Coach

I gotta admit that I was never a big believer in coaching making a big difference in professional sports. I always figured it was all about the players. I mean come on, does a 58 year old fat guy really make that much of a difference when there are 20 athletes with supreme physical skills? Unless he is Santa (had to use him at least once considering the season), I used to argue that he made a negligible difference.

Recently I have had to eat my words. Big time. Coaching has become a huge difference in the major sports. I believe it is partially because the athletes have plateaued in terms of physical inequality. They are able to be very similar in terms of strength and speed due to major improvements in training. I'll let a few examples do the talking for me using the 3 sports that I believe coaching makes the biggest difference in. The NBA has recently turned into a superstar's league. The system and decent players can only get you so far.

NFL- Look no further than 2 teams that are playoff bound. Jim Harbaugh has turned the San Francisco 49ers completely around. They haven't had a winning season since 2002 until this year when they already have the NFC West locked up. He has turned former #1 overall bust into a very serviceable QB. The team fights in every game and has a renewed swagger that you haven't seen out of any recent 49er teams. Very impressive work done by Harbaugh on a team with very few personnel changes compared to last year. The other coach making a big difference this season has been Wade Phillips of the Houston Texans. He isn't a head coach, but rather the defensive coordinator. He has taken a defense that was at the bottom of the league last year and now has them at the top. Much like Harbaugh, there are very few personnel differences. He has formed a scheme that fits the athletes that he has at his disposal. The improvement goes entirely to his credit.

MLB- Kirk Gibson was able to pull off a 29 game swing this last summer when he took the Arizona Diamondbacks to the playoffs. Just a year ago they lost 97 games, this season they came away with 94 wins. The change of attitude in the clubhouse was a major factor. As many will remember, Gibson hit one of the best HRs in the history of baseball with his World Series game winner on basically 1 leg. He was a warrior and he took that same philosophy to the Diamondback players this year. He took no excuses and demanded the best out of them everyday.

NHL- 3 young teams made coaching changes this year and all have paid off handsomely. The Minnesota Wild and Florida Panthers each hired new coaches in the offseason and both have almost met last year's results without even being halfway through the season. The St. Louis Blues also made a change early in the season and it has paid off huge with only 2 regulation losses in 20 games thus far. Mike Yeo (MN) & Kevin Dineen (FLA) are first time coaches at the NHL level while Ken Hitchcock (STL) has been around for more than 15 years. All are showing that a new voice and approach in the locker room can push a team to succeed.

Holy Realignment Bettman!!!

By now you surely have heard the news that starting next season the NHL will have a completely re-designed look to the conferences of the league. That’s right, 4 conferences.  Here is a quick look at some of the winners, and “losers” of the new system.

Winners: Everybody, no really I’m not joking, the league as a whole will be much better off just on shear playoff entertainment that this system creates. In addition to the individual rivalries that make the most sense due to the geographic nature of the conferences. 

Biggest winner: My opinion those who make up Conference B, which are the teams that really have been pushing for this now for a couple years. Originally scattered, mostly out west, didn’t really help these centrally (and in some cases pretty eastern) located teams. Also, for the teams with smaller fan bases, having your team play 9pm or 10pm start times out west on a regular basis doesn’t help create regular viewers.  

Losers: The only real argument I have heard in regards to the re-alignment is the increased travel the current Eastern Conference will have. While this statement is technically true, the increased travel is not nearly as great as the travel cut down by having central teams grouped together and not going out west.

Biggest loser: Carolina, whose current division consists of Florida, Tampa Bay, Winnipeg, and Washington. Washington remains, but instead of the old Thrashers and the Florida teams they now are grouped with the Devils, Islanders, Rangers, Flyers, and Pittsburgh….ouch. I predict it may be rough going for Carolina in the near future.

Only thing left to do is hope the NHL gives the Conferences great names, Norris? Campbell? Wales? We can only hope. It is truly amazing a large professional league could manage to do something so unquestionably right for the sport. It pains me to say I might be warming up to Mr. Bettman. 

Who's got 2 thumbs and doesn't care the NBA is back?.......This Guy.

It’s official, the owners and players have finally come to an agreement to end the NBA lockout, and I couldn’t care less.  But honestly, I don’t care regardless, either way, any way, in any form; just feel nothing in regards to it.  There is no big secret that basketball isn’t my favorite sport in the world, probably not even in my top 10, so this shouldn’t be coming as a shock to you.  However, I would be lying if I was not at least a little intrigued at the upcoming NBA season.

Parts I hate:

1. ESPN……….the 4 letter network covers the NBA enough.  It often angers me when I see Lebron charge down the lane uncontested for a dunk make the top 10, when I saw five better goals or saves in a single hockey game in the same night; but then I remember the NHL network exists and quickly change the channel. So I don’t stay bitter.

2.  For some reason I used to believe what all the sports analysts were telling me, that the NBA and the NHL compete, that having no NBA around was a huge gain for the NHL, that both can’t exist in harmony. In a few markets I can believe this is at least a little true, but across the continent I don’t see many die hard basketball fans that were fulfilling their sports needs with tickets to hockey games.

3. Basketball is just….boring. “But there is so much scoring!” Blah, blah, blah.  Wake me up when the playoffs are here, I’ll watch game 7, of the finals.
4.  I’m from the land of ice and snow, the only NBA team in town is the T’Wolves, enough said.

Parts I like:

1. Watching Lebron collapse, again. I think anyone outside of South Beach will enjoy this.

2. The “frantic” preseason. I think this needs to be adopted on a regular basis by all leagues, the off season activity is better if it is more condensed, though I’m not going to say I’m going to follow player moves like after the NFL lockout ended.
3. Ricky Rubio…..again, from the land of ice and snow, it’s the only thing you can really look forward to in T’Wolves country.

4. Metta World Peace. I can just hear the play by play now. “Someone just threw something at Metta. He has charged into the stands!” “World Peace is in the stands trying to fight fans”, “With the look of murder in the eyes, World Peace is throwing haymaker after haymaker at innocent fans”………ahhhh I just can’t wait. A brawl would bring out the best of World Peace.

And again, that’s about it. Don’t hate it, don’t love it.

My “off the top of my head” Top Ten Sports:

Hockey

Football

Baseball

Soccer

Golf

Motor sports

Rugby

Curling

Hurling

Basketball

Yeah, that sounds about right.