From Jerry Lynch and the Way of Champions I inherited the idea of making circles with teams. Off the ice in the room players stand beside each other on the same level creating what exists in the middle the culture and values and group identity. And by the defense of the Boston bruins play these days it’s clear we’re growing ever closer to the five man unit play. So I thought of the interesting symmetry that could exist between the circle exercise off the ice and a circle attack on the ice where players follow each other in an ever evolving circular pattern attempting to either create or disrupt successful plays based on time and space, their teammates and opponents.
But my intuition goes further to invite a spiral structure instead certainly on the defensive side to shrink the space given and coordinate with teammates the creation of some decentralized autonomous organization where players have the utmost autonomy to cooperate and improvise. We see spirals in nature. They are built into the fabric of reality and if hockey is a game to learn about life and prepare wonderful players for play in all realms then a spiraling reflects the fundamental flowing structure of the game and creates natural thinking patterns for players to adapt to.
