NHL Hockey thread

[Neil]

I keep seeing this, but it's still retarded.  English is the language of hockey, and so English is the language that everybody must speak.  After that, everything else is optional.

The CBC airs hockey games in Punjabi.  It's got to be important enough.

The CBC has nothing to do with hockey.

[Barrister]

That's too bad.  It means the Habs are not willing to hire the best coach available... and so are not dedicated to winning. 

really?  I can count quite a few bilingual coaches out there.  Winnipeg has a bilingual assistant coach ready for the big job.  Patrick Roy is available, so is Bob Hartley at the end of the season.  When the Tampa Bay Lighting hired Guy Boucher, who was part of the Habs' organization, did anybody say he was incomptent?

So already the Habs have come to learn from the superior Winnipeg Jets organization.

But keep your paws off of Claude Noel.  He's ours.

[Grey Fox]

That's too bad.  It means the Habs are not willing to hire the best coach available... and so are not dedicated to winning. 

really?  I can count quite a few bilingual coaches out there.  Winnipeg has a bilingual assistant coach ready for the big job.  Patrick Roy is available, so is Bob Hartley at the end of the season.  When the Tampa Bay Lighting hired Guy Boucher, who was part of the Habs' organization, did anybody say he was incomptent?

So already the Habs have come to learn from the superior Winnipeg Jets organization.

But keep your paws off of Claude Noel.  He's ours.

He meant Pascal Vincent.

[HVC]

That's too bad.  It means the Habs are not willing to hire the best coach available... and so are not dedicated to winning. 

really?  I can count quite a few bilingual coaches out there.  Winnipeg has a bilingual assistant coach ready for the big job.  Patrick Roy is available, so is Bob Hartley at the end of the season.  When the Tampa Bay Lighting hired Guy Boucher, who was part of the Habs' organization, did anybody say he was incomptent?

So already the Habs have come to learn from the superior Winnipeg Jets organization.

But keep your paws off of Claude Noel.  He's ours.

He meant Pascal Vincent.

christmas and easter? seriously. Is there a rudolf and and Mr. E Bunny who works for the jets too?

[Josephus]

I keep seeing this, but it's still retarded.  English is the language of hockey, and so English is the language that everybody must speak.  After that, everything else is optional.

The CBC airs hockey games in Punjabi.  It's got to be important enough.

The CBC has nothing to do with hockey.

Arguably the NHL wouldn't be what it is today without CBC.

[viper37]

But keep your paws off of Claude Noel.  He's ours.

See GF
I wouldn't dream of removing your head coach.
But Vincent might be a good candidate for the Nordiques when they come back

[viper37]

christmas and easter? seriously. Is there a rudolf and and Mr. E Bunny who works for the jets too?

Pâques is the actual french word for Easter.  Pascal is the adjective as in congé pascal.

[viper37]

The CBC has nothing to do with hockey.

Right.  Let's shut down the CBC and fire Don Cherry.  We'll see how that goes with hockey fans accross Canada

[PRC]

That's too bad.  It means the Habs are not willing to hire the best coach available... and so are not dedicated to winning. 

really?  I can count quite a few bilingual coaches out there.  Winnipeg has a bilingual assistant coach ready for the big job.  Patrick Roy is available, so is Bob Hartley at the end of the season.  When the Tampa Bay Lighting hired Guy Boucher, who was part of the Habs' organization, did anybody say he was incomptent?

Irrelevant.  There may be good bilingual coaches out there, that's not the issue.  The Habs owner said they would only hire someone who spoke French... so the situation may arise where the best available coach would not be hired because he didn't speak French, thus potentially denying the team their best chance to win.

[HVC]

Coaches are over rated anyway. You need good GM's who can get good players. A good coach can make a a good team better, but not even a great coach can make a bad team good.

[Neil]

The CBC has nothing to do with hockey.

Right.  Let's shut down the CBC and fire Don Cherry.  We'll see how that goes with hockey fans accross Canada

The NHL will endure, CBC or no.

[Valmy]

Bah.  It's a business too.  Your coach is one of your major team spokesman.

And I *think* that the Habs aren't limiting themselves to French Canadian coaches, but ratehr that knowing French is a requirement.  Which opens the job to plenty of other Anglo Canadians (don't think too many Americans speak French though).

Yes they are the Montreal Canadiens.  Being their coach is a business: the business of winning and the business of excellence in Hockey.  Besides every year Montreal does not strive for excellence is another year their brand and their reputation as a franchise takes a blow-and over time they will hurt the business end.  The ownership needs to worry about the PR side of it, the Hockey side needs to worry about Hockey not get distracted with language considerations.

The only culture anybody should care about on a franchise of that calibre should be a culture of winning and the only language that matters is the language that allows a coach to coach his team to victory.

The two most important franchises in the NHL are Montreal and Toronto.  They represent the tradition, the passion Canadians have for the game, and the glory and all that.  When people think about Hockey they think about those franchises.  The Maple Leafs are really beyond contemptible, it is like if the Red Sox or the Yankees just decided to forget trying to win and just make money because they are the Yankees and Red Sox and be happy with last place.  It sorta ticks me off Montreal would be hiring coaches on any other basis besides their ability to bring another championship to Montreal.  Those two franchises need to be good, so that I can hate them.  Their suckiness is very frustrating.

I understand language and nationality are important political issues in Quebec but Hockey is too important to be tainted by them

[Valmy]

Coaches are over rated anyway. You need good GM's who can get good players. A good coach can make a a good team better, but not even a great coach can make a bad team good.

If a good coach makes your team better how is that overrated?

[viper37]

Irrelevant.  There may be good bilingual coaches out there, that's not the issue.  The Habs owner said they would only hire someone who spoke French... so the situation may arise where the best available coach would not be hired because he didn't speak French, thus potentially denying the team their best chance to win.

they change coach every 2 years on average.  I don't believe in this "best coach" theory.  Alain Vignault coaches Vancouver, yet he was deemed not enough qualified for the Habs.  He came very close to winning the Cup.  Claude Julien won the Cup with Boston, yet he was fired from Montreal a few years earlier.

From time to time, a coach will come with a new system.  Like Guy Boucher in Tampa Bay.  And within a year, they will all imitate him, and/or find the flaws in his system.  Or simply, they'll have better players with a slightly different system.  And it will become irrelevant.

What makes the difference is the quality of the players you can have on first 2 lines.  And, if, like the Penguins when they won the Stanley Cup, you have 4 lines wich are as strong as the first line of an average team like the Habs, you have victory in your grasp. 
Julien or Vignault in Montreal didn't do anything, they couldn't do anything now either.
Coaches are over-rated, not because they are unimportant, but because once they reach the NHL and coach for a few years, the top teams have coaches that are mostly equal in talent.

[Valmy]

Yeah just to be clear it is more of my frustration with the Habs languishing (yuk yuk) as they are in suckiness than thinking that they are just one mono-lingual Swedish coach away from victory.  But still.  That accouncement rubs me the wrong way.