What one media member thinks
Mar 10, 2002 14:00:52 GMT -5
Post by seventeen on Mar 10, 2002 14:00:52 GMT -5
Here's my question to Jack Todd and his brief and insightful reply. He got back to me very quickly, so for that I compliment him.
"Mr. Todd,
I am curious about one aspect of this season which has not been evident,
and that is the lack of criticism of the coaching staff by the media.
They seem immune this year. I know that myself and many other Hab fans
whom with I correspond feel that while the team is hardly overwhelming,
they have a handicap in the coaching personnel. The 'system', the
line-up choices and who sits and dresses have all been questioned. The
lack of effort and being outshot constantly, by wide margins, all point
to weakness in the coaching department. Yet not a peep out of the
media. Is the general feeling that the problems are not coaching
related? You could certainly make a case that the talent level is
mediocre, but even average players can work hard and put in their
'yeoman' effort. I don't believe we've seen that this year on any kind
of consistent basis.
I'd appreciate your opinion. Thank you."
"given what they have to work with, they're doing a great job.
todd"
So, from at least one sports journalist we find that the belief is that the coaching staff is wonderful...which explains the lobbying for Therrien as coach of the year. I wouldn't mind if he got it, by some weird fluke, because that's inevitably the kiss of death.
What I meant by 'insightful' up above, is that it gives us insight into how analytical the media are. And I chose Jack Todd because I felt he was one of the more contrarian writers in Montreal. Weird, not the answer I expected.
I can throw out numerous examples of successful teams (often expansion teams, but Buffalo in the last decade is a good example) who didn't have much in the way of talent, but had excellent goaltending, and decent coaching, (other examples are the early Panthers with Vanbiesbrouck and Doug McLean, and Nashville with their goaltending and Barry Trotz). As I pointed out to Todd, these Habs don't have the greatest talent, but it's middle of the road, yet their efforts are of the basement variety and seeing how the coaches handle the players, (on the ice) it's not surprising the effort and results aren't there. The surprise to me is that the media is blind to all this. Or perhaps they know something we don't.
And now for something completely different. Has anybody else noticed that our 'speed' doesn't really exist? We probably have one or 2 guys we could call really fast (Bulis and Berezin), but 2 fast players do not make a speedy team. I guess we're waiting for that too (Perezhogin, Hainsey from a defensive perspective, and Balej).
On a more positive note, Brisebois played ok last night, so maybe his foot is healing. We could use a healthy PB. And he was paired with Markov, also an interesting choice. Could that be because PB is, along with Andrei, the most intelligent of our defensemen and may be able to avoid confusion with Markov?
"Mr. Todd,
I am curious about one aspect of this season which has not been evident,
and that is the lack of criticism of the coaching staff by the media.
They seem immune this year. I know that myself and many other Hab fans
whom with I correspond feel that while the team is hardly overwhelming,
they have a handicap in the coaching personnel. The 'system', the
line-up choices and who sits and dresses have all been questioned. The
lack of effort and being outshot constantly, by wide margins, all point
to weakness in the coaching department. Yet not a peep out of the
media. Is the general feeling that the problems are not coaching
related? You could certainly make a case that the talent level is
mediocre, but even average players can work hard and put in their
'yeoman' effort. I don't believe we've seen that this year on any kind
of consistent basis.
I'd appreciate your opinion. Thank you."
"given what they have to work with, they're doing a great job.
todd"
So, from at least one sports journalist we find that the belief is that the coaching staff is wonderful...which explains the lobbying for Therrien as coach of the year. I wouldn't mind if he got it, by some weird fluke, because that's inevitably the kiss of death.
What I meant by 'insightful' up above, is that it gives us insight into how analytical the media are. And I chose Jack Todd because I felt he was one of the more contrarian writers in Montreal. Weird, not the answer I expected.
I can throw out numerous examples of successful teams (often expansion teams, but Buffalo in the last decade is a good example) who didn't have much in the way of talent, but had excellent goaltending, and decent coaching, (other examples are the early Panthers with Vanbiesbrouck and Doug McLean, and Nashville with their goaltending and Barry Trotz). As I pointed out to Todd, these Habs don't have the greatest talent, but it's middle of the road, yet their efforts are of the basement variety and seeing how the coaches handle the players, (on the ice) it's not surprising the effort and results aren't there. The surprise to me is that the media is blind to all this. Or perhaps they know something we don't.
And now for something completely different. Has anybody else noticed that our 'speed' doesn't really exist? We probably have one or 2 guys we could call really fast (Bulis and Berezin), but 2 fast players do not make a speedy team. I guess we're waiting for that too (Perezhogin, Hainsey from a defensive perspective, and Balej).
On a more positive note, Brisebois played ok last night, so maybe his foot is healing. We could use a healthy PB. And he was paired with Markov, also an interesting choice. Could that be because PB is, along with Andrei, the most intelligent of our defensemen and may be able to avoid confusion with Markov?
