An Essay on Quickness

Physically demanding sports continue to evolve -  to quote Daft Punk (not Kanye) - “harder, better, faster, stronger”.

When it comes to quickness, they’re all evolving the exact same way. 

Quickly.

Hockey, football, badminton, jai alai - you name it – have all seen “quickness” rise to the top of their list of ”most important athletic qualities”.

Because of this, we’re seeing an increase in the amount of younger players having success at higher levels.  Not sure if you’ve noticed, but young punks tend to be quicker than withering geriatrics old punks. 

So, as is my job, let’s take a closer look at how quickness is changing hockey:

Not that long ago, hockey was a game dominated by men with man strength.  In the era I grew up in, that scintillating era of dump, chase, hook and hold,  you needed all the mobility of a bubble hockey player if you were a strong dude.

Hatcher: played during the overpaid, hook n hold era

In my younger days, bigger, more um, adultish men, could simply chuck a stick across my stomach, and I’d huff and puff and pout and pray for one of those big lugs to catch an edge and fall so I could get a scoring chance, which I damn well had to score on if I was gonna be worth anything to my team.

For weaker, more dangly types, the rules made it so scoring chances weren’t created as often as they were waited on.

Then, the NHL (and North American hockey all together), put their heads together and realized “hey, I bet if we phased out big, talentless d-men, hockey would be fun again…”

So, with that simple epiphany, the game started to change.

Suddenly, big d-men were hustling around trying to put a leash on guys like Maxim Afinagenov, Daniel Briere and Marty Havlat, failing, and going home to write FML’s.

Today, I tried to put a bell on Patrick Kane, but when I went to run him through the boards to impress my coach, he put the puck through my feet, and I tripped myself trying to squeeze my skates together.  As I fell, I managed to lose my top row of teeth on the dasher.  FML.

Those slick, skilled guys are the real talents of the NHL.  And, isn’t that what you want, as a league?  The guys that’re the best at playing the game to be the most successful? 

As a Canadian, I’ll always have some love for the big power forwards, but if the NHL (great idea coming) put together a 5’9″ and under game, and a 6’3″ and over game, I know which one would be more exciting to watch.  And that’s not too say the skilled guys are all small (see: Perry, Corey) – but just to point out that we were minimizing the talent the league displayed under the old rules.

{Also, as a bit of a related thought, how great would Pavel Bure have been a decade later?  Did this guy just miss the boat on becoming one of the NHL’s all-time most exciting players?}

{These are my new “complete tangent brackets”, btw.  Here’s another one – Every team in the NHL should be afraid of Chicago this year- I’ll take them (with the dicey goaltending situation) to win the Presidents Trophy, barring major injuiries. August 27th, 2009}

Under those old rules, players could stay effective as they got older, because quicker players could be slowed down using any number of techniques.  I remember, as a player at that time, when a guy would dump the puck, one of the opposing d-men would turn to get it.  The other one played you like an offensive linebacker, literally trying to stop you from getting by him in order to give his partner more time.

With the rule changes allowing for quickness to be at a premium, today’s game looks a lot more like “junior hockey” – and I don’t mean that in a bad way.  it’s exciting.

Yeah, I'm just gonna go ahead and be faster than everyone, thanks.

In junior hockey, guys over-pursue.  They’re petrified of looking lazy, and constantly wondering what they should be doing, and where they should be going.  So they just go anywhere.

The professionals of yesteryear tended to stand around, play smart and positional (see: Guerin, Bill), and jump when opportunity presented itself.  Half the time, junior hockey players (WHL, USHL, BCHL etc…) skate away from where they’re supposed to be, simply to so they can be skating somewhere.

That waste of energy isn’t a major crisis for a young pup who’s legs and stamina bounce back like a trampoline with a sip of water on the bench, so coaches have found a way to harness this never-ending go-go-go, and use it as an advantage in the new NHL.

They find the smart, coachable ones (a rare quality).  Then they spend some real time beating the simple defensive systems into the kids head.  Then, the second this Alaskan sled-dog of a player crosses his own blueline into the neutral zone, the coach unhooks the leash.

Running commentary of the d-man backing up: "Shit, crap, shit, shit..."

The NHL isn’t tailored for Chris Chelios’s anymore.  I’m not trying to rag on Chris, but sled-dogs really are the best analogy for how the youth movement looks in the NHL now.

“Lemme-go-lemme-go-lemme-go-I-can-run-wanna-run-wanna-run!”

Thankfully, Ovechkin happened to come into the league right when d-men weren’t allowed to jump on his back, grab him with a free hand and limit the fans entertainment.

His quickness (and the quickness of other young stars) has forced the NHL to re-arrange the priorities of what makes a D-man good, and it’s not just size anymore.

We’re finally being allowed to see, not only see which forwards are truly quick, but also how defenseman can break the mold and still be great.  We have a whole new generation of d-men on the rise: Alex Goligoski’s, Matt Carle’s, and Duncan Keith’s, who can fly around and keep up with dangly forwards.

Quickness has made it so as GM, I’d rather have a slightly more mistake-prone young buck on my team than a plotting, plodding veteran.

These changes are happening, and it the transition hasn’t been very gradual.  Fittingly, it’s been happening quickly.

The Players of Playoffs

A few short hockey thoughts prior to today’s action:

1.  Let me preface this thought by saying this is completely unfounded, it’s my own speculation, and it’s not rooted in any fact. 

The first thing I saw when I saw Shawn Thornton running around in the Habs/Bruins game was: “that guy’s on steroids”.  NHL steroid testing is slightly better than non-existent, and I played with a couple kids who openly used while I played.  Don’t think guys don’t - we’re not baseball by any means, but I’d speculate a guy per team.

And in all likelihood, Shawn isn’t one of them.  In fact, as a reader recently pointed out (and not in the kindest way), I was thinking of (and comparing him to) Scott Thornton in his early days.  Totally different player.  But it doesn’t change facts.  Players use, and the league’s testing policy is not all that stringent.

2.  Just cleaning out a few hockey notes here:  Are you serious with that Fleury save on Carter?  It’s not even like Fleury got all the way across the net, it looked like Carter took a moment to savour it, which let Fleury get halfway there (which was an exceptionally feat in itself).  Then Carter compounded the nightmare (score and the series is 1-1) by sliding it mid-net.  That was the series turning point.

3.  Okay, Scott Hartnell, the hair isn’t exactly trendy or cool now that you’ve done it long enough for us to think you’re serious.  Now you’ve just been making a bad decision for way too long.  You look like Sideshow Bob.  Or Anderson Varejao.  Which brings me to today’s picture comparison center:

, Mats Sundin’s eerie Terminator black eye: , And Luongo / Jon Decaro (my college goaltender, both 6’4” and Italian):

3.  Lastly, for now, I saw Marty Havlat’s interview yesterday, and thought he sounded like a Newfy pirate.  Great player and all, and more than likely just French, but yeah.  Newfy pirate.

Okay!  Caps/Rangers is underway, battle of the Red, White and Blue!  See you back here tonight!

NHL Playoffs – April 16th

(4) Chicago vs. (5) Calgary

Game one between these teams was more pivotal than any other series, easily (honorable mention to Canucks/Blues).  I mean pivotal like Peter’s decision to go to the hypnotherapist in Office Space.

The Flames, a team on the decline, badly needed that to right the ship.  Nothing like being up 2-1 with five minutes left and choking to blow a major hole in the hull.

The Hawks, a young team, needed that too.  As a player, when you get off to a good start, it’s just so much easier to keep the ball rolling than it is to start it up.  Dangly guys like Havlat and Toews don’t have to second guess themselves now; if they fall down a few games in this series, they start thinking “boy, I guess I need to change the way I ____”.  This little bit of confidence was huge for them.

And by the way, does Olli Jokinen drink like, 80 cups of coffee prior to everything he’s ever done ever?  He looks shocked every time I’ve ever seen him.  Maybe he’s still in awe that an NHL team committed over 20 million to an 11 year NHL vet with zero games playoff experience.

(2) Detroit vs. Columbus

Hey, I can’t watch ‘em all.

Despite my fellow contributors article on The Hockey News site about Columbus being perfectly tooled for an upset, let me respectfully say this:  The foregone conclusion that is this series started as planned, 4-1 Wings.  Babcock is the best coach in the NHL.

(1) San Jose vs. (8) Anaheim

Interesting… very interesting.

I’m wondering, if the Sharks were to manage to puke in another three games like they did tonight (and they did puke… 137 goals at home this year, and not one on a goalie who’s name I’d literally have to google to print here), is it possible for an organization to get a complex?

I mean really, with the point totals they’ve had in past years (90+ five straight years, 100+ in four of those) and their struggles in playoffs, wouldn’t it be impossible to enjoy next season as a fan of theirs?  Every game they won, their entire fan base and every sports pundit would be going, “well sure, but… ”

(1) Bruins vs. (8) Montreal

Since this game went exactly how it would have played out had we let a Playstation run a “what-to-expect” simulation, let me use it as a forum to discuss this:

How. Goddamn. Hard.  Are guys shooting the puck now?  Kovalev shot a puck that Al MacInnis watched from home and went “whoa”.  Then Chara decided to swing his stick that was probably ordered triple-stiff but flexes like an intermediate shaft because it’s eight feet long, and shot a puck so hard a modern day goalie thought “I’m not sure if I’m wearing enough gear to justify standing in front of that”.

Even Getzlaf in the Anaheim game drove the nail in the Sharks coffin with a snapshot from the top of the circles that came out of the net quicker than a roadrunner on blow.  Goalies must love that we keep making their gear smaller, which, by the way, I’m in favour of.  But I’ll save that rant for another soapbox.  Guess I’ll need something to write about in the off-season.