Articles

[DMan]

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

[hockeygod]

http://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 http://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.

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

[hockeygod]

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

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

[hockeygod]

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."

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

[hockeygod]

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.

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

[hockeygod]

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.

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

[hockeygod]

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

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

[hockeygod]

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

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

[hockeygod]

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.

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

[hockeygod]

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/

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

[hockeygod]

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.

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

[hockeygod]

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.

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

[hockeygod]

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

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

[hockeygod]

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.

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

[hockeygod]

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."

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

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