Just Wondering
Eric Desjardins retired this week. Although he finished his career as a hated Philadelphia Flyer, I always liked Desjardins. He was a good, sometimes very good, NHL blueliner who carved out a lengthy NHL career.
Yet I will remember Eric Desjardins as more than merely a good, sometimes very good, blueliner who played at a high level in the NHL for most of his 17 seasons in the league. I'm also going to remember him as a champion, and in my book, that means Eric Desjardins is remembered as way more than just a good, sometimes very good, blueliner.
Contrast my feelings on Desjardins to what I felt when Pavel Bure, due to knee troubles, announced his retirement. Bure was a very good, sometimes great, player, but he never won a Cup. In the NHL, winning the Cup matters the most.
Why is that I'll remember Bure's beautiful dashes around the ice fondly but I'll also remember Desjardins, a less phenomenally artistic player than Bure, just as fondly?
Because Desjardins won the Cup and Bure didn't.
Is that right? Is that how it should be? Why is that way?
But, at least for me, right now--speaking as someone who never watched either player perform for MY team--that's how it is.
Right? Wrong? Silly? Stupid? Please enlighten me.
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Random Comment
I promise, well, I am actually not going to promise, but I am going to try to promise, that this is the last Malkin-related post (for a bit).
But seeing that Malkin opened a prison-themed restaurant in Russia, my response was something along the lines of "What in the world was he possibly thinking?"
I wondered if Malkin was bright enough to be making a cynical, sarcastic commentary on his current situation with his Russian team, or if he was perhaps just making a cynical, sarcastic commentary on his society.
Seriously. Think about in America. With all our love of "freedom" as an idea if not an actuality (I'll spare my political viewpoints here, but I'll admit that like most Americans, I'm sometimes more likely to worship the idea of freedom than be vigilant enough to insist on the continuous exercise of every freedom), can you imagine us going to a prison-themed restaurant? Seriously. Even if one of our superstars opened such a restaurant. What would our initial response be? Why would our initial response be that way?
If Russians will end up going to Malkin's restaurant, why will they go?
What does that say about America? About Russia? About the whole Malkin saga with his Russian team and the NHL?
Again--I'm not stating anything outright here, just asking questions that I want to think about some more--and encourage others to think about more as well.
I promise, well, I am actually not going to promise, but I am going to try to promise, that this is the last Malkin-related post (for a bit).
But seeing that Malkin opened a prison-themed restaurant in Russia, my response was something along the lines of "What in the world was he possibly thinking?"
I wondered if Malkin was bright enough to be making a cynical, sarcastic commentary on his current situation with his Russian team, or if he was perhaps just making a cynical, sarcastic commentary on his society.
Seriously. Think about in America. With all our love of "freedom" as an idea if not an actuality (I'll spare my political viewpoints here, but I'll admit that like most Americans, I'm sometimes more likely to worship the idea of freedom than be vigilant enough to insist on the continuous exercise of every freedom), can you imagine us going to a prison-themed restaurant? Seriously. Even if one of our superstars opened such a restaurant. What would our initial response be? Why would our initial response be that way?
If Russians will end up going to Malkin's restaurant, why will they go?
What does that say about America? About Russia? About the whole Malkin saga with his Russian team and the NHL?
Again--I'm not stating anything outright here, just asking questions that I want to think about some more--and encourage others to think about more as well.
More on the Malkin Situation
As I previously noted, I've spent much of the past thirty-six hours online, eagerly trying to glean the latest news on the whole Malkin saga from blogs, message boards, and Russian news sources. (Yes, obviously I am seriously desperate for Malkin to come to the Penguins if I'm seeking to gain credible information from such sources--I realize this.)
In spite of the twenty-first century feel for how I'm obtaining news and information about the Malkin affair, I nevertheless feel as though I've been transported back to the late 1980's. Sure, I'm getting all my information from the Internet. Sure, unlike the 1980's, I'm quickly able to get information from Russian news sources, and with a click of a button, I'm able to translate Russian into something in English where at the very least, "the gist" of the translated article more often than not gets through and makes sense. Yet in terms of the feel of Malkin leaving his team's training camp in Finland, in terms of the tight-lipped comments or lack thereof from the Penguins and from the NHL--wow. Is this seriously what it felt like in the late eighties?
Back in the late eighties, I was a child of about five or six and had no clue about the geopolitical context of the world in which I lived. One of those silly e-mail forwards that was passed around mentioned that students who graduated high school when I did never grew up with the threat of nuclear war. Seriously, this was my world as a child and an adolescent. I didn't know what it was like to be in a perpetual Cold War. I never experienced nuclear bomb drills throughout all my years of attending school. This was the context in which I grew up, and that context translated to my love of hockey and understanding that hockey was an international sport.
While I watched hockey in the late eighties (at age 5, Paul Coffey was my first favorite player when he arrived from the Oilers in 1987), I really got into hockey about the time my team started winning championships. When I turned eight and Jaromir Jagr arrived as a rookie from Czechoslovakia, Jagr quickly replaced Coffey as my favorite player. Jagr's the best example I can think of as to how my relationship with hockey is so different than that of even a generation before me. Jagr didn't have to defect to come to America (granted, I'm certain strings were pulled, and I'm certain Craig Patrick and the Penguins helped to ensure Jagr's arrival in Pittsburgh). But with the Berlin Wall down, with the Soviet Union crumbling, wow, presto--Jagr was free to come to America and be a star, and so he did.
Along with Jagr, dozens of other talented Soviet-bloc Europeans began to arrive in the NHL. Soviet-bloc Europeans, now free to come to the NHL, began to be drafted where they rightfully should have been drafted if teams had known for sure that the European players would be available to come and play in the NHL. And thus as I grew up and started writing about the Penguins when I got bored in school (suggesting line changes and potential trades was often more interesting than typical middle school work), it became natural to root for European players. I had never really known a NHL without Russian or former Soviet-bloc players. I cheered for Jagr, the two Samuelssons (Ulf and Kjell), Martin Straka, Alexei Kovalev, Aleksey Morozov, and Darius Kasparitis as they arrived in Pittsburgh. My Penguins teams of the early nineties had a slight international flair, but when Detroit began winning Cups in the late nineties, I never questioned the very eastern European make-up of their roster. This was the NHL I'd known, really, since Jagr had arrived in Pittsburgh in 1990. I knew an international NHL, knew the stereotypes that went along with a player's particular nationality, and I knew that a team that wanted to win in my NHL needed to have the right mix of European and North American players.
So why is the Malkin saga such a big deal? Probably, because, really, I've never known "that" NHL. The world where players had to choose to defect, knowing that they'd probably never see their homeland or families again, that's a world I know only through reading Sports Illustrated articles and watching television documentaries. But it's not a world that I actually know in the sense of knowledge gained by experience.
Yet as I thought about it, I realized that players like Petr Nedved and Alexander Mogilny do know "that" NHL and the geopolitical context that used to exist in the world. Nedved was seventeen when he arrived in Canada and announced he wanted to defect. I cheered for Nedved when he was a Pen and always enjoyed watching him play (as you might have guessed, aesthetic play is highly appealing to me). Yet today Nedved is a veteran NHL player, a streaky player, and recently one whose marriage to a supermodel was extremely important to him. But at age 17--he just made a decision and did it? He didn't know--not for sure--that the world would change as it has. He didn't know that he would have the chance to see his parents again and to return his homeland. He didn't know any of that, and at 17, he's saying, I'm defecting.
Alexander Mogilny might be languishing in the minor leagues and he might be suffering from injuries that have hurt his play (actually there's no might about those things), and while his story is different than Nedved's, Mogilny, too, defected. Sure, Mogilny had already been drafted by the Buffalo Sabres and knew he would have a real shot at the NHL. But still, even at twenty, he was just a kid. And again--wow--he just defected. I remember reading in a Sports Illustrated article sometime during my high school years about Mogilny turning to friends, searching for the meanings of once strikingly familiar Russian words; I think one word was "dinner." Leaving one's family and country, that was par for the course when a player defected, but to lose your native language also? The fact that I still remember reading that sliver of information years later tells you how much it stuck with me.
So all I know of Nedved and Mogilny are the stories of the children who defected, of the young men who both for awhile struggled to carve out an effective niche in the NHL, and who both in time became extremely effective NHL players. Likewise, I know that many believe the best days of both players are behind them. But that's the thing. I know the almost-complete story. While perhaps I should have referred to Nedved and Mogilny as young men when they defected (such a move required all those character traits of skill and guts and heart that both players were routinely accused of lacking at some point in their NHL careers), Nedved was the equivalent of a high school student when he defected; Mogilny of a sophomore in college. Kids. They were kids. But we know the end result--we know now that the world did change, that the USSR did crumble, and we know Mogilny and Nedved took a risk that rewarded them handsomely financially and in other ways as well.
Yet being caught up in the Malkin saga in 2006, wow. Is this what it felt like in 1989 to be a Buffalo Sabres fan and wonder what would happen with the Mogilny kid? Or is this what it felt like to be a junior hockey fan who watched that kid Nedved play? Because when it comes to Malkin, geopolitically speaking, anyway, I don't know what is going to happen. Is Malkin going to be allowed to play in North America? Will he be allowed to play for Russia in international events? How will the intrigue surrounding Malkin be resolved? Perhaps more importantly for me as a Penguins fan, if and when Malkin does arrive, how's he going to do his first season? And after that? What's his career trajectory going to be? Who knows? I don't know, but it's going to be exciting to watch. It's already exciting from the sidelines as I scan the Internet, hoping for new information, hoping that somebody is going to clue me in and really let me know what's going on with Malkin.
One final thought to close: My junior year of college, I was on a hockey kick, and I had to write a short screenplay for a writing class. I made up a fictional character, a 17-year-old Soviet named Pavel, who defected from the Soviet team at the 1988 Calgary Olympics. The first two pages of the script I loved and those pages worked; the rest of the script I hated and those pages, needless to say, didn't work so well. But there was one thing that everyone could agree about: Pavel's page 1 decision to defect to North America revealed a tremendous amount about his character. In a single decision, my fictional character announced who he was, what his dreams were, and who he desired to be.
Maybe that's why it's been so nice and fun to follow the Malkin saga over the past thirty-six hours. Because if it's not true that he left Finland and if he really is staying in Russia for another year, then oh well, sigh, ho-hum, my Pens still need a second line center, and maybe Malkin's not yet (not saying he never will be) a player determined to get to the NHL.
But if any of these reports are true, if Malkin really has left his Russian team, then he's telling the NHL and fans of the Pittsburgh Penguins exactly what we want to know. He's telling us who he is, what his dreams are, and who he desires to be--he's telling us he wants to play in the NHL for the Pittsburgh Penguins. And if Malkin really is telling us that, well, it's a story that, this time around, as a grown-up, I want to watch, relish, and simply just enjoy.
For now, the cautious "Who knows?" holds, yet I hope very soon, for example, by the start of the 2006-07 season, my "Who knows?" is said in reference to the question "What's Malkin's career going to be?"
As I previously noted, I've spent much of the past thirty-six hours online, eagerly trying to glean the latest news on the whole Malkin saga from blogs, message boards, and Russian news sources. (Yes, obviously I am seriously desperate for Malkin to come to the Penguins if I'm seeking to gain credible information from such sources--I realize this.)
In spite of the twenty-first century feel for how I'm obtaining news and information about the Malkin affair, I nevertheless feel as though I've been transported back to the late 1980's. Sure, I'm getting all my information from the Internet. Sure, unlike the 1980's, I'm quickly able to get information from Russian news sources, and with a click of a button, I'm able to translate Russian into something in English where at the very least, "the gist" of the translated article more often than not gets through and makes sense. Yet in terms of the feel of Malkin leaving his team's training camp in Finland, in terms of the tight-lipped comments or lack thereof from the Penguins and from the NHL--wow. Is this seriously what it felt like in the late eighties?
Back in the late eighties, I was a child of about five or six and had no clue about the geopolitical context of the world in which I lived. One of those silly e-mail forwards that was passed around mentioned that students who graduated high school when I did never grew up with the threat of nuclear war. Seriously, this was my world as a child and an adolescent. I didn't know what it was like to be in a perpetual Cold War. I never experienced nuclear bomb drills throughout all my years of attending school. This was the context in which I grew up, and that context translated to my love of hockey and understanding that hockey was an international sport.
While I watched hockey in the late eighties (at age 5, Paul Coffey was my first favorite player when he arrived from the Oilers in 1987), I really got into hockey about the time my team started winning championships. When I turned eight and Jaromir Jagr arrived as a rookie from Czechoslovakia, Jagr quickly replaced Coffey as my favorite player. Jagr's the best example I can think of as to how my relationship with hockey is so different than that of even a generation before me. Jagr didn't have to defect to come to America (granted, I'm certain strings were pulled, and I'm certain Craig Patrick and the Penguins helped to ensure Jagr's arrival in Pittsburgh). But with the Berlin Wall down, with the Soviet Union crumbling, wow, presto--Jagr was free to come to America and be a star, and so he did.
Along with Jagr, dozens of other talented Soviet-bloc Europeans began to arrive in the NHL. Soviet-bloc Europeans, now free to come to the NHL, began to be drafted where they rightfully should have been drafted if teams had known for sure that the European players would be available to come and play in the NHL. And thus as I grew up and started writing about the Penguins when I got bored in school (suggesting line changes and potential trades was often more interesting than typical middle school work), it became natural to root for European players. I had never really known a NHL without Russian or former Soviet-bloc players. I cheered for Jagr, the two Samuelssons (Ulf and Kjell), Martin Straka, Alexei Kovalev, Aleksey Morozov, and Darius Kasparitis as they arrived in Pittsburgh. My Penguins teams of the early nineties had a slight international flair, but when Detroit began winning Cups in the late nineties, I never questioned the very eastern European make-up of their roster. This was the NHL I'd known, really, since Jagr had arrived in Pittsburgh in 1990. I knew an international NHL, knew the stereotypes that went along with a player's particular nationality, and I knew that a team that wanted to win in my NHL needed to have the right mix of European and North American players.
So why is the Malkin saga such a big deal? Probably, because, really, I've never known "that" NHL. The world where players had to choose to defect, knowing that they'd probably never see their homeland or families again, that's a world I know only through reading Sports Illustrated articles and watching television documentaries. But it's not a world that I actually know in the sense of knowledge gained by experience.
Yet as I thought about it, I realized that players like Petr Nedved and Alexander Mogilny do know "that" NHL and the geopolitical context that used to exist in the world. Nedved was seventeen when he arrived in Canada and announced he wanted to defect. I cheered for Nedved when he was a Pen and always enjoyed watching him play (as you might have guessed, aesthetic play is highly appealing to me). Yet today Nedved is a veteran NHL player, a streaky player, and recently one whose marriage to a supermodel was extremely important to him. But at age 17--he just made a decision and did it? He didn't know--not for sure--that the world would change as it has. He didn't know that he would have the chance to see his parents again and to return his homeland. He didn't know any of that, and at 17, he's saying, I'm defecting.
Alexander Mogilny might be languishing in the minor leagues and he might be suffering from injuries that have hurt his play (actually there's no might about those things), and while his story is different than Nedved's, Mogilny, too, defected. Sure, Mogilny had already been drafted by the Buffalo Sabres and knew he would have a real shot at the NHL. But still, even at twenty, he was just a kid. And again--wow--he just defected. I remember reading in a Sports Illustrated article sometime during my high school years about Mogilny turning to friends, searching for the meanings of once strikingly familiar Russian words; I think one word was "dinner." Leaving one's family and country, that was par for the course when a player defected, but to lose your native language also? The fact that I still remember reading that sliver of information years later tells you how much it stuck with me.
So all I know of Nedved and Mogilny are the stories of the children who defected, of the young men who both for awhile struggled to carve out an effective niche in the NHL, and who both in time became extremely effective NHL players. Likewise, I know that many believe the best days of both players are behind them. But that's the thing. I know the almost-complete story. While perhaps I should have referred to Nedved and Mogilny as young men when they defected (such a move required all those character traits of skill and guts and heart that both players were routinely accused of lacking at some point in their NHL careers), Nedved was the equivalent of a high school student when he defected; Mogilny of a sophomore in college. Kids. They were kids. But we know the end result--we know now that the world did change, that the USSR did crumble, and we know Mogilny and Nedved took a risk that rewarded them handsomely financially and in other ways as well.
Yet being caught up in the Malkin saga in 2006, wow. Is this what it felt like in 1989 to be a Buffalo Sabres fan and wonder what would happen with the Mogilny kid? Or is this what it felt like to be a junior hockey fan who watched that kid Nedved play? Because when it comes to Malkin, geopolitically speaking, anyway, I don't know what is going to happen. Is Malkin going to be allowed to play in North America? Will he be allowed to play for Russia in international events? How will the intrigue surrounding Malkin be resolved? Perhaps more importantly for me as a Penguins fan, if and when Malkin does arrive, how's he going to do his first season? And after that? What's his career trajectory going to be? Who knows? I don't know, but it's going to be exciting to watch. It's already exciting from the sidelines as I scan the Internet, hoping for new information, hoping that somebody is going to clue me in and really let me know what's going on with Malkin.
One final thought to close: My junior year of college, I was on a hockey kick, and I had to write a short screenplay for a writing class. I made up a fictional character, a 17-year-old Soviet named Pavel, who defected from the Soviet team at the 1988 Calgary Olympics. The first two pages of the script I loved and those pages worked; the rest of the script I hated and those pages, needless to say, didn't work so well. But there was one thing that everyone could agree about: Pavel's page 1 decision to defect to North America revealed a tremendous amount about his character. In a single decision, my fictional character announced who he was, what his dreams were, and who he desired to be.
Maybe that's why it's been so nice and fun to follow the Malkin saga over the past thirty-six hours. Because if it's not true that he left Finland and if he really is staying in Russia for another year, then oh well, sigh, ho-hum, my Pens still need a second line center, and maybe Malkin's not yet (not saying he never will be) a player determined to get to the NHL.
But if any of these reports are true, if Malkin really has left his Russian team, then he's telling the NHL and fans of the Pittsburgh Penguins exactly what we want to know. He's telling us who he is, what his dreams are, and who he desires to be--he's telling us he wants to play in the NHL for the Pittsburgh Penguins. And if Malkin really is telling us that, well, it's a story that, this time around, as a grown-up, I want to watch, relish, and simply just enjoy.
For now, the cautious "Who knows?" holds, yet I hope very soon, for example, by the start of the 2006-07 season, my "Who knows?" is said in reference to the question "What's Malkin's career going to be?"
On Malkin
So I've spent the past thirty-six hours reading message boards and translated Russian news articles. I don't trust Russian news sources, and I know better than to believe everything written on blogs and on message boards.
Yet it's obvious that something is up. I'm not going to assume Malkin will be wearing a Pittsburgh Penguins uniform next season until his NHL contract is signed and whatever issues need to be resolved with his Russian club get resolved (which seems likely to happen through the legal system).
On what Malkin means to the Penguins as a player; I'd rather not repeat myself, so just see my previous post on "Malkin is Coming?" Those statements still hold true. So here's to hoping everything works out for Malkin to be playing center on the same team as Sidney Crosby this season.
So I've spent the past thirty-six hours reading message boards and translated Russian news articles. I don't trust Russian news sources, and I know better than to believe everything written on blogs and on message boards.
Yet it's obvious that something is up. I'm not going to assume Malkin will be wearing a Pittsburgh Penguins uniform next season until his NHL contract is signed and whatever issues need to be resolved with his Russian club get resolved (which seems likely to happen through the legal system).
On what Malkin means to the Penguins as a player; I'd rather not repeat myself, so just see my previous post on "Malkin is Coming?" Those statements still hold true. So here's to hoping everything works out for Malkin to be playing center on the same team as Sidney Crosby this season.
Sunday, August 06, 2006
When’s Training Camp Start?
I am so tired of reading about business transactions in the hockey section of the newspaper. Yes, Sam Fingold signed a letter of intent to buy the Penguins from Mario Lemieux’s group. Yes, the respective ownerships of the Pirates and Steelers have convinced me that ownership really does make a difference in putting a quality team on the ice. Of course I want the Penguins to stay in Pittsburgh; of course I want a new arena to be built—but I want those things to happen because of how much I love hockey.
Because I love hockey, then, I am eager to start reading about hockey in the hockey section. I want to read about how many minutes per game Sidney Crosby expects to play. I want to hear about potential defensive pairings on the blue line and start musing about potential line combinations. I want to read about the game of hockey.
Right now, however, here’s my list of three things I’m looking forward to seeing ON THE ICE:
1. Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger on the same power play. I’m going to have to stay up late to catch an Anaheim game, and you know what? The thought of watching a Niedermayer-Pronger power play means that I really think I can deal with a few hours less sleep if I get to see the on-ice magic Brian Burke expects to see.
2. Can Jaromir Jagr continue his resurgence and can the Rangers go further this year? Jagr has already earned a future place in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but watching Jagr this past winter was a beautiful reminder of why Jagr deserves a place alongside other Hall-of-Fame players. Plus, Jagr’s going to turn 35 this year, and at some point, age catches up (a sad but accepted fact of hockey). But I don’t want age to catch up this season—can I see another year of a future Hall of Famer dominating as he did in so many previous seasons?
3. All of the Penguins’ draft picks that will (hopefully) come to training camp this year. Seriously, who knows, maybe somebody I’ll look back fondly on the 2006-07 training camp and note that five future All-Stars and three future Hall of Famers were on the ice? Maybe?
So, yeah, seriously, when does the puck drop—at least for training camp? In a month or so?
The puck can’t drop soon enough.
I am so tired of reading about business transactions in the hockey section of the newspaper. Yes, Sam Fingold signed a letter of intent to buy the Penguins from Mario Lemieux’s group. Yes, the respective ownerships of the Pirates and Steelers have convinced me that ownership really does make a difference in putting a quality team on the ice. Of course I want the Penguins to stay in Pittsburgh; of course I want a new arena to be built—but I want those things to happen because of how much I love hockey.
Because I love hockey, then, I am eager to start reading about hockey in the hockey section. I want to read about how many minutes per game Sidney Crosby expects to play. I want to hear about potential defensive pairings on the blue line and start musing about potential line combinations. I want to read about the game of hockey.
Right now, however, here’s my list of three things I’m looking forward to seeing ON THE ICE:
1. Scott Niedermayer and Chris Pronger on the same power play. I’m going to have to stay up late to catch an Anaheim game, and you know what? The thought of watching a Niedermayer-Pronger power play means that I really think I can deal with a few hours less sleep if I get to see the on-ice magic Brian Burke expects to see.
2. Can Jaromir Jagr continue his resurgence and can the Rangers go further this year? Jagr has already earned a future place in the Hockey Hall of Fame, but watching Jagr this past winter was a beautiful reminder of why Jagr deserves a place alongside other Hall-of-Fame players. Plus, Jagr’s going to turn 35 this year, and at some point, age catches up (a sad but accepted fact of hockey). But I don’t want age to catch up this season—can I see another year of a future Hall of Famer dominating as he did in so many previous seasons?
3. All of the Penguins’ draft picks that will (hopefully) come to training camp this year. Seriously, who knows, maybe somebody I’ll look back fondly on the 2006-07 training camp and note that five future All-Stars and three future Hall of Famers were on the ice? Maybe?
So, yeah, seriously, when does the puck drop—at least for training camp? In a month or so?
The puck can’t drop soon enough.
J.D.’s Been Busy
So last summer the St. Louis Blues sold Chris Pronger*, but this summer, with John Davidson at the helm, the Blues are eagerly working free agency to become, quite quickly, a competitive team. While the free agent signing list of the Blues is long and reads rather impressively, I can’t help but wonder how all of these signings are going to gel as the collective unit that is a team. I see two possibilities: 1.) The free agency signings quickly help the team to compete for a playoff spot. 2.) The free agency signings help the team on paper but don’t translate to effective change on the ice.
Although I’m more of an Eastern and far Western conference girl (Canucks, Oilers, Ducks, I enjoy watching), I’ll be watching curiously to see which of those two possibilities comes to fruition in St. Louis and how that fruit influences John Davidson’s future decision-making.
* Sold is a harsh term. Yet seeing Pronger play (dominate is a better word for what went on) throughout the 2006 playoffs, well, one wonders how St. Louis didn’t demand more for Pronger. (One should also note that I am firmly convinced the Penguins sold Jaromir Jagr to the Washington Capitals; however, the Penguins apparently sold a defective product to the Capitals, one that wasn’t repaired until the 2005-06 season in New York. On the other hand, as Pronger’s dominant play showed, the Oilers did not receive a defective product, not as long as on-ice performance alone is the sole determinant of a quality product.)
So last summer the St. Louis Blues sold Chris Pronger*, but this summer, with John Davidson at the helm, the Blues are eagerly working free agency to become, quite quickly, a competitive team. While the free agent signing list of the Blues is long and reads rather impressively, I can’t help but wonder how all of these signings are going to gel as the collective unit that is a team. I see two possibilities: 1.) The free agency signings quickly help the team to compete for a playoff spot. 2.) The free agency signings help the team on paper but don’t translate to effective change on the ice.
Although I’m more of an Eastern and far Western conference girl (Canucks, Oilers, Ducks, I enjoy watching), I’ll be watching curiously to see which of those two possibilities comes to fruition in St. Louis and how that fruit influences John Davidson’s future decision-making.
* Sold is a harsh term. Yet seeing Pronger play (dominate is a better word for what went on) throughout the 2006 playoffs, well, one wonders how St. Louis didn’t demand more for Pronger. (One should also note that I am firmly convinced the Penguins sold Jaromir Jagr to the Washington Capitals; however, the Penguins apparently sold a defective product to the Capitals, one that wasn’t repaired until the 2005-06 season in New York. On the other hand, as Pronger’s dominant play showed, the Oilers did not receive a defective product, not as long as on-ice performance alone is the sole determinant of a quality product.)
Rangers Musings
I was pleased to see that the Rangers resigned former Penguins defenseman Michael Rozsival this week. Rozy’s play for the Rangers last season was what I had hoped to see him achieve as a Penguins defenseman. While Rozy never played quite so well while wearing the black and gold, I was glad to see him rewarded with a nice contract. I was also glad for the Rangers team; Rozsival at his current age is certainly a better defender than is an aging Brian Leetch (yes, I’m well aware of how sad that sentence is to fans of the game and older Rangers fans, but sadly, it’s true).
Still, I’m nervous about the Rangers upcoming 2006-07 season, and it’s not just because their 2005-06 season ended with being swept out of the playoffs by the Devils. Last year, Rangers fans might have hoped and dreamed of a turnaround, but fans at Madison Square Garden weren’t expecting anything. When the Swedish rookie became "Henrik the Great," when Jaromir Jagr returned to his former dominance and fans chanted "MVP" at Jagr, and when the entire team meshed so well with Coach Tom Renney, the fans, and the New York media, well—it was an unexpected but very pleasant surprise.
However, beginning with the 2006-07 training camp, expectations of the fans and media are going to be ramped up. It is not going to be enough to be above .500 or competing for a playoff spot. If Henrik the Great suffers a sophomore slump, or if Jaromir Jagr fails to be near the top of the NHL in scoring, or if the team merely wins as many games as it loses to start the season, there are going to be cries of discontent coming from fans and media members. It’s also worth noting that the players themselves will probably be discontent if they fail to meet the higher expectations.
The Rangers are still not deep enough to be unaffected by an injury to a player like Jagr or even by a few injuries scattered throughout the roster. Having watched Jagr in Pittsburgh for so many years, having enjoyed seeing him rediscover and again deploy his amazing talents in New York last season, I still feel anxious about what happens to the Rangers and Jagr when something goes way off course. I hope Jagr’s matured, I hope his teammates like Shanahan and Straka will help stay the course, but I’m just wondering how the much higher expectations are going to influence—for better or worse—the course of the 2006-07 Rangers season.
I was pleased to see that the Rangers resigned former Penguins defenseman Michael Rozsival this week. Rozy’s play for the Rangers last season was what I had hoped to see him achieve as a Penguins defenseman. While Rozy never played quite so well while wearing the black and gold, I was glad to see him rewarded with a nice contract. I was also glad for the Rangers team; Rozsival at his current age is certainly a better defender than is an aging Brian Leetch (yes, I’m well aware of how sad that sentence is to fans of the game and older Rangers fans, but sadly, it’s true).
Still, I’m nervous about the Rangers upcoming 2006-07 season, and it’s not just because their 2005-06 season ended with being swept out of the playoffs by the Devils. Last year, Rangers fans might have hoped and dreamed of a turnaround, but fans at Madison Square Garden weren’t expecting anything. When the Swedish rookie became "Henrik the Great," when Jaromir Jagr returned to his former dominance and fans chanted "MVP" at Jagr, and when the entire team meshed so well with Coach Tom Renney, the fans, and the New York media, well—it was an unexpected but very pleasant surprise.
However, beginning with the 2006-07 training camp, expectations of the fans and media are going to be ramped up. It is not going to be enough to be above .500 or competing for a playoff spot. If Henrik the Great suffers a sophomore slump, or if Jaromir Jagr fails to be near the top of the NHL in scoring, or if the team merely wins as many games as it loses to start the season, there are going to be cries of discontent coming from fans and media members. It’s also worth noting that the players themselves will probably be discontent if they fail to meet the higher expectations.
The Rangers are still not deep enough to be unaffected by an injury to a player like Jagr or even by a few injuries scattered throughout the roster. Having watched Jagr in Pittsburgh for so many years, having enjoyed seeing him rediscover and again deploy his amazing talents in New York last season, I still feel anxious about what happens to the Rangers and Jagr when something goes way off course. I hope Jagr’s matured, I hope his teammates like Shanahan and Straka will help stay the course, but I’m just wondering how the much higher expectations are going to influence—for better or worse—the course of the 2006-07 Rangers season.
Is Shero Repeating Patrick’s Mistakes?
The Penguins did not renew Craig Patrick’s contract because the team Patrick constructed last summer failed to make the grade in the new NHL. The Penguins hired Ray Shero as the team’s new general manager so that the former assistant general manager of the Predators could build a NHL team prepared to compete in the twenty-first century.
Unfortunately for him, Shero has been saddled with some of Patrick’s "mistakes." If Sergei Gonchar ever again consistently plays like he did for the Washington Capitals, then maybe that 5-year, $25 million contract will seem like less of a mistake/problem/albatross. While I wouldn’t necessarily call Patrick’s signings of John Leclair and Mark Recchi last year pure mistakes, and both players certainly can provide veteran leadership on a team, Leclair in particular should not be expected to play top-line minutes as he did when he was in his prime.
Yet my concern is that Shero in some sense has not learned from the mistakes of his predecessor in the general manager’s role. Shero is not pursuing a second line center (not that there are many centers left available on the free agent market, anyway) because he expects Malkin to be in Pittsburgh. Stop if that sound byte sounds a little too familiar; didn’t Patrick likewise expect Malkin to be in Pittsburgh? Didn’t Patrick fail to have a contingency plan for a second-line center should Malkin not be available to play in Pittsburgh? It’s the same familiar song when it comes to relying on Jocelyn Thibeault to back up Marc Andre Fleury. What if Fleury goes down with an injury and can’t play for ten games—we’re relying on the oft-injured Thibeault as a competent back up when he hasn’t shown he can play competently at the NHL level in a few years? Didn’t we deal with the lack of reliable goaltending issue for much of the early part of the 2005-06 season? Do we really need to repeat such mistakes? Has Shero really learned from what Patrick got wrong last year?
In some sense, of course, I know that Shero indeed has learned from Patrick’s mistakes. Shero appears to be building a team where different players have different roles. He appears to be finding role players to support his crop of young, talented, former extremely high first-round draft picks. He appears to know that the new NHL demands a team built on skill and speed but also a team, not a group of individuals. Yet if Shero is expecting Dominic Moore to play as a second-line center (third-line center is something I’m currently game to try) or expecting players to fulfill a role, whatever it might be, that a player can no longer fulfill (Jocelyn Thibeault, playing 20 NHL games in a season?), the Penguins are going to be in trouble.
I like many of the moves Shero has made thus far this summer: I was glad to see Fleury and Moore signed this week. While I don’t expect the Penguins general manager to share emergency contingency plans with me, I do expect that Shero actually has emergency contingency plans in place for certain gaping holes that could appear on the 2006-07 roster if he really expects his team to be even marginally more competitive than last season.
The Penguins did not renew Craig Patrick’s contract because the team Patrick constructed last summer failed to make the grade in the new NHL. The Penguins hired Ray Shero as the team’s new general manager so that the former assistant general manager of the Predators could build a NHL team prepared to compete in the twenty-first century.
Unfortunately for him, Shero has been saddled with some of Patrick’s "mistakes." If Sergei Gonchar ever again consistently plays like he did for the Washington Capitals, then maybe that 5-year, $25 million contract will seem like less of a mistake/problem/albatross. While I wouldn’t necessarily call Patrick’s signings of John Leclair and Mark Recchi last year pure mistakes, and both players certainly can provide veteran leadership on a team, Leclair in particular should not be expected to play top-line minutes as he did when he was in his prime.
Yet my concern is that Shero in some sense has not learned from the mistakes of his predecessor in the general manager’s role. Shero is not pursuing a second line center (not that there are many centers left available on the free agent market, anyway) because he expects Malkin to be in Pittsburgh. Stop if that sound byte sounds a little too familiar; didn’t Patrick likewise expect Malkin to be in Pittsburgh? Didn’t Patrick fail to have a contingency plan for a second-line center should Malkin not be available to play in Pittsburgh? It’s the same familiar song when it comes to relying on Jocelyn Thibeault to back up Marc Andre Fleury. What if Fleury goes down with an injury and can’t play for ten games—we’re relying on the oft-injured Thibeault as a competent back up when he hasn’t shown he can play competently at the NHL level in a few years? Didn’t we deal with the lack of reliable goaltending issue for much of the early part of the 2005-06 season? Do we really need to repeat such mistakes? Has Shero really learned from what Patrick got wrong last year?
In some sense, of course, I know that Shero indeed has learned from Patrick’s mistakes. Shero appears to be building a team where different players have different roles. He appears to be finding role players to support his crop of young, talented, former extremely high first-round draft picks. He appears to know that the new NHL demands a team built on skill and speed but also a team, not a group of individuals. Yet if Shero is expecting Dominic Moore to play as a second-line center (third-line center is something I’m currently game to try) or expecting players to fulfill a role, whatever it might be, that a player can no longer fulfill (Jocelyn Thibeault, playing 20 NHL games in a season?), the Penguins are going to be in trouble.
I like many of the moves Shero has made thus far this summer: I was glad to see Fleury and Moore signed this week. While I don’t expect the Penguins general manager to share emergency contingency plans with me, I do expect that Shero actually has emergency contingency plans in place for certain gaping holes that could appear on the 2006-07 roster if he really expects his team to be even marginally more competitive than last season.
Malkin is Coming?
Little brother’s comments hit the nail on the head. People are just starting to realize that the Russian mob running hockey over there might not be such a good thing, said little brother in his typically droll understatement. For what it’s worth, I wholeheartedly concur with this sentiment. However, what I want to focus on now is how Malkin coming over or not coming over can and will influence the Penguins’ fortunes in the 2006-07 season.
So let’s say somehow, Malkin gets out of his Russia, signs his entry-level deal with the Pens, and meets the expectation that Alexander Ovechkin set when he said he believes that Malkin will succeed him as winner of the Calder Trophy. Let’s presume that in Crosby and Malkin, the Penguins have two extremely young but still proficient first and second line centers. (And by the way, with any young rookie playing his first season in a different country, be aware that’s quite a presumption.) Let’s further assume that everything else goes right. Marc-Andre Fleury develops as a goaltender who makes the big save and steals a few games, the young defensemen develop, Sergei Gonchar plays like he did a few years ago, and the team gels. With the team gelling, the power play and penalty kill work at above-average levels. Even assuming all those things go right, the Penguins—with Crosby and Malkin at center, and all that other stuff clicking—are still, at best, a borderline playoff team.
Yet now let’s imagine that Malkin, for certain reasons out of the control of the NHL and the Penguins, remains in Russia this year. Let’s further assume that all those other things go right. The same good things happen: Fleury develops as a goaltender, defensemen learn to execute the NHL game successfully, and other players perform to their potential. Even with all those wonderful things happening, the 2006-07 Pens will still have a gaping hole on their depth chart because the team will not have a legitimate number two center. Without Malkin, even with every other thing gelling and clicking, the 2006-07 Penguins are out of the playoffs for another year.
Back in the land of reality, it’s probable to assume that all the good things the Penguins want to see happen in the 2006-07 season will not occur. Someone is going to get injured at some point in the year, and someone’s development is not going to be as linear or as quick as the team would expect or anticipate. Moreover, the Penguins core players remain—in terms of NHL service time and in terms of the good old-fashioned age measurement—young and thus inexperienced. Generally, it is simultaneously fun and frustrating to watch talented, young, and inexperienced players grow and develop into the players they have been projected to be. Realistically speaking, even if many good things happen, the Penguins cannot and should not count on "all good things" occurring in terms of the development of their young core.
Which is why Malkin coming over here is so important. With Malkin and everything going right, the Penguins are a borderline playoff team. Without Malkin and everything going right, the Penguins lack a real second line center and will probably again be selecting very high in the 2007 entry draft. Without Malkin and with everything going wrong, the Penguins are again in the running to win the NHL lottery draft. With Malkin and with some things going right and some things going wrong, while the Penguins probably need to rely on the misfortune of other teams to sneak into the playoffs, at least the Penguins will be in the hunt for a postseason berth for much of the season.
As any Penguins fan should know, second line centers are important. The Penguins were never legitimately a contender until Ron Francis became a second line center behind Mario Lemieux. Of course the Lemieux-Francis duo of two Hall-of-Fame caliber centers was a rare pleasure. Yet don’t discount the importance of a second-line center. In today’s NHL, one-line teams cannot even make it to the NHL postseason.
The Penguins need Malkin to be competitive. The question is, Will they get him in time for next season?
Little brother’s comments hit the nail on the head. People are just starting to realize that the Russian mob running hockey over there might not be such a good thing, said little brother in his typically droll understatement. For what it’s worth, I wholeheartedly concur with this sentiment. However, what I want to focus on now is how Malkin coming over or not coming over can and will influence the Penguins’ fortunes in the 2006-07 season.
So let’s say somehow, Malkin gets out of his Russia, signs his entry-level deal with the Pens, and meets the expectation that Alexander Ovechkin set when he said he believes that Malkin will succeed him as winner of the Calder Trophy. Let’s presume that in Crosby and Malkin, the Penguins have two extremely young but still proficient first and second line centers. (And by the way, with any young rookie playing his first season in a different country, be aware that’s quite a presumption.) Let’s further assume that everything else goes right. Marc-Andre Fleury develops as a goaltender who makes the big save and steals a few games, the young defensemen develop, Sergei Gonchar plays like he did a few years ago, and the team gels. With the team gelling, the power play and penalty kill work at above-average levels. Even assuming all those things go right, the Penguins—with Crosby and Malkin at center, and all that other stuff clicking—are still, at best, a borderline playoff team.
Yet now let’s imagine that Malkin, for certain reasons out of the control of the NHL and the Penguins, remains in Russia this year. Let’s further assume that all those other things go right. The same good things happen: Fleury develops as a goaltender, defensemen learn to execute the NHL game successfully, and other players perform to their potential. Even with all those wonderful things happening, the 2006-07 Pens will still have a gaping hole on their depth chart because the team will not have a legitimate number two center. Without Malkin, even with every other thing gelling and clicking, the 2006-07 Penguins are out of the playoffs for another year.
Back in the land of reality, it’s probable to assume that all the good things the Penguins want to see happen in the 2006-07 season will not occur. Someone is going to get injured at some point in the year, and someone’s development is not going to be as linear or as quick as the team would expect or anticipate. Moreover, the Penguins core players remain—in terms of NHL service time and in terms of the good old-fashioned age measurement—young and thus inexperienced. Generally, it is simultaneously fun and frustrating to watch talented, young, and inexperienced players grow and develop into the players they have been projected to be. Realistically speaking, even if many good things happen, the Penguins cannot and should not count on "all good things" occurring in terms of the development of their young core.
Which is why Malkin coming over here is so important. With Malkin and everything going right, the Penguins are a borderline playoff team. Without Malkin and everything going right, the Penguins lack a real second line center and will probably again be selecting very high in the 2007 entry draft. Without Malkin and with everything going wrong, the Penguins are again in the running to win the NHL lottery draft. With Malkin and with some things going right and some things going wrong, while the Penguins probably need to rely on the misfortune of other teams to sneak into the playoffs, at least the Penguins will be in the hunt for a postseason berth for much of the season.
As any Penguins fan should know, second line centers are important. The Penguins were never legitimately a contender until Ron Francis became a second line center behind Mario Lemieux. Of course the Lemieux-Francis duo of two Hall-of-Fame caliber centers was a rare pleasure. Yet don’t discount the importance of a second-line center. In today’s NHL, one-line teams cannot even make it to the NHL postseason.
The Penguins need Malkin to be competitive. The question is, Will they get him in time for next season?
Sunday, July 30, 2006
On the Arena Bit
I love hockey. I love politics, too. But I don’t like when hockey and politics mix at all. Politics is about The West Wing and idealistic notions (that are too often delusions or at the very least illusive illusions) about making a difference in real issues. As for hockey, well, hockey is where I can see beauty and skill and talent, and hockey is pure, unbridled, passionate, pleasure and joy.
Anyhow, a man who has previously talked about moving the franchise to Kansas City has signed a letter of intent to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins. I will feel much better about the Pittsburgh Penguins keeping that name when plans for a new arena are actually solidly in place, you know, when, plans are set in stone, and it’s clear there will be an arena built in Pittsburgh and the team will stay.
That hasn’t happened yet. I’ll continue to follow my team—the Pittsburgh Penguins—throughout the upcoming season. Truthfully, I’m far more interested in seeing how individual young players develop, grow, and blossom than I am in reading about the minutia of economic and city planning details. Sure, I love politics, but I prefer to keep my politics (a practical enjoyment) separate from my hockey (a pure enjoyment).
Still, in the 2006-07 season, nothing will make me cheer harder and louder than actually finalizing plans for building a new arena in Pittsburgh (and by that, I mean planning and building gets started, like, immediately). Unless, of course, Crosby’s young Penguins manage to pull off a miracle and bring the Cup home to Pittsburgh.
But what I really want to see—and it shouldn’t be a miracle—is construction workers starting to build a new arena in Pittsburgh before the end of the 2006-07 hockey season.
√
I love hockey. I love politics, too. But I don’t like when hockey and politics mix at all. Politics is about The West Wing and idealistic notions (that are too often delusions or at the very least illusive illusions) about making a difference in real issues. As for hockey, well, hockey is where I can see beauty and skill and talent, and hockey is pure, unbridled, passionate, pleasure and joy.
Anyhow, a man who has previously talked about moving the franchise to Kansas City has signed a letter of intent to buy the Pittsburgh Penguins. I will feel much better about the Pittsburgh Penguins keeping that name when plans for a new arena are actually solidly in place, you know, when, plans are set in stone, and it’s clear there will be an arena built in Pittsburgh and the team will stay.
That hasn’t happened yet. I’ll continue to follow my team—the Pittsburgh Penguins—throughout the upcoming season. Truthfully, I’m far more interested in seeing how individual young players develop, grow, and blossom than I am in reading about the minutia of economic and city planning details. Sure, I love politics, but I prefer to keep my politics (a practical enjoyment) separate from my hockey (a pure enjoyment).
Still, in the 2006-07 season, nothing will make me cheer harder and louder than actually finalizing plans for building a new arena in Pittsburgh (and by that, I mean planning and building gets started, like, immediately). Unless, of course, Crosby’s young Penguins manage to pull off a miracle and bring the Cup home to Pittsburgh.
But what I really want to see—and it shouldn’t be a miracle—is construction workers starting to build a new arena in Pittsburgh before the end of the 2006-07 hockey season.
√
Welcome back, Mark
Mark Recchi was a core member of the Penguins first Stanley Cup champion team. Mario Lemieux thinks Mark Recchi has the statistics to be enshrined in hockey’s Hall of Fame someday. Ray Shero notes that Mark Recchi has been a twenty-goal scorer in several recent seasons and knows his team needs a proven scorer on the wings. Pittsburgh fans know that something happened, sometime last year, between Recchi and some of the young players in the Penguins locker room. Fans aren’t sure about bringing Recchi back and think maybe it’s time just to make a clean break with the past.
On the first point: I don’t know what went down in the Penguins locker room last season. I don’t know what happened between Crosby or Recchi. I do know what happened to the Penguins team last year. And knowing what happened to the team last season can help us understand the "locker room" issues. Everyone on the Penguins, from ownership to the general manager to the players on the team, were under what we know now to be a delusional impression that the assembled team could contend for the Stanley Cup. After all, Crosby was going to be a star, and Mario Lemieux was a star, and Recchi, Leclair, Palffy, and Gonchar—wow, the team had the potential to be good. Except that, Lemieux, Leclair, and Recchi, who probably could’ve formed the league’s most imposing line at one point in the past decade, well, needless to say, in 2005, the idea of dominance quickly faded away. The team wasn’t properly constructed for the new NHL, and then guess what happened? Loss after loss after loss after loss.
In the midst of all that losing—losing to which the veterans were unaccustomed and to which the young players, many of whom, like Crosby, played on winning teams on their way to the show, also weren't used to, guess what? Tempers got fried. Players were disappointed. Things were said. Dissension developed—as it always does with losing. Blame was cast about; players got mad at each other. "Stuff" happened. Bad chemistry? Conflict between players? Duh. The players had expected the team to win, but two players retire, and then suddenly, losing and losing and rebuilding and feelings of "What the heck is going on here?" Naturally, in the midst of miserable losing, conflict developed.
I don’t believe that Shero brings Recchi back unless Recchi and Crosby have resolved whatever differences they had. The Penguins might not be the Mario Lemieux sponsored country club anymore, but any GM, not just Craig Patrick, knows the importance of keeping a superstar content. Certainly, anecdotal evidence (cell phone text messages exchanged between Crosby and Recchi, for one) points to the fact that the two men have resolved whatever issues they had. Also, it’s important to note that it’s not like Recchi wasn’t once Crosby’s age. Heck, a decade and a half ago, he and the stars of the Penguins team were in very similar life situations compared to the young players currently on the team. Those players didn’t have families or kids of their own yet and in many ways they still played like kids on the ice—with one exception. They were kids, young men, who were winning championships.
The 2006-07 Penguins aren’t going to contend for the Stanley Cup (sorry, folks, the team’s just not ready yet, and the young players aren’t yet fully the players they will one day be with more strength and more experience). So long as Recchi understands this fact coming in and knows that his role is to help the young team develop the habits and disciplines of a winning, championship team, all should be well in the locker room this year. Does that mean if losing happens, there will automatically be no locker room dissension? Of course not.
Yet coming in on a one-year deal, Recchi should understand that he’s there to help the team learn how to contend. And if that goes well, then maybe he signs another one year deal and the team comes closer to contending, and then maybe a year after that, if he’s able to adapt his game, maybe he’ll have a role to play on a team with a legitimate, realistic shot at challenging for the Cup.
Recchi won’t be wrong next year if he refuses to tolerate young players blindly expecting to lose and accepting losing contest after contest. Yet so long as he’s fully aware of the reality of the team of which he’ll be a member, we don’t need to worry about the Penguins just keeping him around to relive their glory days. Because Recchi will be doing his part to help the team build a ground for creating some new glory days in the years yet to come.
Mark Recchi was a core member of the Penguins first Stanley Cup champion team. Mario Lemieux thinks Mark Recchi has the statistics to be enshrined in hockey’s Hall of Fame someday. Ray Shero notes that Mark Recchi has been a twenty-goal scorer in several recent seasons and knows his team needs a proven scorer on the wings. Pittsburgh fans know that something happened, sometime last year, between Recchi and some of the young players in the Penguins locker room. Fans aren’t sure about bringing Recchi back and think maybe it’s time just to make a clean break with the past.
On the first point: I don’t know what went down in the Penguins locker room last season. I don’t know what happened between Crosby or Recchi. I do know what happened to the Penguins team last year. And knowing what happened to the team last season can help us understand the "locker room" issues. Everyone on the Penguins, from ownership to the general manager to the players on the team, were under what we know now to be a delusional impression that the assembled team could contend for the Stanley Cup. After all, Crosby was going to be a star, and Mario Lemieux was a star, and Recchi, Leclair, Palffy, and Gonchar—wow, the team had the potential to be good. Except that, Lemieux, Leclair, and Recchi, who probably could’ve formed the league’s most imposing line at one point in the past decade, well, needless to say, in 2005, the idea of dominance quickly faded away. The team wasn’t properly constructed for the new NHL, and then guess what happened? Loss after loss after loss after loss.
In the midst of all that losing—losing to which the veterans were unaccustomed and to which the young players, many of whom, like Crosby, played on winning teams on their way to the show, also weren't used to, guess what? Tempers got fried. Players were disappointed. Things were said. Dissension developed—as it always does with losing. Blame was cast about; players got mad at each other. "Stuff" happened. Bad chemistry? Conflict between players? Duh. The players had expected the team to win, but two players retire, and then suddenly, losing and losing and rebuilding and feelings of "What the heck is going on here?" Naturally, in the midst of miserable losing, conflict developed.
I don’t believe that Shero brings Recchi back unless Recchi and Crosby have resolved whatever differences they had. The Penguins might not be the Mario Lemieux sponsored country club anymore, but any GM, not just Craig Patrick, knows the importance of keeping a superstar content. Certainly, anecdotal evidence (cell phone text messages exchanged between Crosby and Recchi, for one) points to the fact that the two men have resolved whatever issues they had. Also, it’s important to note that it’s not like Recchi wasn’t once Crosby’s age. Heck, a decade and a half ago, he and the stars of the Penguins team were in very similar life situations compared to the young players currently on the team. Those players didn’t have families or kids of their own yet and in many ways they still played like kids on the ice—with one exception. They were kids, young men, who were winning championships.
The 2006-07 Penguins aren’t going to contend for the Stanley Cup (sorry, folks, the team’s just not ready yet, and the young players aren’t yet fully the players they will one day be with more strength and more experience). So long as Recchi understands this fact coming in and knows that his role is to help the young team develop the habits and disciplines of a winning, championship team, all should be well in the locker room this year. Does that mean if losing happens, there will automatically be no locker room dissension? Of course not.
Yet coming in on a one-year deal, Recchi should understand that he’s there to help the team learn how to contend. And if that goes well, then maybe he signs another one year deal and the team comes closer to contending, and then maybe a year after that, if he’s able to adapt his game, maybe he’ll have a role to play on a team with a legitimate, realistic shot at challenging for the Cup.
Recchi won’t be wrong next year if he refuses to tolerate young players blindly expecting to lose and accepting losing contest after contest. Yet so long as he’s fully aware of the reality of the team of which he’ll be a member, we don’t need to worry about the Penguins just keeping him around to relive their glory days. Because Recchi will be doing his part to help the team build a ground for creating some new glory days in the years yet to come.
Mike Keenan’s Affection for Former Players
Once a Mike Keenan darling, always a Mike Keenan darling, at least this is what the Florida Panthers’ signing of 41-year-old goaltender Ed Belfour seems to insist. Don’t get me wrong, Belfour was one of the league’s best goalies in his prime. But Belfour is way past his prime, and as I heard a young goaltender recently say, "He’s hanging around too long."
Anyone who watched Mario Lemieux and Steve Yzerman play this season saw players who were shadows of their former selves, and frankly, it wasn’t fun to watch. Sure, Eddie Belfour’s always going to be the goalie Keenan rode when his Chicago Blackhawks were one of the league’s best teams in the early 1990’s. He’s always going to be the goalie who won tons of games. But in this past season, Lemieux and Yzerman were still the Hall of Fame centers they’d always been—save for the fact that they weren’t, not anymore, not right now, not in this moment, anyhow.
Not for Iron Mike’s sake, but for Belfour’s, I hope his health works out and he can play at a competent level. But to go from Roberto Luongo to the two goaltenders the Panthers will have in the nets this year—let’s just say (I could surely be proven wrong, of course) that I rate Florida’s goaltending, at this point and at best, as a huge question mark.
Of course Florida’s goaltending probably wouldn’t concern me as much if Iron Mike had actually blown Kevin Lowe away and traded for another former Keenan player, Chris Pronger. In seeing Keenan sign an aging Belfour, knowing Keenan’s historic preference for veteran players, one can only conclude that Kevin Lowe demanded "the moon" from Keenan and Iron Mike, for some unbeknownst reason, wouldn’t ante up.
Sure, he would have had to mortgage the future for the present—but since when has that ever stopped Keenan?
Signing Belfour on the cheap is low-risk. It’s not nearly as risky as trading away future talent for one of the game’s best defensemen, and viewed logically like that, the lack of a deal for Pronger and the signing of Belfour make good sense. Yet if Keenan was so in need of one of his former players, well, I’d rather have a player still in his prime.
Seriously, if you’re the Panthers and you want to stop your opponents from scoring? Who’s going to help more, a past his prime goalie or an elite defenseman in his prime?
Anyhow, here’s hoping Eddie Belfour can prove me wrong and help his team, or at the very least, not embarrass himself.
But when I even think about writing that last line—about the 2nd winningiest goalie of all time embarrassing himself—what does that really say?
∞
Once a Mike Keenan darling, always a Mike Keenan darling, at least this is what the Florida Panthers’ signing of 41-year-old goaltender Ed Belfour seems to insist. Don’t get me wrong, Belfour was one of the league’s best goalies in his prime. But Belfour is way past his prime, and as I heard a young goaltender recently say, "He’s hanging around too long."
Anyone who watched Mario Lemieux and Steve Yzerman play this season saw players who were shadows of their former selves, and frankly, it wasn’t fun to watch. Sure, Eddie Belfour’s always going to be the goalie Keenan rode when his Chicago Blackhawks were one of the league’s best teams in the early 1990’s. He’s always going to be the goalie who won tons of games. But in this past season, Lemieux and Yzerman were still the Hall of Fame centers they’d always been—save for the fact that they weren’t, not anymore, not right now, not in this moment, anyhow.
Not for Iron Mike’s sake, but for Belfour’s, I hope his health works out and he can play at a competent level. But to go from Roberto Luongo to the two goaltenders the Panthers will have in the nets this year—let’s just say (I could surely be proven wrong, of course) that I rate Florida’s goaltending, at this point and at best, as a huge question mark.
Of course Florida’s goaltending probably wouldn’t concern me as much if Iron Mike had actually blown Kevin Lowe away and traded for another former Keenan player, Chris Pronger. In seeing Keenan sign an aging Belfour, knowing Keenan’s historic preference for veteran players, one can only conclude that Kevin Lowe demanded "the moon" from Keenan and Iron Mike, for some unbeknownst reason, wouldn’t ante up.
Sure, he would have had to mortgage the future for the present—but since when has that ever stopped Keenan?
Signing Belfour on the cheap is low-risk. It’s not nearly as risky as trading away future talent for one of the game’s best defensemen, and viewed logically like that, the lack of a deal for Pronger and the signing of Belfour make good sense. Yet if Keenan was so in need of one of his former players, well, I’d rather have a player still in his prime.
Seriously, if you’re the Panthers and you want to stop your opponents from scoring? Who’s going to help more, a past his prime goalie or an elite defenseman in his prime?
Anyhow, here’s hoping Eddie Belfour can prove me wrong and help his team, or at the very least, not embarrass himself.
But when I even think about writing that last line—about the 2nd winningiest goalie of all time embarrassing himself—what does that really say?
∞
Housecleaning
This past week, I woke up to the news that the Penguins had fired several longtime employees. Steve Latin is the only Penguins equipment manager I’ve ever known. Say whatever you want for Rick Kehoe’s head coaching skills (not much good can be said), but the man devoted hours to helping an 18-year-old Jaromir Jagr become the player who could finish all the scoring chances he was able to create. (Put simply, Kehoe helped Jagr develop the shot that goaltenders still fear.) Yet all these people, these people who were part of the Penguins for so long, these people who were around before, during, and after the Stanley Cup runs, we’re saying goodbye to these people, too?
The last vestiges of the Mario Lemieux era and of the "glory years" of the Penguins seemed to disappear with the firings. As a Pens fan, I know the glory years really disappeared a long time ago. Yet people like Steve Latin were woven into the fabric of the identity of the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise. For better, worse, or ultimate indifference, that fabric that identified the Penguins franchise for so long has been altered.
Does any of that really mean anything? Because one could argue, for example, that Steve Latin and Rick Kehoe for many years represented the "country club" atmosphere of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Players wanted to play in Pittsburgh, the environment was loose, and players—provided they performed on the ice—were basically left to their own leisure. To more than just a minute degree, it would hardly be overstating things to say that it was the players, not the coaching staff or the management, who ran the Penguins for the decade of the 1990’s. And as a fan who grew up rooting for the Penguins throughout that decade, the "players rule" philosophy never seemed such a bad idea. The Penguins were home to the NHL’s best two players, and I witnessed 2 Stanley Cup championships, a President’s Trophy, a league-record 17 game winning streak, and many division championships, a playoff berth for several consecutive springs, and oh yes—our superstars won the league scoring title, Hart Trophy, and Pearson Award as well. The "players rule" philosophy also ensured that during the regular season, I got to watch hockey that was entertaining. My superstars turned up their noses at the clutch-and-grab style that much of the rest of the NHL embraced and always insisted on playing their game—a game of offense, taking risks and chances and often a game that resulted in a power play with the potential to click at 25% or even 30% when everyone was hot at once.
So why, despite that vague feeling of letting go and perhaps of a little bit of sadness, do I think it was probably for the best to send Latin and Kehoe packing? As a grown-up, I wonder in retrospect how much those teams laden with talent could have won and achieved if there had even been a shared players/coaching/management strategy. What if practices weren’t run only the way the players preferred but in a way that coaches—despite the objections of players—knew could have helped the team more? The "what ifs" prompted by years of the team being run as a comfortable country club are endless.
Ultimately the tension between the successes of the country club years as well as the "what ifs" of those years produces an uncomfortable dichotomy. The team probably won partially due to a loose, comfortable atmosphere, but how much more could the team have won if, well, there had actually existed a clear chain of command within that loose, comfortable atmosphere, a chain of command that didn’t begin and end with the players themselves?
Apparently Ray Shero is making changes to ensure that whatever the atmosphere he creates for Crosby, Malkin, Staal, Fleury, and other youngsters, such players will not live in the same environment as did the Mario Lemieux championship years. The same guy who fussed with the equipment of Lemieux and Jagr will not be fussing with Crosby’s equipment. On the surface, such changes can appear cosmetic, but the changes aren’t cosmetic—those changes are real, and the changes do matter.
What we don’t yet know is how such changes matter. Because frankly, I don’t care so long as the Penguins again develop into a contending team and win championships. And if that means the "old guys" have to go away—so be it. Do whatever it is that it takes to win again.
It’s just that I know my Penguins history. I know that the team was helped and harmed by the player’s rule, country club philosophy through the nineties. I also know a swing too far the other way—in the modern NHL—is not going to sit well with emerging superstars. Yet a swing too far back to the ways things used to be—particularly when such a philosophy results in losing too often—won’t sit well with emerging superstars either.
So I thank Steve Latin and others of his ilk for their years of service to the franchise. They’ll always be in the championship photos; they’ll always be woven into the fabric that is the history of the glory days. Likewise, while perhaps Jagr should be the one to say thank you to Kehoe, I’ll say thank you to Kehoe for helping Jagr in even a small way to become the dominant player I had the privilege of watching for so many years in Pittsburgh.
Yet in the moment, I’ll welcome whomever Shero, in consultation with senior hockey advisor Ed Johnston, decides to hire to replace the faces of the Penguins organization he just dismissed. Interestingly, E.J, a hockey man so old he was the GM when the Penguins traded for a still-in-his-prime Paul Coffey, is still around. Glimpses of the old guard remain, but the old guard now has to look to the future.
Who knows what kind of atmosphere will develop on the team. I don’t want to downplay the importance of atmosphere. But more than anything else, if in creating a new atmosphere, Shero is seeking to build an eventual Stanley Cup contender and champion—well, all the better. Goodbye to the old guard, and a warm welcome to the new—provided the new guard wins. If not, look out. Because who cares if players rule when players win every time out when it matters the most?
›
This past week, I woke up to the news that the Penguins had fired several longtime employees. Steve Latin is the only Penguins equipment manager I’ve ever known. Say whatever you want for Rick Kehoe’s head coaching skills (not much good can be said), but the man devoted hours to helping an 18-year-old Jaromir Jagr become the player who could finish all the scoring chances he was able to create. (Put simply, Kehoe helped Jagr develop the shot that goaltenders still fear.) Yet all these people, these people who were part of the Penguins for so long, these people who were around before, during, and after the Stanley Cup runs, we’re saying goodbye to these people, too?
The last vestiges of the Mario Lemieux era and of the "glory years" of the Penguins seemed to disappear with the firings. As a Pens fan, I know the glory years really disappeared a long time ago. Yet people like Steve Latin were woven into the fabric of the identity of the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise. For better, worse, or ultimate indifference, that fabric that identified the Penguins franchise for so long has been altered.
Does any of that really mean anything? Because one could argue, for example, that Steve Latin and Rick Kehoe for many years represented the "country club" atmosphere of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Players wanted to play in Pittsburgh, the environment was loose, and players—provided they performed on the ice—were basically left to their own leisure. To more than just a minute degree, it would hardly be overstating things to say that it was the players, not the coaching staff or the management, who ran the Penguins for the decade of the 1990’s. And as a fan who grew up rooting for the Penguins throughout that decade, the "players rule" philosophy never seemed such a bad idea. The Penguins were home to the NHL’s best two players, and I witnessed 2 Stanley Cup championships, a President’s Trophy, a league-record 17 game winning streak, and many division championships, a playoff berth for several consecutive springs, and oh yes—our superstars won the league scoring title, Hart Trophy, and Pearson Award as well. The "players rule" philosophy also ensured that during the regular season, I got to watch hockey that was entertaining. My superstars turned up their noses at the clutch-and-grab style that much of the rest of the NHL embraced and always insisted on playing their game—a game of offense, taking risks and chances and often a game that resulted in a power play with the potential to click at 25% or even 30% when everyone was hot at once.
So why, despite that vague feeling of letting go and perhaps of a little bit of sadness, do I think it was probably for the best to send Latin and Kehoe packing? As a grown-up, I wonder in retrospect how much those teams laden with talent could have won and achieved if there had even been a shared players/coaching/management strategy. What if practices weren’t run only the way the players preferred but in a way that coaches—despite the objections of players—knew could have helped the team more? The "what ifs" prompted by years of the team being run as a comfortable country club are endless.
Ultimately the tension between the successes of the country club years as well as the "what ifs" of those years produces an uncomfortable dichotomy. The team probably won partially due to a loose, comfortable atmosphere, but how much more could the team have won if, well, there had actually existed a clear chain of command within that loose, comfortable atmosphere, a chain of command that didn’t begin and end with the players themselves?
Apparently Ray Shero is making changes to ensure that whatever the atmosphere he creates for Crosby, Malkin, Staal, Fleury, and other youngsters, such players will not live in the same environment as did the Mario Lemieux championship years. The same guy who fussed with the equipment of Lemieux and Jagr will not be fussing with Crosby’s equipment. On the surface, such changes can appear cosmetic, but the changes aren’t cosmetic—those changes are real, and the changes do matter.
What we don’t yet know is how such changes matter. Because frankly, I don’t care so long as the Penguins again develop into a contending team and win championships. And if that means the "old guys" have to go away—so be it. Do whatever it is that it takes to win again.
It’s just that I know my Penguins history. I know that the team was helped and harmed by the player’s rule, country club philosophy through the nineties. I also know a swing too far the other way—in the modern NHL—is not going to sit well with emerging superstars. Yet a swing too far back to the ways things used to be—particularly when such a philosophy results in losing too often—won’t sit well with emerging superstars either.
So I thank Steve Latin and others of his ilk for their years of service to the franchise. They’ll always be in the championship photos; they’ll always be woven into the fabric that is the history of the glory days. Likewise, while perhaps Jagr should be the one to say thank you to Kehoe, I’ll say thank you to Kehoe for helping Jagr in even a small way to become the dominant player I had the privilege of watching for so many years in Pittsburgh.
Yet in the moment, I’ll welcome whomever Shero, in consultation with senior hockey advisor Ed Johnston, decides to hire to replace the faces of the Penguins organization he just dismissed. Interestingly, E.J, a hockey man so old he was the GM when the Penguins traded for a still-in-his-prime Paul Coffey, is still around. Glimpses of the old guard remain, but the old guard now has to look to the future.
Who knows what kind of atmosphere will develop on the team. I don’t want to downplay the importance of atmosphere. But more than anything else, if in creating a new atmosphere, Shero is seeking to build an eventual Stanley Cup contender and champion—well, all the better. Goodbye to the old guard, and a warm welcome to the new—provided the new guard wins. If not, look out. Because who cares if players rule when players win every time out when it matters the most?
›
Sunday, July 23, 2006
My Team, My City: Stay Right Where You Are
Yet the question percolating in my mind is really this: Is my team still going to be my team? Like, seriously, I don’t live in Pittsburgh anymore, and apparently the guy with the highest bid for my team is from Kansas City. And somehow I’m edgy and nervous. Is my team still going to be my team? Are the Pittsburgh Penguins going to stay in Pittsburgh? Is my team going to remain my team?
I know the reality that professional teams move. I saw the Whalers move to Carolina and the Jets move to Phoenix. I saw franchises change their names. I know that if even the Cleveland Browns can turn into the Baltimore Ravens, well, c’mon, be real, anything can happen and often does in the world of modern professional sports. Yet none of those teams have been MY team. MY team can’t move.
Would the Penguins cease to be the Penguins if they were no longer in Pittsburgh? Would some new city give my team a new name and relegate the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise to the annals of the NHL history books? What would happen to MY team? Would anyone still know what the Stanley Cup was?
Because here’s the thing. As a Pens fan in my twenties, I don’t remember the years when my franchise was the joke of the entire league. Sure, I’ve read about those years, and of course I know my Penguins have been through bankruptcy twice in their history. Yet those aren’t my memories of my Penguins. My memories are those of Paul Coffey skating down Civic Arena ice, of Mario Lemieux’s point streak and bad back ending his point-scoring streak, and then my memories of are Stanley Cup wins, champagne in the locker room, and Hall of Fame players proudly wearing the jersey of the Pittsburgh Penguins. After the championships, I have memories of a 17 game winning streak, of Lemieux and Jagr continuing to win award after award, of a team that—by virtue of the presence of Lemieux or Jagr—always felt like it had a chance to do something come playoff time. I have memories of joy and Cup wins; I have memories of great players wearing the uniform of my NHL champion Pittsburgh Penguins.
The idea that someone wants to rip this history away and uproot MY team to Kansas City or Hartford or Winnipeg or wherever just gets my goat (sorry about the phrase). I’m bothered, enervated, on edge, and sad. I saw the Penguins become league champions. I also saw kid after kid in Pittsburgh start playing hockey. I watched ice rink after ice rink get built in Pittsburgh. I saw kids born and raised in Pittsburgh, in my city, who were ready and did and are still being drafted by NHL teams. I saw a team become a champion, be considered among the elite of the league, and develop a real fan base. I saw adults who loved the game and kids who learned to master the game that they loved to the point that they have a genuine shot at professional careers.
Sure, what I’ve had to witness the past few years has been sad. The Penguins, after years of being home to the elite stars, began to let star players leave. My team hadn’t missed the playoffs since the spring of 1990 up until a few years ago. Springtime was hockey time in Pittsburgh. Springtime was when my family and my friends knew that hockey was on—and there was always a chance that our team was going to win.
My team, our team, that team is the Pittsburgh Penguins. I don’t live in Pittsburgh anymore, and I don’t know if I’ll ever again take up permanent residence in hometown city. Yet the idea of my team anywhere other than my hometown makes me shudder, wince, and want to cry out and scream how very, very wrong that is
.
Because whether I live in Pittsburgh or not, the Penguins belong there. The Penguins, whether it was Lemieux and Jagr starring on Civic Arena ice, or whether it’s Crosby hopefully starring on a beautiful new arena, or whether it’s any succession of players that come after Crosby’s team has hopefully won a few more Cups as Pittsburgh Penguins—the Pittsburgh Penguins are my team. No matter if Grandma’s no longer here to watch the games with us, no matter if for whatever reason I can’t watch the games with my brother, mother, or father, or even with my childhood friends, the Penguins need to stay right where they are. The Pittsburgh Penguins are the Pittsburgh Penguins, and my team needs to stay my team—things need to stay the way they are supposed to be.
Yet the question percolating in my mind is really this: Is my team still going to be my team? Like, seriously, I don’t live in Pittsburgh anymore, and apparently the guy with the highest bid for my team is from Kansas City. And somehow I’m edgy and nervous. Is my team still going to be my team? Are the Pittsburgh Penguins going to stay in Pittsburgh? Is my team going to remain my team?
I know the reality that professional teams move. I saw the Whalers move to Carolina and the Jets move to Phoenix. I saw franchises change their names. I know that if even the Cleveland Browns can turn into the Baltimore Ravens, well, c’mon, be real, anything can happen and often does in the world of modern professional sports. Yet none of those teams have been MY team. MY team can’t move.
Would the Penguins cease to be the Penguins if they were no longer in Pittsburgh? Would some new city give my team a new name and relegate the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise to the annals of the NHL history books? What would happen to MY team? Would anyone still know what the Stanley Cup was?
Because here’s the thing. As a Pens fan in my twenties, I don’t remember the years when my franchise was the joke of the entire league. Sure, I’ve read about those years, and of course I know my Penguins have been through bankruptcy twice in their history. Yet those aren’t my memories of my Penguins. My memories are those of Paul Coffey skating down Civic Arena ice, of Mario Lemieux’s point streak and bad back ending his point-scoring streak, and then my memories of are Stanley Cup wins, champagne in the locker room, and Hall of Fame players proudly wearing the jersey of the Pittsburgh Penguins. After the championships, I have memories of a 17 game winning streak, of Lemieux and Jagr continuing to win award after award, of a team that—by virtue of the presence of Lemieux or Jagr—always felt like it had a chance to do something come playoff time. I have memories of joy and Cup wins; I have memories of great players wearing the uniform of my NHL champion Pittsburgh Penguins.
The idea that someone wants to rip this history away and uproot MY team to Kansas City or Hartford or Winnipeg or wherever just gets my goat (sorry about the phrase). I’m bothered, enervated, on edge, and sad. I saw the Penguins become league champions. I also saw kid after kid in Pittsburgh start playing hockey. I watched ice rink after ice rink get built in Pittsburgh. I saw kids born and raised in Pittsburgh, in my city, who were ready and did and are still being drafted by NHL teams. I saw a team become a champion, be considered among the elite of the league, and develop a real fan base. I saw adults who loved the game and kids who learned to master the game that they loved to the point that they have a genuine shot at professional careers.
Sure, what I’ve had to witness the past few years has been sad. The Penguins, after years of being home to the elite stars, began to let star players leave. My team hadn’t missed the playoffs since the spring of 1990 up until a few years ago. Springtime was hockey time in Pittsburgh. Springtime was when my family and my friends knew that hockey was on—and there was always a chance that our team was going to win.
My team, our team, that team is the Pittsburgh Penguins. I don’t live in Pittsburgh anymore, and I don’t know if I’ll ever again take up permanent residence in hometown city. Yet the idea of my team anywhere other than my hometown makes me shudder, wince, and want to cry out and scream how very, very wrong that is
.
Because whether I live in Pittsburgh or not, the Penguins belong there. The Penguins, whether it was Lemieux and Jagr starring on Civic Arena ice, or whether it’s Crosby hopefully starring on a beautiful new arena, or whether it’s any succession of players that come after Crosby’s team has hopefully won a few more Cups as Pittsburgh Penguins—the Pittsburgh Penguins are my team. No matter if Grandma’s no longer here to watch the games with us, no matter if for whatever reason I can’t watch the games with my brother, mother, or father, or even with my childhood friends, the Penguins need to stay right where they are. The Pittsburgh Penguins are the Pittsburgh Penguins, and my team needs to stay my team—things need to stay the way they are supposed to be.
Aside
So yeah, I guess I’m okay with what Shero’s doing. I don’t know what happens to the Penguins if Malkin doesn’t come over, and I still think we’ve got too many youngsters learning on the job to be able to make the playoffs next year.
But having seen superstars perform amazing feats before, I won’t put anything past Crosby and some of the other talented youngsters. Writing them off would be dangerous, but yet my thinking still goes—
More of a team, yes, but a playoff team?
Eh, not quite yet.
But a contending team some future day not too too far away?
Yeah, probably.
So yeah, I guess I’m okay with what Shero’s doing. I don’t know what happens to the Penguins if Malkin doesn’t come over, and I still think we’ve got too many youngsters learning on the job to be able to make the playoffs next year.
But having seen superstars perform amazing feats before, I won’t put anything past Crosby and some of the other talented youngsters. Writing them off would be dangerous, but yet my thinking still goes—
More of a team, yes, but a playoff team?
Eh, not quite yet.
But a contending team some future day not too too far away?
Yeah, probably.
Oh, yeah, My team.....
Speaking of my team, Ray Shero seems intent on building a team. The Penguins will have two former Harvard captains on their team this year, so at the very least, we’re acquiring some of the most educated players in the NHL, if nothing else.
Likewise, Shero seems intent on bringing in players to play different roles. He obviously knows he has a young core to build around (if Malkin can ever get signed, for the longer that situation drags out, the worse I feel about the upcoming season). Yet he also knows a team needs to be a team—and not every player need be a star, and some players have different skill sets that are used differently.
Of course, one might say, "Duh!" But for fans of the Penguins over the past fifteen years, it’s important to note that we loved our stars. We first watched Lemieux, then Jagr, and now Crosby. We really don’t know what it’s like not to have one of the best players in the league suited up in our sweater. We get caught up in what our stars can do. Sure, we fondly remember our championship teams, and some of the"role players" on our championship teams had once been first-round draft picks. We still have fond memories of those guys and have heard them doing color commentary and such on the radio and TV. We know that role players are important, but I feel it’s important to note that Penguins fans, particularly those my age, grew up spoiled rotten and rooting for stars.
Ray Shero can check the videotapes of the early and even mid-nineties to see Penguins teams that would be well-suited to play in the new NHL of the past year. Of course at age eight I watched Lemieux, Francis, Mullen, Trottier, Coffey, Recchi, Stevens, Murphy, and a young Jagr, but even when I was thirteen I was watching still watching Lemieux, Francis, Jagr, and Sergei Zubov star. I remember the stars, fondly, of course, but I remember them because the teams on which they starred won.
So, I know Ray Shero’s concern is to build a team that can eventually contend, and I applaud that being his primary concern. But while Shero focuses on building a team, a little advice for fans like me so spoiled by stars—as you build a team, make sure you’re building a winner.
Even fans spoiled (who’ve only recently realized how spoiled they were) by years of watching superstar after superstar after superstar—we’ve cheered for stars, but we cheer hardest when the team wins.
Speaking of my team, Ray Shero seems intent on building a team. The Penguins will have two former Harvard captains on their team this year, so at the very least, we’re acquiring some of the most educated players in the NHL, if nothing else.
Likewise, Shero seems intent on bringing in players to play different roles. He obviously knows he has a young core to build around (if Malkin can ever get signed, for the longer that situation drags out, the worse I feel about the upcoming season). Yet he also knows a team needs to be a team—and not every player need be a star, and some players have different skill sets that are used differently.
Of course, one might say, "Duh!" But for fans of the Penguins over the past fifteen years, it’s important to note that we loved our stars. We first watched Lemieux, then Jagr, and now Crosby. We really don’t know what it’s like not to have one of the best players in the league suited up in our sweater. We get caught up in what our stars can do. Sure, we fondly remember our championship teams, and some of the"role players" on our championship teams had once been first-round draft picks. We still have fond memories of those guys and have heard them doing color commentary and such on the radio and TV. We know that role players are important, but I feel it’s important to note that Penguins fans, particularly those my age, grew up spoiled rotten and rooting for stars.
Ray Shero can check the videotapes of the early and even mid-nineties to see Penguins teams that would be well-suited to play in the new NHL of the past year. Of course at age eight I watched Lemieux, Francis, Mullen, Trottier, Coffey, Recchi, Stevens, Murphy, and a young Jagr, but even when I was thirteen I was watching still watching Lemieux, Francis, Jagr, and Sergei Zubov star. I remember the stars, fondly, of course, but I remember them because the teams on which they starred won.
So, I know Ray Shero’s concern is to build a team that can eventually contend, and I applaud that being his primary concern. But while Shero focuses on building a team, a little advice for fans like me so spoiled by stars—as you build a team, make sure you’re building a winner.
Even fans spoiled (who’ve only recently realized how spoiled they were) by years of watching superstar after superstar after superstar—we’ve cheered for stars, but we cheer hardest when the team wins.
Are You Kidding Me? Seriously? This is for real?
Garth Snow?! Garth Snow? Garth Snow! The "perennial backup" (quoted from an away message) is now the general manager of the New York Islanders. Former New York Rangers GM Neil Smith hadn’t even been on the job for six weeks when, suddenly, surprise, here’s Garth Snow. Garth Snow! Garth Snow? Garth Snow?!
Reviewing Snow’s qualifications to be the general manager of a NHL team, let’s see. Snow’s a veteran of many NHL seasons and played just last season, so he should be familiar with current standards of play. He should know what chemistry to look for in a goaltending tandem. Apparently Snow also has a business degree, so I’m sure that business degree will help to negotiate all the particulars and minutia of the new CBA and help him with the business of contract negotiations, etc.
Now let’s review my qualifications to be the general manager of a NHL team. I’ve never dressed for a NHL game, but I’ve watched the game for the past twenty years (yes, I’m twenty-four now, so you figure it out). I never had the skating skill or hand-eye coordination to play the game at an organized or elite level, but ask me about a 1-4 delay or penalty kill formations and I’m hardly lost. I’ve watch games and pinpointed which line combinations weren’t working and thought of suggestions that when the coach (without listening to my input, of course) actually implemented, presto. Likewise, I’ve usually been able to recognize talent. As I’ve stated on this blog before, I remember sitting in eighth or ninth grade (thirteen or fourteen, a kid) and firmly believing the Naslund trade would turn out bad for my team (which it inevitably did). I saw a few local kids play when they were about eight and noticed one had special talent—talent enough, ten years later, to become a NHL draft pick. All right, so I can analyze the game and tell you what teams need (and why I wasn’t surprised last year’s Penguins team turned out so bad) and which players have the potential to excel. And while I don’t have a business degree, surely I can apply that honors degree from a top 25 university to negotiate the new CBA, right?
Obviously, despite my lengthy list of attributes, Garth Snow is far more qualified to be a general manager of a NHL franchise than I am. Garth Snow has years of playing experience, and at least he’s previously been through the whole contract negotiation process. Garth Snow knows the culture of the NHL, and he knows the game. I have no idea what his skills in contract negotiation, recognizing talent, and composing an actual team are like, and neither does anyone else. So while it’s not quite so bad as the away message I quickly composed when the "Garth Snow?!" news first came across the news wire that said " I called the Naslund trade right, when will a NHL team pony up a few hundred grand and name me a GM?" implied, something just feels off and not right.
Garth Snow as a general manager is an unknown quantity. Snow has not made trades before, he has not negotiated contracts, and while I’m sure he’s learned the tendencies of his opponents over the years, Snow hasn’t overseen a scouting staff or had to build an entire team. In the "new NHL" that I so enjoyed watching during the Stanley Cup playoffs this spring, handing a job to an inexperienced former player just seems like a reversion to the old method of doing things. We’re going back to the "good ‘ol boys network," the network that says if you’re an ex NHL player, since you already know the hockey side of the game so well, of course you’ll be able to figure out the other aspects of what has now become the hockey business as well. I’ve never been impressed with the old boys network and often dismissed it as a bunch of crap. Of course former NHL players know the game, but that doesn’t mean any former NHL player is automatically going to know how to scout, how to coach, and in particular, how to general manage, as soon as they hang up their skates. Just like young players often have to learn (even the best youngsters still learn, as Jaromir Jagr did, how not to waste time beating the same player three times), so too do former players have to learn the skills of their new trade. Playing skill doesn’t automatically equal transference of skill to scouting or teaching and coaching. Particularly of keen interest in the Snow matter, playing skill is not going to equal skill in all of a general manager’s many duties. Those duties take time to learn, and even for the best ex-players, a period of apprenticeship to begin to master the minutia of everything they must contend with is what fans and ownership who yearn for championship teams should want.
Yet Charles Wang, the Islanders owner, thinks he’s found the answer in Garth Snow, an experienced goaltender, for sure, but a rookie general manager who’s going to have to master a whole lot on the job. While Mr. Wang apparently sees no need for scouts, there’s something every scout knows and evaluates, and it’s called "readine ss level." Is that 18-year-old hotshot defenseman ready for the NHL, or does he need another year of junior to add some more strength? Is that winger’s half-season AHL seasoning enough to make him ready to play in the show, or would it help him to take his team on an AHL playoff run? Scouts and coaches are constantly evaluating what their players are ready for and what those players can handle—is that 22-year-old defenseman ready for thirty minutes a night yet, or do you need to keep him at twenty minutes a night so he’ll still be sharp come the start of the playoffs? Yet in handing the general manager’s duties over to a rookie GM, Charles Wang showed clearly that he doesn’t understand the concept of readiness level in more ways than merely refusing to hire more scouts.
The Oilers this spring are a clear way one can measure the readiness level necessary for ex-players to become successful coaches and general managers. Kevin Lowe learned lessons in the pre-new CBA years, and he applied his knowledge of what a good team needs when he acquired players like Pronger and Roloson via trades. Lowe also had enough homegrown (drafted and developed by the Oilers) to help him to compose a team. Anyone who watched the Oilers in the playoffs would agree that signing Michael Peca helped Edmonton come springtime. Lowe used free agency, trades, and drafting and development to compose a team that he gave over to Coach Craig MacTavish. Granted, it helped MacTavish to have a defenseman he could play for half th e game and who’d make every defenseman he played with a lot better. Yet MacTavish still had to get his players to play as a team and work to each player’s individual strengths within a team game. GM Kevin Lowe built a good team, and MacTavish coached a good team to play as a good team should.
This spring the Oilers fell just short of winning the Stanley Cup, but it is important to note how long Lowe has been in his job as general manager how long MacTavish has been coaching. Blame it on the old CBA or old economics all you want, the fact is that MacTavish and Lowe had to get experience and practice building and coaching a team. Lowe learned lessons about what worked and what didn’t work and applied them to crafting the Edmonton Oilers’ team that came so close to wining the Cup. MacTavish surely applied lessons of his playing days while coaching, yet he also had to learn how to coach. And by the time MacTavish had learned how to coach and Lowe had become known as a general manager who could compose a contender, guess what? The general manager and coach had enough experience to know what it took to get a team to the brink of winning the Cup.
Contrast the season MacTavish and Lowe had in Edmonton with Wayne Gretzky’s season as head coa ch of the Phoenix Coyotes. I’m still stubborn enough to view Bobby Orr (who changed the game) and Mario Lemieux (hometown bias) as more talented than Gretzky, but Gretzky’s the one whose name is in the NHL record book all those times. Sure, blame the missing pieces of Phoenix’s roster all you want (it takes a general manager to build the right team and a coach who can coach that team), but Gretzky’s first year as a coach revealed that there are still things about coaching a team he’s going to have to learn through experience and practice. Gretzky is widely hailed as the best player in the NHL history by many, yet he’s still learning about coaching as he experiences coaching. Likewise, MacTavish and Lowe were widely regarded as legitimate, competent, very good NHL players in their heyday, and yet they still had to learn lessons about their new jobs through experience. Gretzky, MacTavish, and Lowe all won Cups in their careers, and all know what it takes to win the Cup, and yet all are still learning exactly what it will take to win the Cup in their new roles.
Back to the Islanders and Garth Snow. Snow had a successful and lengthy NHL career as mostly a #2 netminder, but his playing career was not nearly so successful as those of Gretzky, Mac Tavish, and Lowe. Does the seeming mediocrity of his playing career prevent him from reaching great heights as a general manager? Of course not (see examples of those coaches and general managers whose playing days have long since been super seded by their off-ice hockey triumphs). Yet if Charles Wang is looking for his Islanders to right their ship immediately, well, to echo what several others have already said, he should have looked further than Garth Snow.
Snow could surprise and astound everyone. Maybe he’ll help build the Islanders up. Maybe he’ll be able to persuade Wang that a team that wants to contend for the Cup needs to have a scouting and minor league system that continually evaluates and drafts and develops players who will help build a team comprised of all the pieces a contender must have. Maybe his knowledge of current NHL players and familiarity with the culture of the league will help in his new role. Maybe. I’m writing it here, so you know I think it could possibly happen—someday.
The "someday" is the important part. Whether Snow succeeds or fails in his stint as GM, whether the Islanders actually stay in the playoff race for a full season or not, one fact remains. Garth Snow will be learning on the job, and that’s what prompted me to write those cynical, biting away messages, and that’s what prompted hockey journalists to roll their eyes when told that Wang had replaced Neil Smith with Garth Snow.
Because if you hand me or a hockey journalist a GM job, we’d know what we were supposed to do, but we’d be learning how to do our new job on the job. We don’t have Snow’s years of playing experience, but whether Wang would have handed a journalist, me, or Snow the job—every one of us would be learning how to do the job on the job.
Could it be worthwhile to learn the job on the job? Sometimes that’s the way it has to be done. The defenseman doesn’t learn how to play thirty minutes a night until he starts doing it. The coach doesn’t learn how to create li nes until he starts creating lines in practice and switching lines up in games. The general manager doesn’t realize the mistake he can’t make again with contract negotiations until recognizes the first negotiating mistake he made.
But for an owner who says he wants to contend and that he wants to win? You’re better off hiring those people who’ve already been through the trial-and-error and know how to do the job if you want to win now.
But as a Penguins who still remembers with bitterness the David Volek shot in the spring of 1993 (I was ten), I’m certainly not going to shed tears if the Islanders organization isn’t concerned with doing whatever it takes to create a winning franchise again. I feel bad for fans who will end up yearning for Mi ke Milbury’s tirad es (as an aside, I always kind of had a "thing" for watching Milbury go out of his his mind and enjoyed the entertainment Milbury provided). I’ll feel bad, too, when watching players who could be pieces of contending teams yet never ha ve the chance to co ntend for real—that will suck.
So for the sake of Isles’ fans (and I can never be one), here’s hoping Garth Snow can learn on the job. Yet Isles’ fans (and fans of my current hometown team) know the truth from years of watching youngsters play—learning on the job often means you lose more than you win, at least for this season...
Garth Snow?! Garth Snow? Garth Snow! The "perennial backup" (quoted from an away message) is now the general manager of the New York Islanders. Former New York Rangers GM Neil Smith hadn’t even been on the job for six weeks when, suddenly, surprise, here’s Garth Snow. Garth Snow! Garth Snow? Garth Snow?!
Reviewing Snow’s qualifications to be the general manager of a NHL team, let’s see. Snow’s a veteran of many NHL seasons and played just last season, so he should be familiar with current standards of play. He should know what chemistry to look for in a goaltending tandem. Apparently Snow also has a business degree, so I’m sure that business degree will help to negotiate all the particulars and minutia of the new CBA and help him with the business of contract negotiations, etc.
Now let’s review my qualifications to be the general manager of a NHL team. I’ve never dressed for a NHL game, but I’ve watched the game for the past twenty years (yes, I’m twenty-four now, so you figure it out). I never had the skating skill or hand-eye coordination to play the game at an organized or elite level, but ask me about a 1-4 delay or penalty kill formations and I’m hardly lost. I’ve watch games and pinpointed which line combinations weren’t working and thought of suggestions that when the coach (without listening to my input, of course) actually implemented, presto. Likewise, I’ve usually been able to recognize talent. As I’ve stated on this blog before, I remember sitting in eighth or ninth grade (thirteen or fourteen, a kid) and firmly believing the Naslund trade would turn out bad for my team (which it inevitably did). I saw a few local kids play when they were about eight and noticed one had special talent—talent enough, ten years later, to become a NHL draft pick. All right, so I can analyze the game and tell you what teams need (and why I wasn’t surprised last year’s Penguins team turned out so bad) and which players have the potential to excel. And while I don’t have a business degree, surely I can apply that honors degree from a top 25 university to negotiate the new CBA, right?
Obviously, despite my lengthy list of attributes, Garth Snow is far more qualified to be a general manager of a NHL franchise than I am. Garth Snow has years of playing experience, and at least he’s previously been through the whole contract negotiation process. Garth Snow knows the culture of the NHL, and he knows the game. I have no idea what his skills in contract negotiation, recognizing talent, and composing an actual team are like, and neither does anyone else. So while it’s not quite so bad as the away message I quickly composed when the "Garth Snow?!" news first came across the news wire that said " I called the Naslund trade right, when will a NHL team pony up a few hundred grand and name me a GM?" implied, something just feels off and not right.
Garth Snow as a general manager is an unknown quantity. Snow has not made trades before, he has not negotiated contracts, and while I’m sure he’s learned the tendencies of his opponents over the years, Snow hasn’t overseen a scouting staff or had to build an entire team. In the "new NHL" that I so enjoyed watching during the Stanley Cup playoffs this spring, handing a job to an inexperienced former player just seems like a reversion to the old method of doing things. We’re going back to the "good ‘ol boys network," the network that says if you’re an ex NHL player, since you already know the hockey side of the game so well, of course you’ll be able to figure out the other aspects of what has now become the hockey business as well. I’ve never been impressed with the old boys network and often dismissed it as a bunch of crap. Of course former NHL players know the game, but that doesn’t mean any former NHL player is automatically going to know how to scout, how to coach, and in particular, how to general manage, as soon as they hang up their skates. Just like young players often have to learn (even the best youngsters still learn, as Jaromir Jagr did, how not to waste time beating the same player three times), so too do former players have to learn the skills of their new trade. Playing skill doesn’t automatically equal transference of skill to scouting or teaching and coaching. Particularly of keen interest in the Snow matter, playing skill is not going to equal skill in all of a general manager’s many duties. Those duties take time to learn, and even for the best ex-players, a period of apprenticeship to begin to master the minutia of everything they must contend with is what fans and ownership who yearn for championship teams should want.
Yet Charles Wang, the Islanders owner, thinks he’s found the answer in Garth Snow, an experienced goaltender, for sure, but a rookie general manager who’s going to have to master a whole lot on the job. While Mr. Wang apparently sees no need for scouts, there’s something every scout knows and evaluates, and it’s called "readine ss level." Is that 18-year-old hotshot defenseman ready for the NHL, or does he need another year of junior to add some more strength? Is that winger’s half-season AHL seasoning enough to make him ready to play in the show, or would it help him to take his team on an AHL playoff run? Scouts and coaches are constantly evaluating what their players are ready for and what those players can handle—is that 22-year-old defenseman ready for thirty minutes a night yet, or do you need to keep him at twenty minutes a night so he’ll still be sharp come the start of the playoffs? Yet in handing the general manager’s duties over to a rookie GM, Charles Wang showed clearly that he doesn’t understand the concept of readiness level in more ways than merely refusing to hire more scouts.
The Oilers this spring are a clear way one can measure the readiness level necessary for ex-players to become successful coaches and general managers. Kevin Lowe learned lessons in the pre-new CBA years, and he applied his knowledge of what a good team needs when he acquired players like Pronger and Roloson via trades. Lowe also had enough homegrown (drafted and developed by the Oilers) to help him to compose a team. Anyone who watched the Oilers in the playoffs would agree that signing Michael Peca helped Edmonton come springtime. Lowe used free agency, trades, and drafting and development to compose a team that he gave over to Coach Craig MacTavish. Granted, it helped MacTavish to have a defenseman he could play for half th e game and who’d make every defenseman he played with a lot better. Yet MacTavish still had to get his players to play as a team and work to each player’s individual strengths within a team game. GM Kevin Lowe built a good team, and MacTavish coached a good team to play as a good team should.
This spring the Oilers fell just short of winning the Stanley Cup, but it is important to note how long Lowe has been in his job as general manager how long MacTavish has been coaching. Blame it on the old CBA or old economics all you want, the fact is that MacTavish and Lowe had to get experience and practice building and coaching a team. Lowe learned lessons about what worked and what didn’t work and applied them to crafting the Edmonton Oilers’ team that came so close to wining the Cup. MacTavish surely applied lessons of his playing days while coaching, yet he also had to learn how to coach. And by the time MacTavish had learned how to coach and Lowe had become known as a general manager who could compose a contender, guess what? The general manager and coach had enough experience to know what it took to get a team to the brink of winning the Cup.
Contrast the season MacTavish and Lowe had in Edmonton with Wayne Gretzky’s season as head coa ch of the Phoenix Coyotes. I’m still stubborn enough to view Bobby Orr (who changed the game) and Mario Lemieux (hometown bias) as more talented than Gretzky, but Gretzky’s the one whose name is in the NHL record book all those times. Sure, blame the missing pieces of Phoenix’s roster all you want (it takes a general manager to build the right team and a coach who can coach that team), but Gretzky’s first year as a coach revealed that there are still things about coaching a team he’s going to have to learn through experience and practice. Gretzky is widely hailed as the best player in the NHL history by many, yet he’s still learning about coaching as he experiences coaching. Likewise, MacTavish and Lowe were widely regarded as legitimate, competent, very good NHL players in their heyday, and yet they still had to learn lessons about their new jobs through experience. Gretzky, MacTavish, and Lowe all won Cups in their careers, and all know what it takes to win the Cup, and yet all are still learning exactly what it will take to win the Cup in their new roles.
Back to the Islanders and Garth Snow. Snow had a successful and lengthy NHL career as mostly a #2 netminder, but his playing career was not nearly so successful as those of Gretzky, Mac Tavish, and Lowe. Does the seeming mediocrity of his playing career prevent him from reaching great heights as a general manager? Of course not (see examples of those coaches and general managers whose playing days have long since been super seded by their off-ice hockey triumphs). Yet if Charles Wang is looking for his Islanders to right their ship immediately, well, to echo what several others have already said, he should have looked further than Garth Snow.
Snow could surprise and astound everyone. Maybe he’ll help build the Islanders up. Maybe he’ll be able to persuade Wang that a team that wants to contend for the Cup needs to have a scouting and minor league system that continually evaluates and drafts and develops players who will help build a team comprised of all the pieces a contender must have. Maybe his knowledge of current NHL players and familiarity with the culture of the league will help in his new role. Maybe. I’m writing it here, so you know I think it could possibly happen—someday.
The "someday" is the important part. Whether Snow succeeds or fails in his stint as GM, whether the Islanders actually stay in the playoff race for a full season or not, one fact remains. Garth Snow will be learning on the job, and that’s what prompted me to write those cynical, biting away messages, and that’s what prompted hockey journalists to roll their eyes when told that Wang had replaced Neil Smith with Garth Snow.
Because if you hand me or a hockey journalist a GM job, we’d know what we were supposed to do, but we’d be learning how to do our new job on the job. We don’t have Snow’s years of playing experience, but whether Wang would have handed a journalist, me, or Snow the job—every one of us would be learning how to do the job on the job.
Could it be worthwhile to learn the job on the job? Sometimes that’s the way it has to be done. The defenseman doesn’t learn how to play thirty minutes a night until he starts doing it. The coach doesn’t learn how to create li nes until he starts creating lines in practice and switching lines up in games. The general manager doesn’t realize the mistake he can’t make again with contract negotiations until recognizes the first negotiating mistake he made.
But for an owner who says he wants to contend and that he wants to win? You’re better off hiring those people who’ve already been through the trial-and-error and know how to do the job if you want to win now.
But as a Penguins who still remembers with bitterness the David Volek shot in the spring of 1993 (I was ten), I’m certainly not going to shed tears if the Islanders organization isn’t concerned with doing whatever it takes to create a winning franchise again. I feel bad for fans who will end up yearning for Mi ke Milbury’s tirad es (as an aside, I always kind of had a "thing" for watching Milbury go out of his his mind and enjoyed the entertainment Milbury provided). I’ll feel bad, too, when watching players who could be pieces of contending teams yet never ha ve the chance to co ntend for real—that will suck.
So for the sake of Isles’ fans (and I can never be one), here’s hoping Garth Snow can learn on the job. Yet Isles’ fans (and fans of my current hometown team) know the truth from years of watching youngsters play—learning on the job often means you lose more than you win, at least for this season...
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Shorter Aside
Seriously now, I have already begun to do some daydreaming about all things that could go right for my Penguins in, let’s say, four or five years.
So let’s say Marc Andre Fleury develops into a "money goalie" who’s going to command an obscene salary because he’s finally proven he’s a money goalie in the big games that win Cups.
Let’s say two of our defensive prospects turn into all-star caliber defensemen. Maybe one of them develops into at least a contender for the Norris Trophy.
Let’s say Crosby is recognized as the best player in the world and commands the league maximum salary because, well, he’s the best player in the world. Let’s say that in the Hockey News’ list of top 50 NHL players, Mal kin and Staal are ranked somewhere on that list, let’s say one is ranked really close to Crosby at the top.
Granted, this whole scenario is predicated upon everything going right for the Penguins—no injuries that impede development, no players who were projected to be stars but turn out to be pluggers, etc—
But if you look at the lineup and you know the NHL CBA, choices are going to have to be made. Which player do we have to keep to continue to maintain a contender? Which player do we sadly have to say the old, we love you, you’re great, but this is what we have to do?
At this point in 2006, I’ve seen enough hockey to know not to assume that every one of the Penguins blue-chip prospects will develop into what they are pro jected t o be. I know it took Markus Naslund eight years to bloom and that happened not in Pittsburgh but in western Canada. I know Aleksey Morozov never turned into what he was supposed to be. I know Jaromir Jagr turned into what he was supposed to be on the ice and lost his mind briefly (though I do sincerely wish that Jagr’s regained his mind, as his play with the Rangers this past season hopefully attests). So I’m envisaging a scenario when everything goes right and we have the pleasure of watchi ng the tee nagers we drafted grow into stars that set records, win a wards, and contend for the Stanley Cup year after year.
I’m already wondering what happens if and when our current teenagers and youngsters ever become stars. Because tough choices will have to be made. The team will have to be replenished and revitalized by still younger players, which might entail trading away stars for players who will can help both in the now of 2012 and later of 2016. At the present moment, it’s all just "future food for thought" in the middle of a long, lazy summer.
It seems the best thing to do is root for the current 2006 Pens youngsters to become stars, harass the people who need to be harassed so that a new arena gets built in Pi ttsburgh so Pittsburgh fans can actually have the chance to watch these kids become stars who star on home ice, and then hope for and appreciate the stardom when it comes.
Yet even as I whine about another upcoming rebuilding year and a core roster that at the present moment seems light years away from making the playoffs, let alone contending for the Cup—watch out. The future arrives sooner than we think.’’
Seriously now, I have already begun to do some daydreaming about all things that could go right for my Penguins in, let’s say, four or five years.
So let’s say Marc Andre Fleury develops into a "money goalie" who’s going to command an obscene salary because he’s finally proven he’s a money goalie in the big games that win Cups.
Let’s say two of our defensive prospects turn into all-star caliber defensemen. Maybe one of them develops into at least a contender for the Norris Trophy.
Let’s say Crosby is recognized as the best player in the world and commands the league maximum salary because, well, he’s the best player in the world. Let’s say that in the Hockey News’ list of top 50 NHL players, Mal kin and Staal are ranked somewhere on that list, let’s say one is ranked really close to Crosby at the top.
Granted, this whole scenario is predicated upon everything going right for the Penguins—no injuries that impede development, no players who were projected to be stars but turn out to be pluggers, etc—
But if you look at the lineup and you know the NHL CBA, choices are going to have to be made. Which player do we have to keep to continue to maintain a contender? Which player do we sadly have to say the old, we love you, you’re great, but this is what we have to do?
At this point in 2006, I’ve seen enough hockey to know not to assume that every one of the Penguins blue-chip prospects will develop into what they are pro jected t o be. I know it took Markus Naslund eight years to bloom and that happened not in Pittsburgh but in western Canada. I know Aleksey Morozov never turned into what he was supposed to be. I know Jaromir Jagr turned into what he was supposed to be on the ice and lost his mind briefly (though I do sincerely wish that Jagr’s regained his mind, as his play with the Rangers this past season hopefully attests). So I’m envisaging a scenario when everything goes right and we have the pleasure of watchi ng the tee nagers we drafted grow into stars that set records, win a wards, and contend for the Stanley Cup year after year.
I’m already wondering what happens if and when our current teenagers and youngsters ever become stars. Because tough choices will have to be made. The team will have to be replenished and revitalized by still younger players, which might entail trading away stars for players who will can help both in the now of 2012 and later of 2016. At the present moment, it’s all just "future food for thought" in the middle of a long, lazy summer.
It seems the best thing to do is root for the current 2006 Pens youngsters to become stars, harass the people who need to be harassed so that a new arena gets built in Pi ttsburgh so Pittsburgh fans can actually have the chance to watch these kids become stars who star on home ice, and then hope for and appreciate the stardom when it comes.
Yet even as I whine about another upcoming rebuilding year and a core roster that at the present moment seems light years away from making the playoffs, let alone contending for the Cup—watch out. The future arrives sooner than we think.’’
More "I’m an Adult " Moments
I’m 24 now. This age means I’m an adult. I frequently have such moments when it comes to things related to work and life and decision making. But now the startling realization "I’m an adult!" moments come when I am reading or hearing about hockey, and somehow it seems unfair that the real world intrudes on hockey (which has always been fantasyland and an escape to me, to some degree).
Recent Moment 1: I read about Eric Lindros being an "aging star." Granted, I know all about Lindros’ injuries. I know about the concussions and how the whole Eric Lindros era never really arrived in part due to Lindros’s injuries and in part because Lindros wasn’t all he was hyped to be.
Yet Eric Lindros as an "aging star?" Sure, I was still in grade school myself when Eric Lindros was hailed as the next big thing. But I remember Lindros before he was a star and when he truly was a star and deservedly won the Hart Trophy over Jags (though I moaned about it at the time), and now he’s just an aging star? Seriously, sure, I’ve seen it happen myself, and I know Lindros is no longer the dominant physical force he was for far too brief a time.
Yet "aging star?" Good grief. If Eric Lindros is an aging star, I really am a grown-up.
Recent Moment 2: I watched Chris Pronger dominate the Stanley Cup playoffs more so than any other player (apologies to Eric Staal, Cam Ward, Dwayne Roloson, and Fernando Pisani). Maybe I was fawning over Pron ger because it’s been years since my Pens had a true number 1 on defense (apologies to the player once known as Sergei Gonchar), and I’d forgotten how an elite defenseman can influence the outcome of a game or a series. Yet, seriously, the last time (aside from the year he and Jagr were in a tight race for the Hart Trophy) I remember paying any serious attention to Pronger was back when he was Mike Keenan’s favorite whipping boy. (I always enjoyed reading about Keenan and his treatment of various players.) Of course, I was aware Pronger had since grown up and matured and blossomed into the one of the league’s finest defensemen, but he played in the Western conference, my team played in the Eastern conference, and there was never much need to pay any attention to Pronger. Save for the playoffs where I couldn’t take my eyes off him (again, I blame this entirely on being spoiled by the Murphy/Coffey years in addition to the recent AHL defense patrolling our blue line). Chris Pronger is the one with veteran savvy who is telling his younger team mates what to do? This is the kid Mike Keenan once threatened to, well, let’s not even go there? Chris Pronger is a grown-up now. And yes, so am I.
Recent Moment 3: Earlier this season, a Rangers-Penguins game was nationally televised. Mike Emerick set the scene perfectly with a "15th game in the league" for Sidney Crosby and a "15th year in the league" for Jaromir Jagr. Jagr was now the sage old veteran, and Crosby was the young kid. But wait a second. I remember Jagr. Seriously, he’s probably the first player (I was too young to remember Lemieux before his prime), I remember before his prime and in his prime. Jagr’s resurgence has left me hopeful that I can still watch Jagr play a few more good years before injuries and age seriously catch up to him. Jagr was the young, inexperienced kid who needed help from the sage veterans. Seriously. And now—Jagr’s the experienced one and Crosby’s the kid? Well, of course. But Mike Emerick, who once narrated an NHL video that included a brief 2 minute segment on Jaromir Jagr’s first 2 NHL seasons, is now telling me that Jagr kid is seriously a grown-up, at least on the ice? If Jaromir Jagr is an adult, so am I.
I could probably list more recent "ah-ha" moments where the sport of hockey further intrudes on reality. Certainly watching superstars retire and become the men who wear suits and perform scouting and general managing duties and stand behind the benches are more moments where I recognize that time has passed and is passing and will continue to pass.
For the moment, right now, anyhow, the moments are still "I’m an adult!" moments. I haven’t yet felt the "I’m getting old!" moments that I will certainly feel on the day when Jaromir Jagr hangs up his skates and goes into H ockey’s Hall of Fame or that I will feel when other players of Jagr’s generation begin to retire. I’m beginning to experience what my parents and other generations of sports fans have already grown accustomed to experiencing—they watched Kevin Lowe and Craig MacTavish play for the Oilers; now they watch them behind the bench and at press conferences. They watched Greg Malone play for the Penguins, but they know he’s now a scout. Players get old, players retire and find other things to do, sometimes in hockey, sometimes not, and my parents gasp about how old a former player looks and then my parents remember that their own children (who weren’t around during that ex-player’s playing days) are grown.
Hockey is beginning to resemble and intrude on reality and real life. Then again, maybe hockey always resembled real life. As a child, the sport is fantasyland and an escape, and most children don’t concern themselves with many of the real-world concerns of the grown-ups around them.
I’ll deal with the "I’m an adult!" moments now in my real life and in the lives of hockey players I remember as somewhat daredevil teenagers because those moments can be wonderful and reassuring. A rookie can room with Jaromir Jagr for stability and help adjusting to North America, and Chris Pronger can help lead his team in the playoffs. The moments are reassuring in that everyone, athlete or not, experiences the "I’m an adult!" moments.
As for the "I’m getting old!" moments, as my comments on the Yzerman and Lemieux retirements should reveal, I’m not as big on these moments. They make me sad, truth told. Sure, there are new things to be achieved, and maybe Wayn e Gretzky will win a Jack Adams award some day. Yet somehow Gretzky should be associated with scoring
championships. The "I’m getting old!" moments, of course, can be glorious when the kids of those professionals grow up and outperform their parents or even perform as their parents did. Of course things can be appreciated in the "I’m getting old!" moments, too, but the yearning for a past that was somehow better or superior—that should never be and too often is in those "I’m getting old" moments.
Yet I have a plan for next year. It involves flicking on the TV when Sidney Crosby lines up to face Chris Chelios. When Chelios is on the ice against Crosby and does something I don’t like—as Chelios so often does when playing Penguins stars—I’ll give Chris my usual reprimand and tell Crosby what to do to show up Chelios. But, of course, when the camera show s a close-up of Chelios’s statistics and of Crosby’s statistics, I’ll smile at both of them, and I’ll still secretly wish Chelios, still dark, mean, talented, and (yes, I’ve always thought) beautiful even all scarred up, was on my side.
I’ll watch Crosby and Chelios go at each other for the moments I have, and it will be good—and all of us, the teenager, the forty year old, and the twenty something, will be kids for a couple of seconds, and that will be nice..
I’m 24 now. This age means I’m an adult. I frequently have such moments when it comes to things related to work and life and decision making. But now the startling realization "I’m an adult!" moments come when I am reading or hearing about hockey, and somehow it seems unfair that the real world intrudes on hockey (which has always been fantasyland and an escape to me, to some degree).
Recent Moment 1: I read about Eric Lindros being an "aging star." Granted, I know all about Lindros’ injuries. I know about the concussions and how the whole Eric Lindros era never really arrived in part due to Lindros’s injuries and in part because Lindros wasn’t all he was hyped to be.
Yet Eric Lindros as an "aging star?" Sure, I was still in grade school myself when Eric Lindros was hailed as the next big thing. But I remember Lindros before he was a star and when he truly was a star and deservedly won the Hart Trophy over Jags (though I moaned about it at the time), and now he’s just an aging star? Seriously, sure, I’ve seen it happen myself, and I know Lindros is no longer the dominant physical force he was for far too brief a time.
Yet "aging star?" Good grief. If Eric Lindros is an aging star, I really am a grown-up.
Recent Moment 2: I watched Chris Pronger dominate the Stanley Cup playoffs more so than any other player (apologies to Eric Staal, Cam Ward, Dwayne Roloson, and Fernando Pisani). Maybe I was fawning over Pron ger because it’s been years since my Pens had a true number 1 on defense (apologies to the player once known as Sergei Gonchar), and I’d forgotten how an elite defenseman can influence the outcome of a game or a series. Yet, seriously, the last time (aside from the year he and Jagr were in a tight race for the Hart Trophy) I remember paying any serious attention to Pronger was back when he was Mike Keenan’s favorite whipping boy. (I always enjoyed reading about Keenan and his treatment of various players.) Of course, I was aware Pronger had since grown up and matured and blossomed into the one of the league’s finest defensemen, but he played in the Western conference, my team played in the Eastern conference, and there was never much need to pay any attention to Pronger. Save for the playoffs where I couldn’t take my eyes off him (again, I blame this entirely on being spoiled by the Murphy/Coffey years in addition to the recent AHL defense patrolling our blue line). Chris Pronger is the one with veteran savvy who is telling his younger team mates what to do? This is the kid Mike Keenan once threatened to, well, let’s not even go there? Chris Pronger is a grown-up now. And yes, so am I.
Recent Moment 3: Earlier this season, a Rangers-Penguins game was nationally televised. Mike Emerick set the scene perfectly with a "15th game in the league" for Sidney Crosby and a "15th year in the league" for Jaromir Jagr. Jagr was now the sage old veteran, and Crosby was the young kid. But wait a second. I remember Jagr. Seriously, he’s probably the first player (I was too young to remember Lemieux before his prime), I remember before his prime and in his prime. Jagr’s resurgence has left me hopeful that I can still watch Jagr play a few more good years before injuries and age seriously catch up to him. Jagr was the young, inexperienced kid who needed help from the sage veterans. Seriously. And now—Jagr’s the experienced one and Crosby’s the kid? Well, of course. But Mike Emerick, who once narrated an NHL video that included a brief 2 minute segment on Jaromir Jagr’s first 2 NHL seasons, is now telling me that Jagr kid is seriously a grown-up, at least on the ice? If Jaromir Jagr is an adult, so am I.
I could probably list more recent "ah-ha" moments where the sport of hockey further intrudes on reality. Certainly watching superstars retire and become the men who wear suits and perform scouting and general managing duties and stand behind the benches are more moments where I recognize that time has passed and is passing and will continue to pass.
For the moment, right now, anyhow, the moments are still "I’m an adult!" moments. I haven’t yet felt the "I’m getting old!" moments that I will certainly feel on the day when Jaromir Jagr hangs up his skates and goes into H ockey’s Hall of Fame or that I will feel when other players of Jagr’s generation begin to retire. I’m beginning to experience what my parents and other generations of sports fans have already grown accustomed to experiencing—they watched Kevin Lowe and Craig MacTavish play for the Oilers; now they watch them behind the bench and at press conferences. They watched Greg Malone play for the Penguins, but they know he’s now a scout. Players get old, players retire and find other things to do, sometimes in hockey, sometimes not, and my parents gasp about how old a former player looks and then my parents remember that their own children (who weren’t around during that ex-player’s playing days) are grown.
Hockey is beginning to resemble and intrude on reality and real life. Then again, maybe hockey always resembled real life. As a child, the sport is fantasyland and an escape, and most children don’t concern themselves with many of the real-world concerns of the grown-ups around them.
I’ll deal with the "I’m an adult!" moments now in my real life and in the lives of hockey players I remember as somewhat daredevil teenagers because those moments can be wonderful and reassuring. A rookie can room with Jaromir Jagr for stability and help adjusting to North America, and Chris Pronger can help lead his team in the playoffs. The moments are reassuring in that everyone, athlete or not, experiences the "I’m an adult!" moments.
As for the "I’m getting old!" moments, as my comments on the Yzerman and Lemieux retirements should reveal, I’m not as big on these moments. They make me sad, truth told. Sure, there are new things to be achieved, and maybe Wayn e Gretzky will win a Jack Adams award some day. Yet somehow Gretzky should be associated with scoring
championships. The "I’m getting old!" moments, of course, can be glorious when the kids of those professionals grow up and outperform their parents or even perform as their parents did. Of course things can be appreciated in the "I’m getting old!" moments, too, but the yearning for a past that was somehow better or superior—that should never be and too often is in those "I’m getting old" moments.
Yet I have a plan for next year. It involves flicking on the TV when Sidney Crosby lines up to face Chris Chelios. When Chelios is on the ice against Crosby and does something I don’t like—as Chelios so often does when playing Penguins stars—I’ll give Chris my usual reprimand and tell Crosby what to do to show up Chelios. But, of course, when the camera show s a close-up of Chelios’s statistics and of Crosby’s statistics, I’ll smile at both of them, and I’ll still secretly wish Chelios, still dark, mean, talented, and (yes, I’ve always thought) beautiful even all scarred up, was on my side.
I’ll watch Crosby and Chelios go at each other for the moments I have, and it will be good—and all of us, the teenager, the forty year old, and the twenty something, will be kids for a couple of seconds, and that will be nice..
Are Single-Team Superstars Relegated to History?
This summer has seen the retirement of Steve Yzerman, the heart and soul of the Detroit Red Wings since the mid-1980’s. This past NHL season saw the retirement of Mario Lemieux, the heart and soul of the Pittsburgh Penguins since he was drafted in 1984.
Watching the way the careers of both men ended was hard for a hockey fan to accept. Mario Lemieux’s career is supposed to end on the ice, holding the Stanley Cup aloft. Steve Yzerman’s career is supposed to end the same way, captaining his Red Wings to another Cup championship. Yet there were moments this season when I winced as I watched Mario play—he looked older and slower, and his body could no longer play the game as his mind com manded. Steve Yzerman’s age and injuries caught up with him this season in much the same way as did Lemieux’s health and age.
Lemieux and Yzerman both announced retirement by holding press conferences at which the men wore suits. As any Pengu ins fan knows, Mario Lemieux should not wear a suit unless he is at an awards ceremony. As any Red Wings fan knows, Steve Yzerman wears a suit to accept NHL awards. As a lifelong Pens fan, watching Lemieux retire for the second time—and knowing this retir ement has to stick because forty years old and a heart condition means forty years old with a heart condition—well, it made me sad. I can only imagine how sad Red Wings fans felt after having had the privilege of watching Yzerman play for over twenty se asons. Granted, as fans we knew logically that Lemieux and Yzerman were not the players they’d once been, and it hurt to watch the players who once dominated the league occasionally perform at the mere level of "slightly above average." Yet that didn’t mean we didn’t yearn for a return the past, for a reversion back to just a few short years ago. We remembered Lemieux and Yzerman at the top of their game, as champions, as masters of the NHL, and we wanted more memories of artistry and dominance performed by our hometown players.
As I reflect on Lemieux and Yzerman’s retirements this year and note the ruckus created by the current CBA and free agent signing period, I wonder if the next generation of hockey fans will ever have the opportunity to feel what Penguins and Red Wings fans felt this past year when Yzerman and Lemieux retired. Steve Yzerman is, forever, always, and only, a Detroit Red Wing. Mario Lemieux is, forever, always, and only, a Pittsburgh Penguin. Fans of the Wings and Penguins saw teenagers drafted, saw teenagers develop into stars, saw teenagers grow up on and off the ice, saw young men dominate in the prime of their careers, saw young men captain teams to long sought after Stanley Cup championships, saw young men win awards, and then watched as young men grew to become the old, wise players who were depended upon for such things as "veteran savvy" and "Cup winning experience." And fans of the Red Wings and Penguins watched the players they’d known first as boys, then as young men, then as men who aren’t old but who have been beaten and bruised by half a lifetime of playing a game, say they couldn’t play anymore, not at the level they wanted to, anyway. We watched Yzerman and Lemieux walk away from hockey and it hurts even though we know it’s the right thing.
I believe it hurt even more for Pittsburgh and Detroit fans when Lemieux and Yzerman skated off the ice for the final time because those players were ours and ours alone. We didn’t just see the player as a kid filled with gobs of potential. We didn’t just see a superstar dominate. We didn’t just see an older veteran re-adapt his role to fit his changed skill set and a changing game. We saw it all; we saw everything. And somehow, that’s special. It’s a part of what’s made hockey what it is for me. Lemieux in a Pens uniform, Yzerman in a Red Wings uniform—this is how things are supposed to be.
Fans of certain teams might wonder what I’m fussing about—I’m thinking of Edmonton fans who watched Wayne Gretzky get traded and who already know that players aren’t "ours" forever. Even I, as a Pens fan who watched Jaromir Jagr get traded when no one considered such a trade even a remote possibility before the year 2000, should know that
players don’t belong to teams any more. I’ll even admit that (at least when my Pens are out of the playoffs and I need to choose a rooting interest) I cheer and root for certain players because they remind me of how hockey can and should be played. When the Pens are out of the playoffs, I don’t mind cheering for Jaromir Jagr (who I watched as a kid who dazzled with potential before he dominated in the prime of his career). I’ve always hoped for the Canucks to come out of the West because I was convinced Markus Naslund would one day blossom (he, too, showed flashes of brilliance as a Pen) into a star. So I’ll concede that I cheer for Jagr and Naslund and I’ll also concede to cheering for other players this spring—players who reminded me of how the game was played by the superstars who once won Stanley Cups for the Pens and who are now forever ensconced in Hockey’s Hall of Fame.
Yet somehow cheering for Jagr and Naslund feels different when they’re not on my team. It’s not the same as cheering for the kid your team drafted, the one who grew up into a superstar, the one who is now known throughout the league as a grizzled veteran with 15 years experience, the one who belongs to you and you alone—it’s just not the same.
A s I watch the current CBA madness—which, by the way, I’m grateful for and appreciate because I feel teams really do have a better chance to win under such a plan—I still feel that something is being lost. Granted, that "something" was lost long ago, probably that day when Wayne Gretzky was traded to Los Angeles. It’s the hope that maybe that "something" can be recaptured that probably prompted the utter vitriol and malevolent words Edmonton fans directed at Chris Pronger. It’s knowing that "something" is gone that prompts Pittsburgh fans to boo Jagr every time he touches the puck at Mellon Arena. It’s why fans throw around words like greedy and selfish when players leave teams. Fans probably wouldn’t even know how to identify that "something" that makes them hate and jeer players they once adored and cheered.
That "something" is in some sense indefinable and at least partially inexplicable, but Red Wings and Penguins fans understand what that "something" actually is. Detroit and Pittsburgh fans probably have a difficult time articulating that vague "something" they felt when Lemieux and Yzerman retired, but in attempting to explain, they’d probably say they lost a player that belonged to all of us. They’d say something like how they always believed they’d win a championship with such a player, they’d talk about the championships such a player had won, and they’d always be hopeful for more championships with said player wearing their team’s sweater.
Pens fans boo Jagr because our team would’ve had a better chance to win another Cup with the vibrant, productive Jagr we’d come to love than with the temperamental Jagr we had and traded away for 3 prospects. Edmonton fans will boo Pronger when he returns because they know their franchise defenseman was a huge reason why their team was so, so close to sipping champagne from the Stanley Cup this year. Fans throughout the league know what it’s like to boo returning former players who have left because of trade requests/demands or through free agency.
Yet how many of the next generation of hockey fans will get the chance to experience that "something" that Pens and Wings fans felt at those retirement press conferences this year? How many fans will never have even once thought of booing their franchise player? How many will ever have the chance to watch a franchise player play with one franchise and associate said superstar with a sole franchise—with my team?
Certainly, as a Pens fan, I hope my Pens lock Sidney Crosby up extremely long term. I’m certain Washington fans want the same for the reigning Rookie of the Year. However, even if players like Ovechkin and Crosby are locked up long term, the current CBA necessitates that choices will have to be made. What happens if two players on a team blossom into superstars who both command the league’s maximum salary? What happens when other players need to be paid salaries above the league average? Something will have to give, and that something will be good for fans everywhere in that every team will have a real chance to produce a contending team.
Yet for that something that is good for fans everywhere, something else will be missing. The "something" that Pens and Red Wings fans can’t voice or explain but will just know as "something" when Lemieux and Yzerman’s jerseys are raised to the ceilings at their respective arenas. "Something"—one franchise, one superstar, one team for life—it’s something that makes the game the game, and it’s something that reminds us why we love the game so much.ยต
This summer has seen the retirement of Steve Yzerman, the heart and soul of the Detroit Red Wings since the mid-1980’s. This past NHL season saw the retirement of Mario Lemieux, the heart and soul of the Pittsburgh Penguins since he was drafted in 1984.
Watching the way the careers of both men ended was hard for a hockey fan to accept. Mario Lemieux’s career is supposed to end on the ice, holding the Stanley Cup aloft. Steve Yzerman’s career is supposed to end the same way, captaining his Red Wings to another Cup championship. Yet there were moments this season when I winced as I watched Mario play—he looked older and slower, and his body could no longer play the game as his mind com manded. Steve Yzerman’s age and injuries caught up with him this season in much the same way as did Lemieux’s health and age.
Lemieux and Yzerman both announced retirement by holding press conferences at which the men wore suits. As any Pengu ins fan knows, Mario Lemieux should not wear a suit unless he is at an awards ceremony. As any Red Wings fan knows, Steve Yzerman wears a suit to accept NHL awards. As a lifelong Pens fan, watching Lemieux retire for the second time—and knowing this retir ement has to stick because forty years old and a heart condition means forty years old with a heart condition—well, it made me sad. I can only imagine how sad Red Wings fans felt after having had the privilege of watching Yzerman play for over twenty se asons. Granted, as fans we knew logically that Lemieux and Yzerman were not the players they’d once been, and it hurt to watch the players who once dominated the league occasionally perform at the mere level of "slightly above average." Yet that didn’t mean we didn’t yearn for a return the past, for a reversion back to just a few short years ago. We remembered Lemieux and Yzerman at the top of their game, as champions, as masters of the NHL, and we wanted more memories of artistry and dominance performed by our hometown players.
As I reflect on Lemieux and Yzerman’s retirements this year and note the ruckus created by the current CBA and free agent signing period, I wonder if the next generation of hockey fans will ever have the opportunity to feel what Penguins and Red Wings fans felt this past year when Yzerman and Lemieux retired. Steve Yzerman is, forever, always, and only, a Detroit Red Wing. Mario Lemieux is, forever, always, and only, a Pittsburgh Penguin. Fans of the Wings and Penguins saw teenagers drafted, saw teenagers develop into stars, saw teenagers grow up on and off the ice, saw young men dominate in the prime of their careers, saw young men captain teams to long sought after Stanley Cup championships, saw young men win awards, and then watched as young men grew to become the old, wise players who were depended upon for such things as "veteran savvy" and "Cup winning experience." And fans of the Red Wings and Penguins watched the players they’d known first as boys, then as young men, then as men who aren’t old but who have been beaten and bruised by half a lifetime of playing a game, say they couldn’t play anymore, not at the level they wanted to, anyway. We watched Yzerman and Lemieux walk away from hockey and it hurts even though we know it’s the right thing.
I believe it hurt even more for Pittsburgh and Detroit fans when Lemieux and Yzerman skated off the ice for the final time because those players were ours and ours alone. We didn’t just see the player as a kid filled with gobs of potential. We didn’t just see a superstar dominate. We didn’t just see an older veteran re-adapt his role to fit his changed skill set and a changing game. We saw it all; we saw everything. And somehow, that’s special. It’s a part of what’s made hockey what it is for me. Lemieux in a Pens uniform, Yzerman in a Red Wings uniform—this is how things are supposed to be.
Fans of certain teams might wonder what I’m fussing about—I’m thinking of Edmonton fans who watched Wayne Gretzky get traded and who already know that players aren’t "ours" forever. Even I, as a Pens fan who watched Jaromir Jagr get traded when no one considered such a trade even a remote possibility before the year 2000, should know that
players don’t belong to teams any more. I’ll even admit that (at least when my Pens are out of the playoffs and I need to choose a rooting interest) I cheer and root for certain players because they remind me of how hockey can and should be played. When the Pens are out of the playoffs, I don’t mind cheering for Jaromir Jagr (who I watched as a kid who dazzled with potential before he dominated in the prime of his career). I’ve always hoped for the Canucks to come out of the West because I was convinced Markus Naslund would one day blossom (he, too, showed flashes of brilliance as a Pen) into a star. So I’ll concede that I cheer for Jagr and Naslund and I’ll also concede to cheering for other players this spring—players who reminded me of how the game was played by the superstars who once won Stanley Cups for the Pens and who are now forever ensconced in Hockey’s Hall of Fame.
Yet somehow cheering for Jagr and Naslund feels different when they’re not on my team. It’s not the same as cheering for the kid your team drafted, the one who grew up into a superstar, the one who is now known throughout the league as a grizzled veteran with 15 years experience, the one who belongs to you and you alone—it’s just not the same.
A s I watch the current CBA madness—which, by the way, I’m grateful for and appreciate because I feel teams really do have a better chance to win under such a plan—I still feel that something is being lost. Granted, that "something" was lost long ago, probably that day when Wayne Gretzky was traded to Los Angeles. It’s the hope that maybe that "something" can be recaptured that probably prompted the utter vitriol and malevolent words Edmonton fans directed at Chris Pronger. It’s knowing that "something" is gone that prompts Pittsburgh fans to boo Jagr every time he touches the puck at Mellon Arena. It’s why fans throw around words like greedy and selfish when players leave teams. Fans probably wouldn’t even know how to identify that "something" that makes them hate and jeer players they once adored and cheered.
That "something" is in some sense indefinable and at least partially inexplicable, but Red Wings and Penguins fans understand what that "something" actually is. Detroit and Pittsburgh fans probably have a difficult time articulating that vague "something" they felt when Lemieux and Yzerman retired, but in attempting to explain, they’d probably say they lost a player that belonged to all of us. They’d say something like how they always believed they’d win a championship with such a player, they’d talk about the championships such a player had won, and they’d always be hopeful for more championships with said player wearing their team’s sweater.
Pens fans boo Jagr because our team would’ve had a better chance to win another Cup with the vibrant, productive Jagr we’d come to love than with the temperamental Jagr we had and traded away for 3 prospects. Edmonton fans will boo Pronger when he returns because they know their franchise defenseman was a huge reason why their team was so, so close to sipping champagne from the Stanley Cup this year. Fans throughout the league know what it’s like to boo returning former players who have left because of trade requests/demands or through free agency.
Yet how many of the next generation of hockey fans will get the chance to experience that "something" that Pens and Wings fans felt at those retirement press conferences this year? How many fans will never have even once thought of booing their franchise player? How many will ever have the chance to watch a franchise player play with one franchise and associate said superstar with a sole franchise—with my team?
Certainly, as a Pens fan, I hope my Pens lock Sidney Crosby up extremely long term. I’m certain Washington fans want the same for the reigning Rookie of the Year. However, even if players like Ovechkin and Crosby are locked up long term, the current CBA necessitates that choices will have to be made. What happens if two players on a team blossom into superstars who both command the league’s maximum salary? What happens when other players need to be paid salaries above the league average? Something will have to give, and that something will be good for fans everywhere in that every team will have a real chance to produce a contending team.
Yet for that something that is good for fans everywhere, something else will be missing. The "something" that Pens and Red Wings fans can’t voice or explain but will just know as "something" when Lemieux and Yzerman’s jerseys are raised to the ceilings at their respective arenas. "Something"—one franchise, one superstar, one team for life—it’s something that makes the game the game, and it’s something that reminds us why we love the game so much.ยต
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