The Hockey News

*Authors Note: The following are the articles I’ve contributed to The Hockey News, whether just to the site, or the magazine.  For those of you who don’t know the story of how the transition from player to writer happened in an instant, I’d recommend starting at the bottom and reading my first contribution to THN, called ”A Love-Hate Relationship With Hockey”, or my more recent contribution, ”Life After Hockey”.

*****

Player Ref Relations

-by Justin Bourne

The player – referee relationship is fraught with difficulties.

And actually, it’s kind of…. Awkward.  For a number of reasons.  One is that it helps to be friends, but if it isn’t natural, you at least have to fake it.  Everything we saw demonstrated in the Alex Burrows situation, we already knew.  Being on the bad side of the ref is a bad idea, because he holds the “luck” in his pocket.

He can give a team the type of bad breaks that can kill it, like say, a penalty in the last minutes of a game.

So, all players go through the smile-and-fake-laugh cycle necessary to at least seem civil.  In turn, referees go through the same smile-and-fake-laugh cycle so not to appear Auger-esque.  That’s right Stephane, you’re a verb now.

Pretty sure that ref Augered me last night.

For the most part, we’re all buddies out there.  Even the angry, soundless clips you see of players yelling at refs are generally pretty decent, honestly.  Minus the blue language, of course, which flows naturally from both sides of the relationship.

“Garrett, there’s no f***ing way you make that call on me after letting his slash go” would be a lot more common than the assumed and more direct “F*** you, Garrett”.

The higher level I played, the more reasonable referees got.  They’ll listen to you, speak in a controlled voice, and actually think instead of getting defensive and reacting quickly like say, stubborn ECHL refs. (PLEASE INSERT THIS VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx4V1OlleRA)  In a nutshell, the best referees are confident in themselves.

The more reasonable and confident they are, the more you can joke with them, and the more they talk during the play, an underrated quality in a ref.  Some guys get so comfortable they’ll have a running dialogue aimed at you mid-play, like a boxing referee.

Behind you, Bourno, I’m behind you.  On the wall now, I’m on the wall…

A ref that catches a Burrows-like embellishment might scold him mid-play.

No way Alex, no way, get up – as in, I wouldn’t call that if I was reffing little kids, if you don’t get up soon I’m calling a dive.

Dialogue goes back and forth throughout the whole game.  At the lower level, where video replay isn’t around, they’ll ask for honesty after a goal (which leads to its own problems):

You tip that Bournie?

Of course I did.

And the better you know the ref, the easier it is to respect him and his authority.  It’s a lot easier to play the game when you can speak like an adult to the guy between whistles or after the period.

You realize I was hit into their tender last period, right Stripes?

You just stay outta that crease, Bourne.

Refs unwilling to engage with the players don’t advance, and refs that get too involved (Auger) see their performance suffer.

Like a good babysitter or parent, they have to be able to joke and laugh, but also maintain their status as “in charge”.  Great that we can laugh, but when I say it’s time to get to the box, it’s time to get to the box.

Some players – and it appears Burrows is one of these – don’t grasp the fragile relationship that we share with the officials.  A penalty isn’t a personal slight, it’s a penalty because you did something illegal.  The same way that we sometimes miss an open net, refs sometimes miss obvious calls.  And, if we were on the ice for the whole game, we’d have a lot more opportunities to miss open nets.

It doesn’t mean you can’t tell them they’re wrong – in fact, I encourage it, as long as it’s done with a certain level of repect.

You missed that one, bud, watch the video after the game.  My stick never even touched him.

But there’s always something wrong with going ballistic.

The variable that can ruin the whole relationship are players attempts to draw penalties, because refs take that as a personal slight, which it isn’t.  The dive is one thing, and the embellishment another.  I’m not opposed to the latter, as sometimes you need to demonstrate your opponent is being careless with his stick – it only makes sense to try and earn your team a powerplay the way you try to earn a goal – but the outright dive is cheating.  I realize it’s a grey area either way, but that’s the stance I take.

Auger obviously took the Burrows play personally, and when the league viewed Augers call as an error, he took it as a dis from Alex.

Referees need to know that trying to draw a penalty is no more personal than them calling a penalty on us.  In some twisted way, we’re both just doing our jobs.

My guess is, the Burrows/Auger situation resulted from the lowest common denominator being involved on both ends.  Both Burrows and Auger didn’t take the events that happened as people doing their jobs, but rather as personal slights.

By all logic, the league should clean this up quickly, discipline them both, and be on with the next game.  It’s hardly some insight into major problems around the league, just two fairly unintelligent kids playing in the living room who had to call their mom to settle their differences.

They need to grow up, and we need to move on.  Most NHL refs are great.

 *****

Hockey Parents

-by Justin Bourne

Sports parents, in general, have a tendency to take their child’s sporting life too seriously.  These hyper-involved “helicopter parents” (a term used to describe the constant hovering) frequently suck the fun out of kicking a ball, chasing a puck, or eating dandelions and picking your nose while wearing a jersey.

Hockey is awful for this.

Having played the sport myself, I thought I saw the worst of the worst.  Then, I got a job working at a sports store owned by the president of minor hockey in my home town, and was witness to the backdoor campaign attempts of parents with children under ten.

There was the Dad who, between summer and winter hockey, had his kid on the skating treadmill down at our city’s new training facility.  For those of you who haven’t seen one, a skating treadmill is a huge plastic-floored version of a normal one that they pulled from the depths of hell, put on an incline, and loaded with harness straps.  It’s used for improving cardio and building strength, both goals which it easily achieves. 

What it also does, is suck gigantic eggs.  It sucks in every conceivable way, and in my own opinion (and, from what I’ve heard, the opinion of every person who isn’t selling them), isn’t great for your stride.

“The kid loves it, he just can’t get enough” the Dad would tell me when I’d ask some questions.

Then there’s the Dad who comes in around close, with a case of beer, and “just wants to BS”.  Before a top can be popped, the idle chitchat is on the upcoming tryouts.  Wants to know where his kid fits in.

“But he’s better than that Smith kid, right?  That kid doesn’t know which way he’s going half the time”.

Then there’s the burning mad Dad, who just bought his son the top-of-line skates and couple Easton Synergies, looking for the “president”, to straighten out the latest slight his son has received, from what, in his opinion, appears to be an intentional campaign to keep the man’s family down.

“F*** him and his personal agenda…”

And it’s not just Dad’s anymore.  Moms would flood into the store around hockey season, looking to buy the best skates possible for their little Gretzkys.  We didn’t carry Bauer the first year the store opened, as another dealer in town had the exclusive rights to sell their lines.  Parents of kids without full sets of adult teeth were furious that we had the audacity to run a hockey shop without Bauer skates.  What kind of a sham were we trying to pull, anyway?  We couldn’t fool them with our silly RBK witchcraft.

One Mom brought in her very own skate measuring tool, the same one which we used to make sure the edges on the blades were of equal height.  We did a premier sharpening job, of course, but the Mom felt inclined to purchase her own tool and measure the edges before paying for the sharpening, just to be sure.

Eight-year old kids are worried about the hollow in their blades?  I’m skeptical.  I’m skeptical because Jarome Iginla brought his skates in for me to sharpen that same summer, and didn’t know what hollow his skates were done to.

Me: “How do you want them done?”

Him: “Um, I dunno, regular?”

Me, slightly flummoxed: “Hmm.”

I’m sure it was just that his trainer knows his needs better than he knew his own, but still, he genuinely didn’t know. 

What this means is, one of the greatest players in the world isn’t sure, but the eight year-olds Mom needs to measure her son’s edges.  Got it.

So what does this create?

Misery.

It creates pure, awful, misery, for a kid who just likes to play some puck.

Nobody likes being told what to do, and most people feel the need to rebel against something their parents pushed.  I can’t think of a quicker way to get your kid to quit at 13 than by making his on-ice performance directly related to the type of off-ice relationship he has with his parents.

I never had a clue when I played well or not, because my parents told me that I did EVERY SINGLE GAME.  Honesty is probably the best policy, but what the crap did they care if I sucked at hockey?  They were paying a fortune (as all hockey parents do) in gear and fees so I could play, so they wanted me to enjoy it.

And so, I grew to love the game in my own right.  I liked scoring goals.  I liked getting assists.  I just liked hockey.

Not once in my life was I worried about my parent’s reaction to how I played.  I wanted to impress them, but knew I didn’t have to.

For parents, sports are a fertile ground for teaching points.  You can use them to explain to your child “what you did to that kid was wrong and here’s why”.  Or “it was great that you shared the puck on that play.  Teamwork is effective”.  Passing the puck doesn’t emasculate your son, Dads.  It makes them better.

We’ve all heard horror stories about the kids afraid to get in the car with their Dad after the game, how the Dad always yelled and got upset when his child screwed up.  I’d quit in a heartbeat if playing the game made my life that miserable.

No kid whose age is in the single digits should be playing hockey in the summer.  Kids need well-rounded life experiences to learn to think creatively, play effectively, and appreciate the game. 

They’re still kids, remember?  Let’s let them have a childhood.

*****

Entitlement

-by Justin Bourne

In every small town of every hockey playing country, some kid is chucking up ridiculous numbers.  Like, five-goals-a-game numbers.  At least.

And it’s only five because the coaches have tried everything they can to limit the mini-stud’s dominance – they’ve got him playing defense, playing wrong-handed, playing blind-folded, just anything, so the other kids can play.  Other parents paid for their kids to play hockey, and they want their little guys to touch the puck on occasion too.

So the mesmerizing mini-Malkin moves up levels, and quick.  He starts playing with older kids, and he’s still good.  Simple as that.  He can’t explain it.  But he ends up playing at the highest levels a kid of his age and size is allowed to play.

He starts to get the free gear, the praise, and the type of coaching that comes with the best teams.  And he gets better.

At some point, he starts to actually believe he’s the second-coming of Crosby, and he gets to turn off the rest of real world and enjoy the ride that is his blessed little life.  Bantam draft, selected, boom.  Junior hockey, recruited, boom.  And maybe, if he’s extra special, he gets to miss a class or two that other kids have to attend.

Before he knows it, his name is included in the NHL draft.  …Not as high as he’d like though.  He played against that one guy who got drafted in the first round, and that guy was bruuutal.  Pff.  What a joke.

And just like that, management’s little nightmare is born.

But this is how it works in all sports.  You take the best players from all the cities and towns and villages and subdivisions, states and provinces.  You lump them together, pare them down, and take the best from each.  So professional sports are made up of the people who have grown up hearing they’re the best at what they do.  And to some extent, they are.

How we get from there, to clips of media blowups where baseball’s Randy Johnson is yelling at a media member “Don’t you talk back to me!” is completely insane.

Somewhere along the line, the kid grew from confident, to full belief in himself, to belief that no matter what, he can’t mess this up.  He’s officially entitled. 

Confidence is a necessity for athletes – they’re frequently challenged, they need to take chances, and they do need to genuinely believe that they can beat their opponent.  In most cases, players are extremely confident, but by the time they move up a few levels, they realize: Wow, I’m not so “special” after all.  A lot of people were given this gift.  It takes an intelligent person to make that connection and adapt to be better.  Guys like Rod Brind’Amour, and Mike Peca are great examples of guys who came up as goal scorers and developed into valuable two-way players to keep their dream alive.

And realizing your gift isn’t “special” isn’t a bad thing – you can still be an amazing, hardworking, talented athlete – but for most non-Ovechkin/Crosby types, you’d have to be a fool to think you’re a one-of-a-kind shining star for the sporting world to cherish.

Yet, like in every profession, there are the fools.

The dark side of the pro sports empire ends up being made of a group of people who are talented, but were overhyped for years, and got stuck on that.  They’re somehow unable or unwilling to see that their gift is not as unique as they’re parents thought it was at eight, and that not everybody passing them by is getting “lucky” (note: the “greatness” they demonstrated as a youth often has something to do with being eight inches bigger than other kids, thanks to that early growth spurt).

This sense of entitlement occasionally turned me off one of the best places for conversation on earth, the locker room.  Between watching these “coulda-been-a-contendas” talk down to the training staff, and hearing their stories of stolen success every time they get in the same room as a beer, I’m left bitter.  It’s always the same thing:

• Our (free) post game meal sucks.
• You did a shitty job sharpening my skates (for less than minimum wage, if you broke it down hourly).
• It sucks being at the airport two hours early (for our paid-for flights to go see a new city and play a sport for a living).

And you know what?  It’s often the same thing from the guys who coulda been a contender, but had this attitude sour their reputation.  The big picture is entirely foreign to those blinded by the glory of their own being.

We all bitch because we’re bored, because we’re tired, or because let’s face it, bitching is fun.  You can’t take that away from our culture, or we’d all kill ourselves.  Or each other.  Or worse, both.

But the guys who sincerely mean it do an unjust job of representing the majority of players who’ve figured it out, though the jackasses seem to be the ones people often remember.  Other sports have their problems and prima donnas too.  People aren’t perfect, and for that, they are to be forgiven.  What’s unforgiveable in hockey is the sense of entitlement kids pick up from being good while they’re young. 

So congrats on your kid doing great, moms and dads of towns A through Z.  Now it’s your job, as a parent, to make sure the kid knows that “hockey skill” is of secondary importance to things like “reality”.

*****

Head Shots – A Question For Players

-by Justin Bourne

The question of the day isn’t “what’s taking the NHL so long to act on head shots?” It’s “what’s taking the players so long?”

Clearly, hockey players are aware that the growing highlight reel of head shots has caused a bit of a kerfuffle. Most guys have sampled a concussion or two themselves, and don’t care to try the latest flavor.  So why don’t we see anyone passing up the chance to fold an opponent like a pretzel?

A major reason brings the blame back to the mindset of the guys signing the paycheques.  General managers love physical players.  Players know that a knock-out hit can earn you a reputation. It can also earn a three-game suspension, but that’s a small price to pay.

The risk/reward ratio provides zero reason to not pummel the vulnerable player.  You make some guy yard-sale his gear, and your team loves it.  It builds momentum.  If the angle is funny and the guy gets hurt, you take your three games and collect your “edgy-player” raise come the off-season.  It’s not like anyone avenges an injured teammate like they did in the 80s anyways, so charge away.

The NHL could step in and give the headhunters some real punishment. The game will never get worse by punishing the idiots.  Very few events suffer when you eliminate the people who pee in the pool. 

But what amazes me is that players seem to be waiting on the NHL to dispense justice on out-of-control headhunters. I’m sure these same skull-crushers have watched teammates struggle after concussions, needing a three-hour nap after a three-minute bike ride due to brain trauma.  Why don’t they seem to care about the whole “causing brain bruising so bad that people fit to climb mountains can’t climb stairs” thing?

So it comes back to the same question.  Where’s the uproar from the players? Guys can’t want it in the game.

I understand the argument about protecting yourself, as a player.  I’ve been one.  The only cliché more overused than “keep your head up” in hockey is “keep your head down” in golf.  But, both are grounded in logic.  In hockey, guys do need to stay out of dangerous situations, or occasionally, you deserve to get run over. 

But as the aggressor, you can see when the guy you’re about to hit doesn’t know it, and you need to do your best to avoid the head.  That’s all we’re asking here.  You can still stop a guy’s momentum and separate him from the puck without separating his brain’s communication from his body.  This doesn’t need to be happening so often.

Change tends to come like game seven of a playoff series – “if necessary”.  As team defense improved, we made goalie gear smaller to avoid soccer scores.  And soon we’ll be adding “when hockey players got as big as football players, only faster and on a hard surface, we had to protect them,” because we do.

These guys play 82 games going mach six (ballpark) on slippery concrete.  Injuries are going to happen.  And I want to see guys blown up too, but I want them to legally crisscross some opponent’s shoulders, not the wiring in his brain.

Damn near every buddy I have comes from hockey, and I’ve yet to speak with one who thinks a “please try to avoid that human’s motherboard with your shoulder” penalty is a bad idea.  The word “concussion” is so common now it goes by like “sprain”, but I can assure you, it’s not the same thing.

Is there someone speaking up in defense of head checks?  Where’s the other side of this argument?  By not acting on these violent acts, we’re tailoring our game for more Jarko Ruutus and less Marian Gaboriks.  Which direction do we want to go?

Someday, rules will be in place that will make it the referee’s call. And at some point, players will decide the knockout blows are not worth the risk.

But until that rule goes into effect and players open their eyes to what needs to change, I’ll steal a line I heard nearly every game on the bench – NHL, players… what’re you, blind?

*****

Life After Hockey

 -by Justin Bourne

It’s a weird feeling walking into a hockey rink these days.

It’s like walking into your old apartment and remembering the person you used to be. 

There’s where we had some laughs.  There’s where I felt some pain.  There’s where I made decisions that affected my life.

I went to the Coyotes/Kings exhibition game, the first game I’d been to since a puck hit my jaw in December – a puck that forced my teeth wired shut for almost seven weeks, resigned me to the couch for months, and incidentally launched my writing career.

Man, that slapshot hurt.

But this hurts in a different way, being at this game.  For the first time, I’m watching a hockey season start without me, with uncertainty, excitement and potential buzzing throughout the rink like a skate sharpener.  And just then, the questions started creeping up on me: am I really on this side of the glass?

In a small way, I can relate to Brett Favre – I can still play, so why shouldn’t I? 

And, I guess the answer is “because at some point, you have to grow up and make the right decisions.”  It’s just hard.

I stopped playing the game because I felt the dream slipping.  The physical damage done to your body is easy to justify if you play in the NHL.  But can you justify it if you’re earning a modest living playing in the AHL or ECHL?  Without the big bucks to lean on, won’t you still find yourself waking up one summer with that inevitable question:

Now what?

You’re at square one again.  What do you want to be when you grow up?  Playing in the NHL means you never have to answer that question, but I realized I would have to.  I made what I thought was the smart choice.  Doesn’t it make sense to start that second career younger than older?  I obviously thought so.

Choosing between practicality and passion?  It’s a harder decision than people realize.  In trying to make the right life decisions, I gave up that passion.  Watching this game now isn’t making it any easier for me.  What have I done?

When you give up your dream – not because you have to, but because it is the right decision –how are you supposed to cope?

As players, we continually evalute our teammates and our competition – saying “he’s not that good” under our breath and to each other because “I” need to be better than “him” to survive.  Now, as a writer, all-too-often I find myself saying “he’s not that good”, only to get responses from readers in stats, dimensions and potential.

I’ve never been a guy prone to negativity – “he’s not that good” is just fully burned into my competitive psyche.  To be good, you learn to think you’re the best.

I poured hour upon hour of after-practice time skating into off-hand one-timers.  Do you have any idea how hard that shot is?  Four years of college I worked on that after practice with my roommates, Chad Anderson (past season: Hamilton, AHL), Charlie Kronschnabel (past season: Iowa CHOPS, AHL) and Nick Lowe (past season: full-on scientist).

And what good is that skill now?  What good was taking rocket passes on my backhand?  Toe-pulling the puck?  What about the hours of conditioning?

It feels like time wasted.  Maybe writing is my attempt to justify the hours I put in, one at a time, for almost 27 years.  The funny part is, I can’t let go of all those power skating schools I begrudgingly attended instead of playing golf during the summer months.  I knew that was a waste of time.  You bend YOUR knees, buddy.

So I sat down at the game and ordered a beer.  I stood and listened to the anthem – watched the players rock in anticipation. I looked up and watched a couple players I knew from junior, college and pro.  He’s not that good.

I played on my BlackBerry.  I drank my beer.  I’ll never be able to get into it like a fan.

Ignorance is bliss, and for me, the game is tainted by knowledge.  That guy isn’t mad, he gets paid to enforce.  That guy skating really hard?  The “buzz-saw” that fans love?  He’s over-pursuing, making his teammates have to compensate because he’s out of position.  I’ll never be able to cheer for guys I competed against.  It’s like admitting defeat.

Something about my separation from the game makes me numb toward it now.  Don’t get me wrong – I was ready for this change.  I’m ready to live in one city, in one home.  But it doesn’t mean I won’t miss that other life.

My Dad spent 14 seasons in the NHL, then made the mistake of trying to fully leave the game when he retired. It took years for him to realize that hockey was the piece he was missing.  I’m not making that mistake.  It was good for me to face the game head-on last night, but I realized one thing: this is going to be harder than I thought.

Some day every player has to leave the game, and we’ll all experience the change differently.

For now, I’m sticking with “numb”.  The 2009-2010 season began without missing me, without missing a beat, and with a little dust in my eye before the puck dropped.

But I’m ready now.  It’s time to drop the puck on career number two.

Cause those other sports writers out there?  They’re not that good.

*****

Put it on the Board, Yes!

-by Justin Bourne

Pete Rose has been blackballed for decades for gambling on his own team in baseball.

Professional hockey players literally do it every single game.

It’s an accepted part of dressing-room culture, like heaping verbal abuse on the nearest human in range.  The difference between Charlie Hustle and the hockey hustle is that when hockey players put “Money on the Board”, everybody wins.

Before each game, a few players will saunter up to the dry-erase board in silence and put their jersey number down, with a dollar amount beside it.  It means that “if we win, I’ll donate this number of dollars to the team pot.”

12 – $50

For most games, there are three or four numbers on the list. For bigger games, the list of participants gets bigger. If the game is big enough, even the coaches might put some money on the board.

The dollar amounts differ depending on which alphabet you use – in the ECHL, most guys put up 25-50 bucks.  In the AHL, $50-$100.  In the NHL, the numbers just get weird.

One rule is consistent: You’re better off hitting the starting goalie in the collarbone during warm-up than writing something as offensive as ten dollars on the board. 

“Ooo, there’s something to play for fella’s, T-Rex is risking his next paycheck on a win!  I’m definitely blocking shots now…”

If you’re new to the club, the rules can seem a bit dicey, but it is accepted that the newest member of the group is expected to part with a chunk of their not-yet-earned money. Doe-eyed rookies who are new to pro hockey, and therefore to Money On The Board, always end up being major donors to the team party fund.

“*cough*”

“Isn’t it someone’s first game in here tonight?” one of the veterans will say before a rookie’s first game.  Guys are almost fully dressed before the game when these hints start coming out.

“*cough*”

“Nobody’s first game in here, eh?” he will continue, waiting for the rookie to put some money on the board.  Usually the rookie’s stall-mate has to let the kid know under his breath why he’s the focal point of the room.  And then the rookie is appalled and doesn’t believe he has to pay to play.

He does.

Here are the basic rules for mandatory MOTB contributions:

• First professional game.  Damn rights you’re putting on money on the board, and it better not be the team minimum.

• First game with a new team.  Just got dealt?  Make yourself at home.  Contribute to the fund.

• You are playing against your former team.  They didn’t want you.  You want to beat them, right?  Prove it.

• Your family is in the stands.  They drove all this way to see you.  Don’t you want to motivate the boys?

• Your girlfriend is here.  Awww, isn’t that sweet.  Lookit you Tiger, you big ladies man, you.  Seriously, put some money on the board.

And the fun part is, the money doesn’t have to go to the team – it can go to an individual.  Unless specified, the money is earned by a team win.  But when specified, it can go towards any of the following Money On The Board abbreviations:

• GWG: Game Winning Goal.  A nice bonus to go with winning the game, and scoring.

• GTG: Game Tying Goal.  Usually added between the second and third period of a game that the team is losing.  Always makes for a good silence breaker in the room.

• FG: The game’s first goal.  Looking for that jumpstart.

• SO: A ballsy abbreviation to write.  Aimed specifically at the goalie.  I can’t even type it out loud for fear of the wrath of goaltenders everywhere.

Or, you can always write something completely random, based on the specific team you’re playing that night. 

Hockey players might have short attention spans, but they have long memories. Sometimes when an opponent runs your goalie and the game is close, retaliation has to wait.  You’ll hear coaches and captains alike yelling “we play them again, settle down, we play them again!”

“Bounty” is a bad word, but you can imagine what might show up on the board the next time that team is in town.

The money is not the important part of the exercise. “Money on the Board” is something that unites teammates. 

Sometimes, early in the season, it’s hard to get everyone pulling in the same direction.  Jobs aren’t secure, and friendships are yet to be formed.  This loosens things up a bit.

Plus, the real bonus for the core guys who make it through the year comes when there’s thousands of dollars in the pot for the end-of-season wind-up.

On payday, the team “treasurer” makes his rounds, making you instantly regret you ever thought putting money on the board was a good idea.

And for those rookies, collecting their first paycheck as a professional, nothing makes the guys laugh harder than finding a hundred ways to funnel it back into the party pot.  Especially those young bucks making max cap in the NHL. 

“*cough*”

“Isn’t it somebody’s second game in here?” 

The Art of Slump-Busting

-by Justin Bourne

Slumps are a bitch.

After game two, the media tried to proclaim Sidney Crosby’s two-game drought a slump.  It isn’t.  The guy hit posts, pads, pants, people and pillows in games one and two, but the damn thing just won’t go in.  As I’ve been listening to the sports networks use his stats as the story, rather than to illuminate the story, I got thinking about real, actual slumps.

Did I mention they’re a bitch?

Attempting to slump break is freaking impossible, and, as a player, if I could give you a successful method I’d be a rich man.

I went through stretches of great success in college and pro hockey, tying together point streaks of double-digit games on multiple occasions.  As you may have guessed, I also went through stretches of great misery, tying together streaks of wall-punching and pulling my hair out at the root for double-digit games… on multiple occasions.

The standard song and dance about slump breaking is, in my opinion, what prolongs them.

“Keep it simple.  Shoot from everywhere.”

Garbage. 

Nothing twists the knife in your already stabbed confidence like a goalie casually gloving down your shot from left field that you only took because technically, that spot by the boards at the blueline fell under the category of “everywhere”.

 The only known antidote for the slump sickness, of course, is to work so hard Rod Brind’Amour looks lazy.

It takes a couple games of driving the net, hovering around the crease and generally playing violently before a shot from the point redirects off the bridge of your nose and goes in for you to get back to normal.

As far as slumps go, a few games wouldn’t be a huge deal.  The problem is that there are stages of slump denial, which tend to add extra games to it before you realize you’re mired in one.

For starters, there’s the Bad Luck phase:

“Ha, what a lucky save.”

“I can’t believe that hit both posts.”

“If another puck bounces over my stick around the net I’m going to sacrifice a goat to the hockey gods.”

The Blame Placing phase is only a few steps behind the Bad Luck phase.  Sadly, some players never get out of this one, convinced that their whole career was on the same path as Sid the Kid had they not had this awful nine-year stretch of bad luck.

“My linemates are awful.”

“I’m not getting enough powerplay time.”

“This ice is horrific.”

As the sad, slumpy realization sinks in, superstition becomes the only friend to turn to.

You start taping your stick with white instead of black.  You stop playing two-touch soccer with the boys before the game.  You even write something different on the knob end of your stick, something usually along the lines of “WWJD”.

As the slump shovel hits bedrock, thoughts on the home front start to drift, potentially all the way into “maybe I’m just not good enough” territory, highlighted by such classics as:

“I really should finish that degree.”

“I could probably work for my sister-in-law’s husband.”

And:

“#$%$  @#!$#ing &%@#!”

But just then, just as you’re about to re-drywall your bedroom and commit career suicide, a puck goes in.  And not a two-on-one, fake-pass snapper off the post snipe-type goal.  Always some dumb, “I can’t believe it was that easy” freebie-type goal.

And so the pendulum swings.

When I think about real slumps, I can’t imagine Mr. The Kid is too concerned about his play.  Hard work is in that guy’s bone marrow.  I highly doubt he’s rounding up too many goats these days.

In fact, if I had to guess, I’d wager “I really should finish that degree” has never formed as a sentence during any of his mini-slumps. 

I have a feeling Sid’s mental state is juuust fine.

**********

Interpreting Growth

- by Justin Bourne

What part of the NHL playoffs should I write about for my next THN blog?

Should I write about how the Star-Wars-worthy epic playoff series between the Washington Ovechkins and the Pittsburgh Crosbys dropped like the stock market the second Varlamov landed back on Earth?

Nah.  That’s been done.

Should I write about how the entire city of Vancouver is going through breakup-like symptoms once again, after another year of the Canucks winning back their hearts just to stomp on them once again?

Probably no need to salt that fresh wound.

Or maybe I should write about the re-birth of skill, of high-scoring games and scintillating performances by legends in the making.

Nooope. 

Beards.

Has it ever been more apparent that the leagues base of stars is just out of pre-natal care than this years second round?  The only reason a Sidney Crosby interview is remotely interesting these days is because you can place bets on what year his mutton chops will connect to his Abe Lincoln fuzz (I refuse to address that mustache).

Patrick Kane?  Ol’ Gino Malkin?

These guys have faces smoother than Matthew McConaughey on xanax.  I only get two weeks into playoffs before I start looking like Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite, and these guys are genetically exempt from having to look stupid?

Remember the days when men like Clark Gillies were in playoffs?  Grizzly Adams watched him during the ‘83 cup run and thought “damn, that guy needs a trim”.

That whole Islanders team looked they’d been stranded on a desert island with a volleyball for a half a dozen years by the time they were hoisting the cup.  I guarantee you the shampoo consumption of that dressing room in the finals ate into the Islanders bottom line that season. 

For some reason, we tend to associate manliness with hairiness.  And I feel like you need to be a pretty physically developed man to play in the NHL.  So what the hell is going on?

Evolution?  Are we in the stages of completing our journey to hairlessness, finally distancing ourselves from the Apes?

Where is Mike Commodore and his preposterous clown-wig/pirate beard combo? 

The only players left with quality face-warmers sport them peppered with grey – guys like Bill Guerin and Scott Niedermeyer, who was the recipient of the Harry Neale quip “is that a beard, or is he eating a muskrat?”

So where am I going with this?

Potential for growth, but in a different way.

What an amazing sign for the NHL that in the midst of the best playoff season I’ve watched, the stars of the show have voices that occasionally squeak.  The rest of the sports world that had so feverishly written off the NHL post-lockout is waking up to the game’s well-refined product.

Around The Horn and Pardon The Interruption have both regularly included hockey in their topic base, including a unanimous agreement between the ATH panel that the NHL playoffs are better than the NBA’s.  They used words like compelling, dramatic, and thrilling.

Aside from the well-discussed egg laid by the Capitals in game seven against the Pens, this season has done nothing but increase fan interest and hope, sporting a young cast of characters that are successfully leading their teams deep into the playoffs, forcing the type of head to head battles that the NHL would punch their own mothers to make happen.

Though the beards look sparse, the future looks full for professional hockey.

And if I could give any advice, to those endless stock-market-strugglers out there, it’d be this:

Pull your money out of Gillette, and sink it into the NHL.  You’ll probably shave yourself a few bucks.

**********

Post-Whistle Phonies

-by Justin Bourne

Playoffs has brought to light a revolutionary new breed of tough guy in the NHL.  The Post-Whistle Phony.

Let me preface my thoughts with a disclaimer.  I myself do not claim to be a tough guy on the ice.  I periodically get angry.  I occasionally chirp at chumps.  But my most common rebuttal holds somewhere along the line of “Yes, I realize you could kick my ass – does your coach know you’re out here?”

And I know my type exists in the NHL today.  There are guys like Jonathon Toews, players who play the game to win, without the slightest interest in a high-schoolesque testosterone-off.

But, there are certain requirements to be a hockey player.  You need to stick up for your teammates.  You may have to fight someone tougher than you (read: wrestle) because they did something stupid and you’re the first one on the scene of the crime – even though you are acutely aware this could end badly (read: my nose is now crooked).  You have to demonstrate your team’s unity.

I wasn’t a fighter, so I simply played the game.  No cheap shots, no snow-spray on the goalie, no picking on the little guys.  You know why?

Because if you do those things, you have to fight.  Rather, you should have to.  You used to have to, anyways.

1. They’re fun to have on your team, provided he’s not the type that leaves you short-handed all game like the media-magnificent Sean Avery.

But I don’t like the recent evolution, this new breed of rat that can smell a linesman coming like a piece of gouda, and then suddenly grows a foot taller

Old time players sit at home watching these guys and want to jump through the TV.  In this, the year of the facewash, how many glove to face interactions can fans see before they go “hmm… I’m not so sure those guys actually wanted to fight…”

The fact is that for the most part, if you want to get to an opposing player, you can.  These men are big, strong, and skate like a gazelle runs.  If players don’t want to fight, that’s okay – then just play the damn game.

As much as anybody, I enjoy a game played at a fever pitch, laced with animosity, hard hits, and palpable tension.  But the facewash?  That’s a snowball fight move.

I’m not saying I don’t like a little action between the whistles, but the game has changed.  In the Broadstreet Bully days, hockey nonsense ruled.  The frequent bench-clearing brawls were stupid, awful, dangerous, and entertaining.  In describing those melees, my Dad (Bob Bourne) admits it was a scary time – if you started losing your fight, you could be losing for a looonnngg time before help arrived.  Scary sounds like an understatement.

In no way is that type of violence better, but there needs to be a middle ground for agitators in the NHL.  If you wanna fight, fight. If you wanna play, play.

But every successful playoff team needs some grit, and that’s just a fact.  This year has been no exception. 

For the Boston Bruins, a guy like Milan Lucic has been no phony.  He mows guys over, jaws at them, and if they’d like to fight, he punches in their face for free.  I can’t think of someone I’d rather play less.

Toughness is a valued quality.  Players feel obligated to represent ourselves as having that trait, to our fans, our teammates and our coaches.  And just playing hockey makes you tougher, and quicker on the trigger.  I assure you, nothing decreases the length of your fuse like getting cross-checked in the back, having your jersey held or your ankles slashed.

So we need to reward the guys who carry themselves the same way after the whistle as they do before it, and learn to discern toughness from being the post-whistle fakers – the guys who need to be “restrained” until the puck is dropped, the same guys who aren’t there to actually answer the bell when their opponent has rung it. 

The good news is, as series go on, phony-laden teams disappear.  We start to learn who’s been faking it, and who’s actually got the cards.  Good luck trying to bluff Lucic.

So for all the “tough guys” who need their gloves re-palmed every other week, the NHL has some bad news about the rest of the games in playoffs:

They’re only getting tougher.

**********

The Early Rounds

-by Justin Bourne

Fans that keep one foot on the NHL bandwagon, hop on. 

Round one is upon us.

In my past two seasons as a player, I’ve played in six playoff rounds, the most exciting, intense and demanding of which were in round one.

 Playoffs start like a car accident.  It’s out of control, anything can happen, and all of a sudden it’s over, and everything goes silent, except for that long horn at the end. 

 And you’re left wondering, what the h-e-double hockey sticks just happened?

 By the time I got to the third round last season, I was playing with a separated sternoclavicular joint (get out your medical textbook) and what was basically a bad shoulder.  I was 10 pounds below my normal playing weight, pale, and sported a beard that made girls throw up a tiny bit in their mouths.

 Without fail, at season’s end I would emerge from playoffs looking like some castaway that floated home on a coconut raft.  It takes a heaping mental effort to get up to the necessary level of nightly intensity, so after a few rounds of beatings and bus trips, it’s tough to be the player you want to be.

 And as a fan, I feel the same way about the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  I get so into the early rounds, and watch so much hockey, that by the end (I think the season ends in August now), I’m pretty much indifferent.  When you think about NHL playoffs, hasn’t the most fun always been those early rounds?

 Oh, those rivalries.  Boston-Montreal.  This is the 32^nd time they’ve met in playoffs, and their last game was vicious.  Watching Chara throw windmills at Komisarek, I felt like somebody had finally pissed off Lenny from Of Mice And Men.  I’d let Chuck Lidell punch me in the throat to go to one of those games at the Bell Centre.

 Capital-Rangers brings Ovechkin to the Big Apple, and puts Sean Avery in the playoffs.  Networks are going to be tripping over themselves to cover the fiasco at Madison Square Garden.

 The Crosby-Malkin equipped Pens play the Flyers, a team with six 20-plus goal scorers?  And everybody’s first-round-fresh?  Yes, please.

 The first round means the decline in the productivity of every hockey fan with a television.  Four games a night?  It’s like they served the Super Bowl buffet style.

 By the third round, we’re down to four teams, a mere single game a night. There isn’t a hockey fan that shouldn’t be a little bummed about that.  SportsCentre shows less highlights, and adds more interviews.  There’s less to talk about.  The sensory overload that was the first round disappears, and life gets so… normal.

 The sheer quantity of passionate hockey games night in night out in this first round raises the entertainment value to its yearly peak. 

 Following these 16 teams epic quest is like watching Lord of the Rings: its one chaotic thing after the next, the odds of succeeding look thinner all the time, and they both take forever. But to get to the fires of Mordor (okay, dropping the analogy) – to get to the finals – is a journey unlike any other: the NBA isn’t as physical; the NFL playoffs are four games total. And at the peak of the biggest moments, in the biggest games in baseball, 95% of the team can be eating sunflower seeds. The Stanley Cup is clearly the hardest trophy to win.

 But by the time teams limp into the later rounds, they’re an injured, beleaguered sack of mentally fatigued warriors.  It’s rarely a fair representation of what kind of team they are.  The playoffs are an endurance test.

 But round one is a sprint.  Actually, its wind sprints, where the competitors periodically get punched in the face.

 So on Wednesday, the hockey world explodes.  Eight finely tuned teams bring their highest levels of aggression, mental focus and passion to the rink and take their shot at immortality.

 Teams that try to pace themselves get slaughtered off the hop, and all the analysts get to start pointing fingers.  These days, NHL fans are abuzz with the volume of information to process, gamblers’ accounts fluctuate like the Dow, and Don Cherry’s head nearly explodes.

 Every year I’m sad when this part ends.  Why?  Because that means I have to start eating dinner at the table again.  When it’s only one game, you can have dinner, and catch the game.  There’s no excuse for the pizza box/couch combo.

 There’s nothing better than getting a plate set, a drink handy (coke in a glass with ice), and starting the nightly double header (complete with highlights of the other two series).

 It’s not that I’m trashing the later rounds; I’m praising the early ones.  This is the hockey smorgasbord I’ve been waiting for.  This is where true hockey fans point to justify their obsession.

 So let’s do it.  Let’s stock up on chips, ice cream and popcorn (Orville Redenbacher’s buttery salt and cracked pepper). 

 We’ve reached the pinnacle.  Join me, won’t you?

 Enjoy round one folks.

**********

Survival of the Wittiest

- by Justin Bourne

Playing hockey for too long has turned me into a complete jackass.

When I first walked into a junior hockey dressing room, I was 17.  I didn’t drink, smoke or do anything all that “cool”.  I had a steady girlfriend who I was faithful to.  My favorite color was purple.

I got crucified.

I needed a copy of: Getting Beaked For Dummies: How to Respond When You’ve Been Called a Duster, Bender, Joke, Plug and Six Variations of Homosexual.

The basic rule of dressing room trash talk is that the “best defense is a good offense”, but most guys aren’t able to think of anything snappy — especially if somebody, heaven forbid, hits them with something clever.

And that’s what separates the trash-talk all-stars from rest of the room: You need to make specific, personal cuts that make a guy think. You gotta cut deep. Yes, this damages friendships, but they heal; it’s not The Hills.

It’s like the jail theory we’ve all heard:  On your first day, kick somebody’s ass so people know you aren’t to be messed with.  You have to take it too far a couple times so people know you’re one of the guys who will throw a guy under the bus if he gets too personal with you. 

To get good at this, it helps to take constant notes.  This is how good guys end up being bad people.  You’re listening to every conversation, often as a friend, but secretly taking notes for future ammo.  You do it so long you don’t notice that you’ve become Judge Judy, mentally persecuting while smiling and nodding.

The best-case scenario is a buddy mentioning that he cried when his dog died or something completely legitimate.  It’ll be exploited the next time he says something hardcore.

“Why don’t you quit whining about ice time and man up?”

“Shut it, you cry for puppies, you’re opinion is void.”

Note the mild exaggeration from dead dog to puppies; this move is key.  The trick is to find some truth and stretch it to the point of embarrassment.  The guy can’t defend himself with “no I don’t”, because the worst thing he can do is further dwell on the topic and give someone a chance to tell the whole story of his tears to more ears.

The most common chirp involves girls.

There are some guidelines: serious girlfriends and wives are generally off-limits (to the guy’s face).  You’re allowed to abuse the player in regards to his conduct with the wife (leaves team functions early, calls her “Schmoopy”, wags his tail at her every request/command), but personal attacks like “sooo, she never lost that baby weight, huh?” qualify as across the line.

There are very, very (very) few secrets in a dressing room.  There are always two to five conversations going on about the room while guys get their gear on, but the real fun starts when a topic is so hugely important the whole room is involved in a main-event worthy conversation. 

It usually starts with a raucous reaction to some piece of news somewhere in the room – let’s say some guy dated a teammate’s sister – and everybody is listening to that one conversation.

The mob mentality heightens the pressure, and all your buddies are dying to pull the trigger on a verbal knock-out punch.  Wear your thick skin and orate like Obama, because the hammer’s falling regardless.

Beyond the permanent girls, nothing is off-limits.  You’re fat?  Get your “I can lose weight and you’ll still be ugly” responses ready.  Balding?  Good luck.  These are the pettiest of petty issues that get players abused without having done anything wrong.

Chubby player: “Hey, that was my seat.”

Jackass player: “Well, now you have to stand on your fat feet”.

Anytime you get 20 guys in a room, doing nothing but working out and finding the next thing to laugh at, it doesn’t matter their profession; jokes are going to be constant. 

And that’s what guys miss when they leave hockey.  Maybe they’ll go golf with three buddies, but you can’t compare that to the volume of material created by a dressing room of wannabe comedians everyday.

So when you see old teammates down the road, don’t forget your basics: keep note of embarrassing things, offense for defense, and keep it personal.  There will always be buddies that you can get together with years after playing and pick up right where you left off.

My dad took me to a Canucks vs. Islanders game five or six years after he retired, and popped in to see his old coach from the Island.

Arbour:  “HEEEYYY! Sh**head!!!”

 **********

Chemistry Experiment #39

Written January 22, 2009, revised April 1^st, 2009 for the magazine

-by Justin Bourne 

As a hockey player, every winter you get handed 20 new friends.  I usually got along with about 19, genuinely liked five and found one gem. 

But what happens when there isn’t that one gem?  Or even five you genuinely like?  What happens when you only get along with 16 of your teammates?  Does it affect your performance?

It was my opinion that talent is what it is, you’re either good or you aren’t.  When you get the puck, you make good plays or you don’t.  Confidence plays a small part in these decisions, but it comes from successes and failures.  False confidence, like your Mom’s “great game” after playing like a donkey for 60 minutes, means as much as “Mission Accomplished” from George Bush.

Obviously that same comment holds more weight from a teammate than a parent, but can that little bit of feel-good translate to better play?

My first year out of college, I played for the Utah Grizzlies, an immensely fun group of average hockey players, led by fan (and team) favorite Travis Rycroft.

Talk about passion for the game.  Ryks lived and breathed this stuff.  A Dave Matthews die hard, Trav wrote and played his own music at team parties.  He was a motivator.  He never quit.  But most of all, everybody liked him.  I mean everybody.  And that doesn’t mean he liked everybody.  In fact, if I had to guess I’d say my team-liking figures of 19-5-1 would be a little high for him (minus the 19 part, he probably got along with 21 of every 20 guys).  He literally says “you betcha” when he agrees, and isn’t being the slightest bit facetious.

So I got to thinking…. How important is team chemistry?  Our team in Utah was about an “okay” out of ten on the talent scale, but managed to go deep into playoffs as a scrappy, hard working team.  We had a great leader and liked each other.

There has to be a certain level where talent trumps chemistry.  I’ve never been a big believer in team chemistry, believing that a talented team with a good coach could hate each other and it wouldn’t matter; they’d still find success.  But the more I think about it, the more skeptical I’ve become of this idea. 

Rycroft was the team captain for four years and never got his chance at the next level, but he had to have been close.  Character isn’t something that can be measured and put on a scouting report, but its value is tangible in the locker room. 

Ryks missed some playoff games with torn knee ligaments (after being an iron man the previous season, never missing a game) and called the team in for a meeting without coaches to talk about that night’s game.  He cried.  He was so busted up he couldn’t play, he cared that much.  You don’t think that motivates a group of people who like him?  Of course it does. Some guys were playing for contracts, but the focus shifts a bit when you see something like that.  Something about it just sets you straight.

The Dallas Cowboys have been the picture of the team I had been thinking of, all talent and no chemistry.  They were a huge disappointment last season.  I’m starting to take this theory a little more seriously. 

All I know is that when I leave this game, I can take something from Ryks.  For one, he’s a good friend, but two, that this sort of stuff matters in any job.  No matter what it is you do, if you dread seeing your boss or co-worker, it’s miserable.  But if you’re pumped to see them, any day can be decent, and your job can be a treat.  I know I didn’t enjoy everything about being in Utah, but Trav made it fun.  I know which co-worker I wanna be.  And for that little tidbit that should have been picked up in grade school, I say thanks to Trav.

So when the NHL analysts spout their genius and lay down their playoff predictions like gospel, don’t bet the house on their words; who knows which team has a Rycroft.  It’s those un-measureables that create winning teams. 

 ********** 

The Pro’s of Rec Hockey

 - by Justin Bourne  (March 3/09)