In my part of the world, the hometown NHL team is an absolute mess. This year was the year that they were to play meaningful games in March. Unfortunately they failed to understand that there are also meaningful games in October and November. The brain trust is throwing out phrases like it is all about the process. Well, the process means squat if the players do not understand what exactly the process is. The team performs the way they do is because of the GM and Coaching staff. Much like a child, they act the way they do because of the parents they have. Coaches are the parents of these players no matter what the age and they have allowed them to get away with stuff. Alabama football coach describes it as standards over feelings. If you let a players feelings govern the team standards, it erodes the entire team concept and for a standard to be maintained a team must have discipline. Saban describes discipline as ” the ability to something even though you do not want to, can you make yourself do it. ”
In the case of the hometown team ,players have made the decision not to do certain things and the Coaching staff is allowing them to get away with it. When players make an error, it is up to the Coaching staff to correct the error in fashion that the player understands (teaching) why it happened so that it does not happen again. If a player decides( feelings) to do the same thing again, the Coaching staff must look at how they delivered ( taught) the message because player deviated from the standards that the team plays under. The mess that is happening here is because of the Coaching staff and the GM. The GM has not corrected the Coaching staff and the Coaching staff has not corrected the player errors. As I mentioned earlier the feelings have overtaken the standards. These standards should be a collaborative effort between the GM, Coach, and the players leadership group.
Right now what the fan base is seeing is a skillful group of players deviating from team standards that should have been in place long ago and the result is an eight game losing streak, which will make it tough for this to make the playoffs and it’s the end of November.
This team is Stuck in Suckville. The GM and Coach are the Mayor and Deputy Mayor and they have no idea on how to get out.
BTW the season ends in April.
Until next time.
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Between The Ears 