Maximizing Talent and Friendship

“He epitomizes what you’d like to have in a player,” Lamoriello said. “He’s committed to the game, he loves the game, he works at it, he plays it the right way. He competes in practice the same way he does in a game. He’s a player that I personally have tremendous respect for because he does everything the right way and maximizes whatever his talents are. And they’re pretty good.”

Lou Lamoriello said this about Zach Parise in this NYT article https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5488324/2024/05/13/avalanche-stars-parise-suter-nhl-playoffs/

We can see he looks for commitment, love, work, and play in players. And he is talent agnostic— he prefers talent over incompetence in any case. I think this is where we see the crossroads of imposing on players learning the ‘right way’ we lose the frame of talents, players’ having a proper relationship with their individual abilities and allowing them space to foster them.

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“At the end of this series, the two former faces of the Wild franchise will meet in the handshake line. One will be one step closer to his Stanley Cup dream. The other will be crushed.

But their friendship will steer them through that moment.

“Well, either way, obviously if we win, I’m sure he’ll wish me luck and if they would win, then I would obviously wish him good luck,” said Suter. “You want to win, but if you can’t, you want your buddy to win, too.”

Wishing for themselves and their opponents to win is a rare approach. To foster the growth of the friendship. That’s a rare orientation. Win-win.

Impossible

“It is impossible. That’s what makes it beautiful.” -Berlin

From La Casa de Papel season 3 episode 3

Preserving the game

https://youtube.com/shorts/nMEPGM6Kkqw?si=Z9gtVPKwJATb_ClM

Just a game

Hockey is a just a game some might say. To me it’s more than that.

It matters how we play. Using crooked tools— physical and psychological— assaults our inbred conscience that orients social games towards fair play and justice. But for some reason our game relinquishes some of the better reasons for play. Play is pro-social, pro-active. It helps refine character and determination. When hockey sticks are crooked are the players made then in that image? Might our communities be suffering from an intense level of crooked play and how might we confront that or even better— prepare the next generation to overcome it?

Only through a lens of an intrinsic motivation might you begin to appreciate the road I hope the game travels down.

Winning 76%

Credit to John Riley for sending me this clip illustrating how the Rangers are winning draws at a 76% clip.

https://x.com/nhlnetwork/status/1729862796610093295?s=42&t=UZywpL6ww_RDsVyxFthItQ

So simple— low hanging fruit for the taking..

Hacks

“They’re ain’t no hacks. You misunderstand that then you have a real problem.” -David Goggins @ minute 59

https://youtu.be/nDLb8_wgX50?si=pV4g-O9ABgdwp1kC

The longer we accept players playing crooked the longer we give them an incomplete and confusing learning curve.

The community decides whether we create a game of laws or a game of men for future players to grow into (paraphrasing Marbury v Madison).

“Most people are good enough so that they don’t go wrung after wrung.” -Andrew Huberman @ 1 hour mark

Circling

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.

Checkers

Without two ways Hockey becomes checkers. Hat tip to my friend Ryan Shannon for this one.

I wonder if the game’s environment engenders a certain harshness that caps the delicacy we can bring to the game? I like to think— NO!

Common Way

From two ways can we adopt one? A common way along a common line.

Can and can't do

Sportsnet "What Kris Knoblauch can, and can't, do to turn around the Oilers' season"

In this article I found nice language that illustrates some gameplay realities..

“I am concerned, though, that the amount of "systems" discussions these days had led some fans to believe that the role these systems have in the outcome of games is more impactful than it really is.

In some sports the “systems,” or the “tactics,” or the “strategy” that comes from the coach are nearly as impactful as the team’s roster. In the NFL, players run very specific offensive plays via routes, where some guys are asked to operate like figures in bubble hockey tracks. In basketball, plays can be run with every possession and all five bodies can contribute something to the execution of getting a good look at the basket.

Hockey is so free-flowing though, with so many random bounces, that its “systems” are so often referred to as “structure” for a reason. They’re guidelines to eliminate those moments where players are caught between two choices and the worst possible outcome isn’t selecting the wrong option, it’s hesitating.

You don’t hear the term “structure” as much in other sports. Hockey is such a quick-twitch instant-reaction sport that you often don’t have time to look up and make a thoughtful play, so the best thing the team can provide for you is: in this type of scenario, here is where my teammates should roughly be. That allows you to blindly bang the puck off the boards to where a teammate is supposed to be, or flip it up the middle, depending on the situation.”

The two choices the author hints are the two ways.. Interesting he mentions in game scenarios where one not having enough time to make a thoughtful play is left with banging the puck off the boards or flipping the puck in the middle— two gross, wildly insufficient team plays. Please see these occasions as gaps or shortcomings in team play with the individual player communicating through body language— I’m afraid of the moment, all the other subscribed solutions have failed and aren’t available so please let me terminate play so that my status as a serviceable team player remains. Let me stop play, don’t let me create hockey as a richer refinery for human development and error. Hockey is the end.

Is the game’s purpose to win or to grow and share something common along lines that mirror finer realms of human excellence?

Day of the Dead

It was the Day of the Dead yesterday. I went to look up the significance of the holiday and came upon the idea of syncretism. Syncretism is the amalgamation or attempted amalgamation of different schools of thought, cultures, or religions.

I can’t help but see hockey as some combination of, as I have written before, the physical contact of American football, the turn-taking of baseball with the marksmanship of archery, the cooperation of soccer with the generosity of basketball, all built on the deftness of tightrope walking. These all relate to physical elements of the game.

Going deeper through the lens of tightrope walking we are most apt to understand Smushkin’s hockey agility. The variety of arm movements without stick exemplify the balancing act that is performed by our hands at most if not all moments. This act is simply crippled by the game today.

Walking on a tight rope requires total momentary organization with an imagination for the next moments. Thus the most dangerous and joyful hockey game will arise when players accept through their hands, as well as impose by their hands, the tightrope that we accept beneath our feet. If the goal is to walk successfully from one end of the tightrope to another, can a tightrope walker ever hold or force one step in particular without sacrificing this goal? Transforming a particular step into the goal sacrifices synchronizing the successful walk.

Modern Dreamers

“Certain modern dreamers say that ants and bees have a society superior to ours. They have, indeed, a civilization; but that very truth only reminds us that it is an inferior civilization. Who ever found an ant-hill decorated with the statues of celebrated ants? Who has seen a bee-hive carved with the images of gorgeous queens of old?” Chesterton’s Orthodoxy p.267

The reflective instinct is the edge of dignity. The contours of the game are aligned then. A reflective element in player ability is the highest form of cooperation and competitiveness. It pushes the game to the furthest arc of its development.

Agere Contra

https://youtu.be/90gP3d-K920?si=mnRlQzO6QKugMccg

Bishop Barron mentions agere contra as acting against our attachments to do his will. The purposeful pursuit of playing and being played, sharing and growing. Then at minute 3:25 he mentions Aristotle’s concept of entelechy, of a stick bent in one direction— Aristotle believes the entelechy of humans is we naturally want to be knowledgeable and social.

Two Way hockey agility adopts sticks bent in either direction, coinciding like clockwork, and then ultimately straight to create the furthest and finest development curve for ice hockey players and the game.

songwriting

“I’m working within my art form. It’s that simple. I work within the rules and limitations of it. There are authoritarian figures that can explain that kind of art form better to you than I can. It’s called songwriting. It has to do with melody and rhythm, and then after that, anything goes. You make everything yours. We all do it… I’m not going to limit what I can say. I have to be true to the song. It’s a particular art form that has its own rules. It’s a different type of thing.” -Bob Dylan

Ed Reed vs Paton Manning

Piggy backing off of my last post with Deion Sanders here is an interesting video about opponent processing from two NFL greats.

https://youtu.be/GQrZKveWgOk?si=FTeypultXzQVsVAx

Thought processes and game richness in hockey can be enhanced by more reflection individually to overcome the forcefulness that handicaps the game at this moment. Thanks, Harry, for pointing me to spirit over strength and power.