mph. Not even close. So concussions are more frequent and more serious. But to intervene with anything else ? with significant rule changes or imagining a game played in a more head-conscious, "head-smart" way ? to Bettman's "hockey guys," is unthinkable. Natural evolutions that change the nature of a game are OK, but anything else are "unnatural intrusions." They are bad. They aren't allowed. Bettman's "hockey guys" forget that hockey's natural evolution was once toward a jammed-up, goalless future until some president or commissioner intruded unnaturally with player substitutions and the forward pass. Imagine what the "hockey guys" of that time would have said.

When Bettman listens to his "hockey guys," because as someone who never played the game he can't quite know, this is what he hears.

I decided about two months ago to get back in touch with him ("Go Big Red!"). It was a few days after the start of the new season. I sent him an e-mail to congratulate him on the return of the Winnipeg Jets. A minute later, he e-mailed back. This led to a back-and-forth over the next several minutes, at the end each of us promising the other (when I'm in New York; when he's in Toronto) that we'd catch up. Not long ago, we e-mailed each other again. I had been traveling; he'd been traveling. We'd both be away for the holidays, but sometime early in the new year, we would make this happen. And I had no doubt we would.

What I'd say to him is what I've said here, but also that it's time for him to not be so deferential and respectful on hockey matters, on head injuries, but to take these on in his aggressive Bettmanesque way. The stories, almost every week, of another player being concussed (or, to allow for the possibility of a more acceptable earlier return to action, another player having "concussion-like symptoms"), or of a former player now living with the consequences of his head-injured past, are real. They have happened. They are not just a case of bad luck that will surely turn. You have to know that this is your future and the future of all those owners, governors, and players, every week, for so long as you and they are commissioner, owner, governor, or player. You can try to deny the problem or try to manage it or do something. And as overwhelming as it seems ? just imagine if even most of this is true: the on-ice consequences, the post-career consequences for former NHL and recreational players, the liabilities, etc., etc. ? a lot can be done. The changes that may be necessary are not undoable. Few are blaming you. Most know there is so much we don't know and can't know. We don't know the dimensions of the problem. We don't know the dimensions of the answer. But we do know there's a big problem, and we do know there are some things we need to do.

Hockey isn't the only sport in need of this action. If anything, football's problem is far greater. Soccer and other sports are experiencing their own head-injury problems. Outside sports, the military is faced with many of its personnel suffering the effects of new, more concussive weapons. And for decades, we've imagined the problems without having paid much attention to the consequences of victims of head trauma in child-abuse cases.

It is OK not to know, I was intending to say to him. It is not OK not to begin to puzzle through with others toward some answers.

You and the NHL can do something. You don't need to lead this effort ? in fact, it's better if you don't, to avoid the conflicts of interest that would naturally occur and any perception of them, and so not to hold back the work. But you can acknowledge the seriousness of the problem and your determination to deal seriously with it, now and in the future. One way to signal this might be to help create some ongoing structure that would encourage and generate public discussion, ideas, proposals, and action on head injuries in sports, notably hockey. It could begin with an annual conference, hosted by a university, the first one in Canada, but in subsequent years in the U.S. and Europe. The NHL could be one of the major sponsors. You, and not just your "hockey guys," could be there to show that on this "long run" problem you're in this for the long run, and are willing to puzzle through with others how we can do better.

The best brain scientists would be there to talk about what they know, and what they don't know. Players who have suffered brain injuries will provide their personal stories. League officials at different levels, in different sports, will talk about what steps they have taken, what's worked and what hasn't. The best coaches and best players, past and present, will be there to talk about what they've been trained to do and what they've done all their lives. Faced with an opponent, in this case a new "head-smart" set of rules and way of playing that keeps you from doing some things one way, what do you do? What new creative answer can you come up with? What can you do that is even better than what you did before? Each year, there will be new findings, new ideas, and fresh challenges to players, coaches, officials, scientists, and entrepreneurs who, in their DNA, feed on fresh challenges.

There is no running away. Next week's headlines have already been written. The need is to begin.

That's what I was intending to say to him in January or February when I was sure we'd be in touch again. Then I saw his video interview on the New York Times website.

The Times had published an outstanding three-part series of articles by John Branch on Derek Boogaard, a 28-year-old NHL "enforcer" who had died a few months earlier. This was Branch's follow-up video interview with Bettman. Bettman had experienced many interviews like this before, where he was asked to answer questions that weren't really questions, about violence and fighting in the NHL, and he had his usual nervous energy mostly under control.

In response to a question, he began by telling his often-repeated story ? fighting has a long history in "the game," he said. Players move at 30 mph in an enclosed area; they carry sticks. There's physical contact. Different from other sports, fighting in hockey is penalized only in a limited way ? with a five-minute penalty, not expulsion from the game ? not to sell tickets, as is often alleged, but because fighting acts as a kind of "thermostat," as Bettman puts it, so that "things don't go too far." The threat of fighting helps to keep other matters in a game under control. And because fighting is this organic part of hockey, the frequency of fighting changes as the game changes, he says ? sometimes more, sometimes less ? so you can't predict its future. As for the off-ice deaths in recent months of three former NHL "enforcers" ? Boogaard, Rick Rypien, and Wade Belak ? he reacted to the deaths more like a father than a commissioner, describing their deaths as a "tragedy" and his "almost disbelief at the coincidental timing of [them]." "The circumstances of all three were different," he continued. "It was a tragic, sad, unfortunate coincidence." When asked by the interviewer to clarify if he thought the circumstances, not the timing, were a coincidence, he replied, "Yes."

Later, the interviewer pointed to the recent findings by Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy that Boogaard had the presence of CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a close relative of Alzheimer's disease, in his brain, which is thought to be caused by repeated blows to the head. Boogaard is the fourth former NHL player ? the others being Reggie Fleming, Bob Probert, and Rick Martin ? to show these same indications. What about this research on CTE, the interviewer asked? "I think it's very preliminary," Bettman said. "There isn't a lot of data and the experts who we talk to, who consult with us, think it's way premature to be drawing any conclusions at this point because we're not sure based on the amount of data evaluated." He repeats how "preliminary" all this is, again citing the "handful of samples," all the possible factors in these players' deaths, how with CTE, Alzheimer's, and dementia there's so much we don't know. "There's a long way to go in medical science before people can make definitive judgments," he concludes.

Gary Bettman has arrived at Stage 2 in the NHL's response to fighting and violence. Stage 1, as embodied by Colin Campbell and former Boston Bruins coach and immensely popular TV commentator Don Cherry, was aggressive, belligerent, and dismissive. Look, this is hockey. This is how the game's played. Always has been. If you don't like it, don't play it. Stage 2, as embodied in Bettman's interview, is more modulated, more thoughtful-sounding, and more reasonable-sounding (aided by the interview's setting, a room lighted dark and warm, almost cozy; there's a reason 60 Minutes' interviews and congressional committee hearings are done in the glare of bright lights). Occasionally he strays into a lawyer's gentle, prickly combativeness, but mostly he stays on his message: It is Boston University's scientific work on the brain samples of former players that helped bring head injuries to a focus, he is saying. It's science that I'm going to argue back. Science isn't impressed with anecdote and story. Science demands proof. Four brain samples are merely four anecdotes, and that's out of the thousands who have played this game. Mine is the reasonable, responsible position. Mine is based on science. Science demands proof, and I demand proof, too. And when science gives me what science insists upon for itself, I will go where science takes me. In the meantime, even with science on my side, I will continue cooperating with doctors and researchers and generate rule changes where appropriate. That's how reasonable I am.

By waiting for science, thousands of asbestos workers and millions of smokers died. The fact is, as a society we rarely have the luxury of waiting for science on big, difficult, potentially dangerous questions to meet its standard of proof. We need to take the best science we have, generate more and better information, then apply to it our best intuition and common sense ? and decide. Scientists are always disparaging of politicians and other decision-makers for being so influenced by anecdote. But an anecdote, well observed, thorough, rigorous, and truth-seeking (not ax-grinding), can tell a lot. At any moment, it may also be the best information we have.

It is only by tragic fluke ? his early death ? that we have the Derek Boogaard "anecdote." Normally, we'd have to wait many more years to know what had happened many years before. But now we have this gift from Derek Boogaard. The NHL can also learn from the NFL experience. Many more football players than hockey players are dying now in their 60s and 70s after having spent the last several years of their lives in the living death of dementia. Football, for that generation of players, just as with hockey, was played with primitive equipment. But in football, then as now, every play involves many collisions involving many players, and one final collision. In hockey then, the game moved much more slowly with players playing coasting, two-minute shifts with few collisions. In hockey now, the game moving in full-abandon, 35-second shifts with bigger players, the collisions are never-ending and shuddering. And hockey fighters, once normal-sized and untrained, inflicted little damage. Today, far bigger and having been trained in combat much of their lives, they can cave a face with one punch and have their brains rattled in return.

Gary Bettman said in his online video interview with the Times that he hasn't talked to the doctors at Boston University. I hope he does soon. I also hope he has spoken with Derek Boogaard's family and friends to hear, really hear, about what his life was like. And with Paul Kariya, Eric Lindros, and Keith Primeau ? in depth ? or with any of a number of players who have had their careers ended early, about what life felt like after their injury, and what it feels like now. Or ? in depth ? with Sidney Crosby. As hard as it was in the 10 months of recovery after his injury ? the pain and discomfort, the unknowns, the hopefulness, the crashing disappointments ? now must be his darkest time. It was the sheer routineness of this latest hit. So invisible amid the action that observers assumed it must have been from a collision with his teammate Chris Kunitz. So routine it was only on replay: Crosby and Bruins player David Krejci yapping at each other from their player benches ? what could've caused that? ? then running the action backwards; Crosby and Krejci shoving at each other on the ice after the whistle ? what could've caused that? ? and backwards some more; Crosby skating toward the puck near the boards; Krejci, the puck in his skates, bent over, his back to Crosby; as Crosby bumps him, Krejci turns slightly, his left elbow striking Crosby in the visor. It was the kind of light blow that is exchanged without notice or consequence hundreds of times in a game. Krejci, in everything that follows, looks befuddled ? Why is he so mad? What did I do? But knowing how he feels, Crosby knows.

If after 11 months this is all it takes ?

I hope Bettman and Crosby have a good long talk.

There are debates among doctors, now played out in the media, over the correlation between hockey's blows to the head and CTE, between blows suffered now and a player's long-term future. These debates will continue. But there can be no debate about the impact of those blows on players now. Almost every day there's someone new ? this week it's star Flyers' defenseman and tough guy Chris Pronger and his teammate Claude Giroux, the NHL's leading scorer ? both gone and for who knows how long. The debate about CTE is important, but it's a distraction. The debate over fighting is a distraction. This is about head injuries. This is about what we can see. This is what we absolutely know. This is about now.

Bettman and the NHL cannot wait for science. They can't hide behind science, using it as their shield. They must move, and move quickly, out of Stage 2 to Stage 3. No amount of well-modulated, reasonable- and responsible-sounding words change the fact that a hit to the head, whether by elbow, shoulder, or fist, is an attempt to injure that needs to result in expulsion or suspension. No amount of hopefulness and crossed fingers will change the fact that the NHL, like the NFL, must begin to imagine and introduce more "head-smart" ways to play. Bettman needs to be Bettman. We look back on those people 50 years ago who defended tobacco and asbestos and think, How could they be so stupid? Bettman and the NHL cannot wait for this generation of players to get old just so they can know for sure.

Ken Dryden is a Hall of Fame NHL goaltender and six-time Stanley Cup champion. He is also the former president of the Toronto Maple Leafs and a former member of the Parliament of Canada. He is the author of several books.

[hockeygod]

oops Dave! I posted this one under the concussion thread before realizing you put it up here… good job though. Ken is an intelligent man (for a goaltender, no less!!) and this article deserves play in both threads!

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Getting To Know: Chris Therien
Chris Therien played 764 career games in the NHL.

Mark Malinowski, The Hockey News, 2011-12-18

Status: NHL defenseman from 1994-2006 with Philadelphia Flyers and Dallas Stars. Currently serves as a radio color commentator for the Flyers.

Ht: 6-foot-5 Wt: 235 pounds

DOB: Dec. 14, 1971 In: Ottawa, Ont.

First Hockey Memory: "Well, I grew up in Ottawa, so, I had access to the Rideau Canal which was obviously my home skating rink. I remember watching the Montreal Canadiens, the Ottawa 67s. It was a long time ago. Grew up watching major junior hockey and the local OHL team."

Nickname: "Well, everyone calls me ‘Bundy’ that's what I've been since I've been in the NHL. When I played and now."

Hockey Inspirations: "Larry Robinson. Guy Lafleur. Wayne Gretzky. A lot of the Canadien team. My favorite team, of course, is the Montreal Canadiens. My dad was a Canadien fan growing up. I would say just about everything and all Montreal Canadiens at the time."

Last Book Read: "A book called Adrenaline by Jeff Abbott. Fast-paced, action thriller."

First Job: "Paperboy. Ottawa Citizen."

First Car: "Was a Jeep Grand Cherokee."

Current Car: "Cadillac Escalade."

Greatest Sports Moment: "First game in the NHL, Spectrum."

Most Painful Moment: "My last game (laughs). I left, I had concussion problems and that was really about it. I just knew my time was probably about up and that journey was over."

Favorite Uniforms: "Philadelphia Flyers, great uniforms. (Number two?) Chicago Blackhawks."

Favorite Arena: "Madison Square Garden."

Closest Hockey Friends: "Craig Berube, Luke Richardson, Dan McGillis, Eric Desjardins was my mentor, my partner for years."

Funniest Players Encountered: "Gilbert Dionne was a really funny guy. A lot of guys. Funniest…I mean there's a lot of them. Brian Boucher is a funny guy. Dionne used to sing and dance and stuff. It was just hilarious the way he would clap his hands and he'd…he was a really funny guy. I was young too at that time."

Toughest Competitors Encountered: "Jaromir Jagr. Great competitor. Peter Forsberg. Steve Yzerman. Joe Sakic. Mario Lemieux – I guess more great skill. He didn't have to compete hard, he was that good."

Most Memorable Goal: "My first one. Against Washington in Philadelphia. Everybody remembers their first goal. Against Rick Tabaracci, upstairs. I think it ricocheted off maybe someone's uniform, upstairs over his blocker."

Embarrassing Hockey Memory: "We've all had 'em, getting beat one on one, turnovers."

Favorite Sport Outside Hockey: "Baseball, hands down. (Phillies fan?) Ah, Yankees."

Funny Hockey Memory: "Every single day I walked into the rink. I mean, that's the truth. I mean, just being around 20-25 guys, there's a lot that could go on. It gets pretty funny. I mean, it's a great experience."

Strangest Game: "I think we had a 5-2 lead in Vancouver one night with three minutes to go. We ended up losing in overtime. What I remember the most is we had our own power play with two minutes to go. Yeah, that was ugly. I think Mogilny got the game-winner."

Favorite Player(s) To Watch: "Claude Giroux is pretty unique. I get to watch him every night now that I do radio. I get to see my own players, but Giroux is pretty special talent. Drew Doughty is a nice player. Great hockey player. He's great skating, fun to watch him. Chara, I think, is just a really, really unique talent, for the size that he has and his ability to play the way he does."

Personality Qualities Most Admired: "People who are fun. People who care a lot about the game. Guys who compete hard. They really leave it at the rink. You're paid to be professionals, but while you can be professional, make sure that you can enjoy every second of it. Because you're playing a kid's game. You're getting paid to play it. A game that you grew up loving and enjoying. And you may as well make the most of the opportunity."

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

'Invincible' Barcelona crush Santos to win Club World Cup
Messi doubles sparks 4-0 rout of Santos

Not a hockey article, but I found the philosophy behind the play exceptional. Pay particular attention to the quotes from the coach and players… how sport should be played! (John the Colombian will be so proud… I can already hear how my next phone call will start, "Did you see the magnificent game… Barcelona!…")

—–

'Invincible' Barcelona crush Santos to win Club World Cup
Messi doubles sparks 4-0 rout of Santos

Alastair Himmer, Reuters December 18, 2011

YOKOHAMA, Japan (Reuters) – Lionel Messi scored two wonder goals as European champions Barcelona ripped apart Brazil’s Santos 4-0 to win their second Club World Cup in swashbuckling style on Sunday.

"My players were like artists," purred Barca coach Pep Guardiola.

"Whatever they envisaged in their minds they were able to do on the pitch. It was an incredible performance."

Santos coach Muricy Ramalho called Barcelona "invincible" after his team were torn to shreds in Yokohama.

"Barcelona are the greatest team in the world," he told reporters. "No team can live with them. They’re unbeatable at the moment. Losing 4-0 to them is no disgrace."

Barcelona, who won the title for the first time in Abu Dhabi in 2009, gave Santos no chance, hopes of a shootout between Messi and Brazil’s teenage sensation Neymar quickly evaporating.

Argentine wizard Messi put Barcelona ahead in the 17th minute, exquisitely clipping a left-foot shot over goalkeeper Rafael Cabral after a clever ball from Xavi.

Only seven minutes later it was 2-0 when Xavi himself latched on to a pinpoint pass from Dani Alves, beating one defender before smashing the ball home.

Cesc Fabregas hit the post and then stabbed home Barca’s third on the stroke of halftime as the Spanish champions threatened to run riot in front of a crowd of 68,000.

The former Arsenal midfielder came within a whisker of another goal moments after the restart, forcing a magnificent save from Cabral.

Player of the tournament Messi made it 4-0 eight minutes from time, bursting past Cabral at breath-taking speed to slip the ball into the net and complete the rout.

"It’s beautiful to be world champions but it’s a team effort," said Messi. "We often play like that but because it was a final it seemed more beautiful."

3-7-0 FORMATION

Asked whether he had adopted a 3-7-0 formation, Guardiola shrugged: "I don’t think we were playing 3-7-0. That’s just how we play. We try to control the midfield and exploit space.

"We wanted to suffocate the supply to Neymar, who we know is a dangerous player, and to Borges.

"There is no special secret to our success. I am just blessed to work with such terrific players who want to keep on winning. They deserve all the credit."

Santos, who lifted their third Libertadores Cup in June almost 50 years after Pele led them to back-to-back titles in 1962 and 1963, had no answer to Barcelona’s brilliance.

"It may have looked easy but it certainly wasn’t," said Barca captain Carles Puyol. "The early goals made it easier for us."

Puyol sent a ’get-well’ message to Spain striker David Villa, who suffered a sickening leg break in Barca’s 4-0 semi-final victory over Qatar’s Al Sadd.

"I will give him a (victory) T-shirt," said Puyol. "He really wanted one. He is not here but he is part of the team and this victory.

"We never doubted ourselves and kept their forwards under control. It was a complete performance."

Neymar looked shell-shocked after the game.

"It’s impossible to stop Barcelona," said the 19-year-old pin-up, biting his tongue. "But we are the second-best team in the world and for us that is a great reward."

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Habs coaching appointment stokes Quebec nationalist sentiments

BRUCE DOWBIGGIN, Globe and Mail, Dec. 18, 2011

Brian Burke thinks he has problems with the media telling him how to run his Toronto Maple Leafs.

Heaven forbid Burke ever has to run the Montreal Canadiens where the media’s hand is a permanent fixture on the tiller.

The firing of Jacques Martin as Canadiens coach on Friday serves as a textbook example of how the impact of the press- the Francophone press– must be taken into consideration to a far greater extent than in any other NHL city.

Specifically, the team knew the selection of anglophone Randy Cunneyworth to succeed Martin on an interim basis was bound to provoke controversy.

While politics rarely intrude in other Canadian NHL cities, they underpin every move in Montreal where hockey and politics are blood sports.

Forget the apparent disinterest lately for separation in the general populace, the media corps in Montreal still exists in a mentality where the language kill shot is always in season.

Witness the flap in years past over former Hab captain Saku Koivu’s lack of French or the vilification of Phoenix captain Shane Doan over anti-French comments made by a European teammate.

Even as it became obvious that Martin might not last the season, the pressure mounted to find a Francophone coach– any Francophone coach–to replace him.

As if finding the right coach to revive the floundering Canadiens’ fortunes on the ice isn’t tough enough.

The vielle souche in the media must also be placated that the coach passes the cultural smell test. And so, within ten minutes into the Canadiens’ press conference, the question of language was raised.

The Habs went into full language lock, announcing Cunneyworth would work on his French while being assisted by assistant GM Larry Carriere as his translator to the large media pack following Les Glorieux.

And even though the only two Francophone coaches who might make a difference– Alain Vigneault and Guy Boucher– are under contract elsewhere, the pushback still came in the press and the blogosphere to find a Francophone. Perhaps not as strong as before, but strong enough.

Everyone acknowledges English as the working language of the NHL. And that the perfume of a Stanley Cup would excuse everything.

But in Quebec’s hockey milieu, at least, losing with Bob Hartley is seemingly preferable to some generic Anglo such as Cunneyworth playing .500. “If you had a roster of 23 Swedes and Czechs and Finns it wouldn’t matter to Quebeckers as long as they win the Cup,” La Presse’s Francois Gagnon explained to us.

“After that, have as many Canadians and French Canadians as possible. After that, when losing, they want a team you can relate to. What I hear now is if the team is losing, why not have team we can relate to? Not only Francophones but guys from Ontario, Canadians.”

Gagnon relates Quebec’s preference for a Francophone to other provinces. “Would the Leafs have a coach, like Pittsburgh did a couple of years ago, who only spoke Czech (Ivan Hlinka)? Of course, that’s not going to happen.

I can't imagine, even though there are lots of Francophones in Alberta, that English Albertans would accept a Calgary coach who would not say word in English. Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto would not accept that. I understand, Montreal, in having a coach who can speak French to fans, they would be putting aside some great candidates. But if Montreal doesn't give chance to Francophone to coach in NHlL who will?”

Sports Illustrated’s Michael Farber is an American who has lived in Montreal for decades and is married to a Francophone. “The Montreal Canadiens once stood for excellence,” he says. “Now they stand for something else. The team has gone on record that they must be representative. I heard someone in the press box say that there are not enough French Canadians on the power play? I understand it as an outsider, but I’m not sure it’s productive.”

The real measure of its productivity may be, in a climate where support for sovereignty is tepid and the Canadiens are mediocre, does playing the language card at the rink still sell newspapers or get people to change the channel?

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Campbell: Unnecessary talk

Ken Campbell, The Hockey News, 2011-12-19

In the absence of news about another coach being fired – but hey, the day is still young – here are a bunch of things that have been bothering me lately:

• That Hockey Canada insists on forcing a perp walk on the young men who have just been cut from the Canadian junior national team. This is one silly, overhyped and unnecessary practice that has to stop.

There is so much about the World Junior Championship that is just way too over the top and this is one of them. Imagine you’re 18 years old and you’ve dreamed all your career to make this team, then you’re woken up by a 6 a.m. call from the coach informing you that you’ve just been cut. Then to add to the humiliation, you have to walk out into a hotel lobby full of microphones and people asking what went wrong and wondering whether you thought you did everything you could to make the team.

Hockey Canada, in concert with TSN, has hyped this event to ridiculous proportions in Canada and this is one ugly byproduct of that. And in 99 percent of the cases where the player isn’t Brett Lindros, it doesn’t even make for good TV. All it does is shine a spotlight on a player who has failed. When I covered these camps back in the day, I never once went to one of these morning cattle calls because (a) I was more interested in sleeping; (b) I thought my readers cared more about the players who were actually in camp than those who weren’t; and, (c) I thought it was dumb.

• That there are parents out there who think it’s a good idea to get up and leave their kids’ school holiday concert the moment their Little Johnny has finished performing, often trampling out of the auditorium in the middle of another performance. By the time the last group does its performance, they often play to a half-empty auditorium.

• That the house league in which I coach my son’s team arbitrarily came out in the middle of the season with a rule change that gives two points for an assist and one for a goal. Funny, I always thought the idea was that assists were just as important as goals (which they’re not, by the way), not more important than goals.

As a consequence, I have one player who recently scored five goals in a game, but was outscored by one of his teammates who had three assists. This is the same kid who has 18 goals and four assists this season, which puts him just five points ahead of another kid on the team who has one goal and 10 assists.

• Still on the issue of minor hockey: In our Select League, I have to pay a five-dollar admission charge for my son for a game in which he is playing. So let’s say we play 30 games this season, that’s an extra $150 added to our minor hockey bill for the season.

It’s not just the big expenses in hockey that make it out of reach for many people, it’s the thousands nicks and cuts like that one as well. I have no problem with charging parents and other spectators, after all somebody has to pay for the ice, but the players already pay to play with their registration fees for the season.

• That it seems the consistency in NHL discipline has improved only marginally, if at all, under the watch of Brendan Shanahan. For the most part, I still have no idea what merits a suspension and what doesn’t in the NHL these days.

• That the Montreal Canadiens can’t even appoint a unilingual interim coach without the usual bleating from the usual suspects of how this somehow is tantamount to oppression of an aggrieved majority. Should anyone, French or English, care what the Parti Quebecois thinks about the coach of the Canadiens?

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Habs owner stickhandles through language debate

Les Perreaux, Globe and Mail, Dec. 19, 2011

The scion of the Molson family that owns and runs the Montreal Canadiens is defending his team’s selection of an interim coach who doesn’t speak French while conceding the team must take language into consideration when making the next hire.

Geoff Molson says general manager Pierre Gauthier needed a quick spark to improve the moribund team and he chose then-assistant Randy Cunneyworth to take over because, in addition to being quickly available, he is a “qualified and experienced coach who has earned the respect of the players.”

But the ability to speak French and English will be “a very important factor in the selection of a permanent head coach,” Molson, a native Quebecer who speaks fluent French, added in a statement. Gauthier had said he hoped Cunneyworth would continue beyond this season.

The Canadiens and Molson, whose family founded the eponymous brewing empire in 1786, are under blistering criticism for naming a coach who doesn’t speak French for the first time since 1970.

While opinion appeared to be split among diehard hockey fans, many of whom just want to see the team win, pundits, politicians and nationalists fueled the controversy. In one of the more extreme examples, columnist and radio commentator Réjean Tremblay argued team management have long wanted to “eradicate” French from the club to strengthen its iron grip on communications.

More typically, nationalist groups called for a boycott of Molson products while former team executives such as Serge Savard, along with provincial political leaders of all parties, insisted the coach of the Canadiens should speak French.

“The Canadiens say it is temporary, but it’s also unfortunate,” provincial Culture Minister Christine St-Pierre told The Canadian Press. “There is an element of pride for Quebecers. The Canadiens are in our genes, it’s an institution and the Canadiens should be sensitive to it.”

The Canadiens were founded in 1909 by Ambrose O’Brien, the son of an Irish immigrant, and soon became the team of French Montrealers. English Montrealers, who were about 1/3 of the city’s population, dominated most of the city’s hockey teams. The sport was slower to catch on among French speakers and O’Brien, seeing an untapped vein, started recruiting and marketing among francophones, author D’Arcy Jenish wrote in his history of the team.

Over many years, the team became central to French-Canadian pride, as well as a conduit for rivalry with the English-speaking world.

What O’Brien sowed, Molson now reaps.

The Canadiens are seen by many French-speaking Quebecers as a part of the cultural fabric far beyond hockey.

“The team is an institution for Quebecers and French Canadians, and out of respect for the francophone majority population of Quebec, the coach of this institution should speak French,” said François Legault, the leader of a new and wildly popular political party called the Coalition Avenir Québec.

Molson took over the team two years ago. The family had a long history with the Canadiens which won 11 of its 24 Stanley Cups in Molson hands. Tradition and heritage have long been a key marketing tool for the franchise, which frequently trots out retired giants such as Guy Lafleur, Jean Béliveau and Henri Richard for public appearances.

But when Molson bought the team, he waved off calls to boost the number of French-speaking players, saying “we are in the hockey business and not into politics.”

In Quebec, it’s difficult to separate the two.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Junior hockey player Smith-Pelly lives out two dreams

ERIC DUHATSCHEK, Globe and Mail, Dec. 19, 2011

There is a certain symmetry to the world junior hockey championship this year as it relates to Devante Smith-Pelly, who will be front and centre in the tournament, one of only two players who joined the squad directly from an NHL roster.

A year ago, Smith-Pelly was watching the tournament from the outside while his coach with the Ontario Hockey League’s Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors, Dave Cameron, was running the show. This year? Their roles are reversed. Cameron is an interested spectator, watching closely as one of his former protégés takes a leading role, in trying to help Canada win gold.

Smith-Pelly played three seasons for Cameron at St. Mike’s, and in the beginning it wasn’t clear where his career would go. The 17-year-old version of Smith-Pelly had conditioning and weight problems and, at one point, Cameron instituted a rule: If Smith-Pelly was ever carrying more than 210 pounds, he would be out of the lineup that night.

“I have to admit, when I was 16 or 17, I wasn’t committed to off-ice as much as I should have been,” Toronto-born Smith-Pelly said in an interview. “I’m real glad I had a coach who was really tough on me and made sure I knew that if I wanted to get to the next level, I’d have to get all that stuff under control.

“Last year, going into the season, I really took that message to heart and made sure that it wasn’t a problem. I made sure it was all gone. I owe a lot to Mr. Cameron. I’d say he is one of the biggest reasons I’m playing in the NHL at 19.”

The other Canadian teenagers playing in the NHL this year were chosen in the top 10 of the NHL’s entry draft. By contrast, Smith-Pelly went 42nd overall to the Anaheim Ducks in 2010, following his second junior season. But it was last season when Smith-Pelly blossomed – a 36-goal regular season followed by an eye-popping playoff, in which he scored 15 goals in 20 games and was named to the Memorial Cup all-star team. Smith-Pelly carried that fabulous finish into a strong summer camp for the world junior team.

Eventually, the question wasn’t whether Smith-Pelly was good enough to make the Canadian squad, but whether the Ducks would give him a month away from his NHL duties to represent his country internationally.

The Ducks consented, as did the Tampa Bay Lightning in freeing up Brett Connolly.

For Canada’s first exhibition game against Finland on Monday, Smith-Pelly was pencilled in alongside Winnipeg Jets prospect Mark Scheifele on what figures to be the No. 1 line for coach Don Hay. Hay will wait until after the three pretournament games before naming his captains and associates, but Smith-Pelly (along with returning forward Jaden Schwartz and defenceman Brandon Gormley) are considered strong candidates to all get letters.

Hay particularly likes the physical dimension that Smith-Pelly brings.

“You have Smith-Pelly who will create a lot of physical play and I think guys will really follow him.”

As for Smith-Pelly, he understands he has a rare opportunity to achieve two dreams – making the NHL, playing for his country at the world juniors – in a single season. Win or lose, Smith-Pelly has been assured by Ducks general manager Bob Murray that he’ll be back in sunny California to resume his NHL career once the tournament is over.

“Not a lot of people do get the chance to represent their country; it doesn’t happen that often,” Smith-Pelly said. “Not getting a chance last year, and then with me making the team this year in the NHL, I thought that was it – and I’d never get the chance to play in something like this. It was something I wanted to do. It’s exciting, it’s a feeling you can’t really describe, especially with it being in Canada. I just can’t wait for that first real game.”

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

[hockeygod]

Boylen: What makes hockey great

Rory Boylen, The Hockey News,2011-12-20

All too often we hear about how our game is broken, flawed, behind the times and barbaric. Most of the time, those reactions are bloated, misleading, sensational, miss the point or are from someone who doesn’t like or understand the game in the first place.

So I’m going to take this opportunity, five days before Christmas, to share all the things I find wonderful about hockey.

’Tis the season.

• They’re almost all gone, but I love how there are still a few players around the league who I remember fondly from my younger days as a happy-go-lucky fan. The return of Jaromir ‘Mario’s Little Sister’ Jagr and the Winnipeg Jets let off an overwhelming whiff of nostalgia and the fact both parties are playing well means the aroma is as pleasant as ever. Teemu Selanne’s return to a standing ovation in Winnipeg was goosebump-inducing and Nicklas Lidstrom is still the cream of the crop at 41. Something tells me when I go home for the holidays and a hockey game breaks out, someone will eagerly call out “I’m Jaromir Jagr!”

• As much as I love to watch the Sidney Crosbys, Pavel Datsyuks and Steven Stamkoses (Stamkoi?) of the league I also love how diverse the skill sets are in the NHL and hockey in general. I love the work ethic and drive of Tomas Holmstrom, who specializes in taking a beating in front of the net just to redirect a shot. I love the ferocity with which players such as Milan Lucic, Derek Dorsett and Steve Ott play that brings fans to their feet at any given moment. I love Martin Brodeur’s calm and calculated approach as much as I love Tim Thomas’ off-the-wall unpredictability. I love the fearlessness and art of shot-blocking players such as Dan Girardi and Brett Clark have mastered. And, even though I sometimes loathe them for the style, I love how Brad Marchand, Sean Avery, Jordin Tootoo and the like have a knack for getting under your skin.

• I love how, for the most part, hockey players (and hockey people in general) have humble personalities that they carry around with them. When Phoenix was in town recently, we were at the morning skate to shoot a video on Keith Yandle. We were patiently waiting to interview Shane Doan, who was talking to a friend and his little boy. When Doan realized we were waiting for him to finish, he excused himself from that conversation, came over to us and apologized. Of course, we were the ones who felt a little intrusive. The gritty and grizzled culture of the game, so often under attack, holds much responsibility for this characteristic, a fact lost on irrational fear-mongers.

• I love how we don’t have over-the-top celebrations after every goal that demean the role and importance of sportsmanship, that we don’t have self-absorbed athletes holding weight-lifting sessions in their driveways to attract media attention or an epidemic of players holding their teams hostage to force a trade. I love the team mentality. I hope none of these players listen to anyone who says they should be more like their MLB, NFL or NBA brethren, where the player, more often than not, seems to come before the team.

• I love how this is a global game, enjoyed by many different kinds of people and growing in so many countries such as Latvia and Switzerland. When I travelled to Russia for a kids’ hockey camp in the summer it was an incredible experience to connect with a new generation of hockey fans on the other side of the planet and, despite the thick language barrier, talk to them about their favorite players. It amazed me how many of them shouted “Sidney Crosby” when the question was asked and how many gave me a thumbs down when the name Alexander Radulov was raised.

• I love the community of hockey and how it unites after accomplishments, such as Hall of Fame inductions, and tragedies, such as the untimely deaths of Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak and everyone on the Lokomotiv team. It’s a shame when these instances are used to connect an unproven dotted line to hot button issues, but most hockey folk see through those callous grabs for attention.

• I love the sounds of the game: the slap of the puck off a stick, the boards and the glass; the urgent calls for a pass or a heads-up from a teammate; the crunch and thunder of a hit; the carving of the skate blade; the hollowness of a pad save; the rising excitement and bursting celebration of a crowd after a goal; and the “ping” of a puck going off the post…and in. (Hey, I’m a forward.)

• I love how when friends get together after a long time apart it takes about five minutes before hockey talk sets in. I love how it’s a common denominator for so many of us and that we share many of the same types of stories and experiences from our days growing up as fans and players.

• I love old rural rinks where it’s colder inside than out in mid-January.

• I love flooding the outdoor rink in the serene quiet of night so that hours and hours of loud, good-natured fun can be had in the dead of winter. (Let’s just hope the weather will allow that one this year.)

• And, most of all, I love how when you organize a full-equipment hockey game over the holidays, the least of your worries is accumulating 18 willing players.

Merry Christmas.

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
"Great education depends on great teaching."

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