MIKE STACKHOUSE’S 10 THOUGHTS

1 – ELIZONDO DENIED – The XFL has denied permission for the Edmonton Eskimos to speak with Jamie Elizondo regarding their head coaching position.  On one hand, I feel that Elizondo should never have left the league if he was interested in a head coaching post. On the other hand, the reality is that Canadian professional football is a last resort for players and coaches alike.  American football is where the money is and it’s what these people dream of doing. Right or wrong, I also think many feel the XFL is a step closer to the NFL than the CFL. Still, the CFL is an established league and a guy like Elizondo can make an extremely good living here.  I suspect he already sees the writing on the wall with the XFL and he will be out of work at the end of their season, whenever it is they are supposed to be playing.

2 – RIDERS COACHING CHANGES – I suspect the Saskatchewan Roughriders will end up doing the right thing and make a few changes to their coaching staff.  Just because they had a better-than-expected season doesn’t mean everyone should be satisfied. Taking into account how both playoff games (last year and this year) have gone for this offense and seeing what Paul LaPolice was able to get from Zach Collaros, I’m left with no choice but to suggest a change for the Rider offense should be in order.

3 – #METOO OF COACHING – I wrote, extensively, about coaching and relating to players last week.  Lots has happened on that front since then as we are hearing all sorts of stories about alleged abuse from NHL coaches of their players. While I am opposed to humiliation, we should be using common sense when it comes to allegations. I don’t think there is anything wrong with a coach being tough on a player to get maximum potential.  If that involves yelling and screaming at some point, then I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. Physical assault and racial slurs are never okay, but if a 25-year-old defenseman coughs up the puck and it results in a game winning goal for the other side late in the third period and the coach decides to lose his cool in the dressing room in front of all 20 players afterwards, well that’s life.  I know many readers will disagree with this, but an element of fearing the result of failure or the wrong decision isn’t a bad thing. For some of us, it drives us in a big way and for some athletes, it’s the difference between making millions of dollars or not.

4 – COACHING IS SOMETIMES HARSH, IT’S OK – Sports at a high level is emotionally charged.  It sometimes means yelling, swearing, and things we don’t see in ordinary work places. And, that’s the thing.  High level sports isn’t an ordinary work place and those expectations shouldn’t be placed on professional sports.  Unless that’s what you all want. Let’s just hold a random draw and pick names from a hat and those are the people that get to play and coach in the National Hockey League. Racism is never okay. Physical abuse is never okay. Mental abuse is never okay. But if a pro coach and a pro player end up in a fist fight in the dressing room as a result of a heated argument, I trust they’ll sort it out eventually on their own and I have no problem with it.  If every altercation is a form of discrimination or abuse, how do you explain fisticuffs like what we witnessed when Tie Domi and Donald Brashear were going toe to toe? Was someone being abused? What about the trash talking by Claude Lemieux? Verbal assault? I guess if this is the direction everyone wants to go, so be it.  But, we’ve hit a slippery slope and it would be nice to see some real leadership step up and stomp out real abuse but also make it clear that words that are sometimes hard to hear is part of playing sports at a high level.

5 – NOT MINOR HOCKEY – Some people have read my comments in recent days on social media and misconstrued them to think I’m talking about minor hockey.  I’m not. How you would handle a 13-year-old playing C level hockey is a lot different than how you’d handle a 17-year-old playing in the WHL and that’s different yet than how you’d handle a 28-year-old playing in the NHL. 

6 – CHANGE THE WORLD – This recent #metoo movement of coaching hockey players proves to me that I was right when years ago I had to correct people who complained about a snowflake society and claimed ‘Wait until these young people reach the real world as grown ups.  They will be in for a rude awakening’. To which I’ve always replied, ‘No, wait until the real world gets a taste of these people and we are all forced to change to accommodate them.’ A few of these stories about coaches are alarming and there needs to be change as to the way players are dealt with sometimes. But, there are other allegations that, to me, are a nothing burger.

7 – COACH ABUSE – Abuse can go both ways when you are dealing with million dollar players. I’m not naming names because it’s not my place, but a major junior coach told me a story about twenty years ago that I found very concerning at the time and even more so today with regards to how he (and another coach) were treated by two very rich NHL players and it, essentially, ended both of their careers coaching at the NHL level.  To my knowledge, one of the coaches has never, ever coached again and the second one never got another NHL opportunity once he was fired. The now former players in question have both been somewhat vocal over the recent past condemning the behaviour of so-called ‘old school’ coaches, which makes them hypocrites to me. The coach I talked to at the time is a man I hold in high regard and I don’t expect him to ever come forward with what he experienced but I would relish a coach going public and detailing what it’s like when the shoe is on the other foot and you know the player is actually the person with the power.

8 – COACHES ARE SOME OF THE BEST PEOPLE – As is almost always the case, the media latches on to a negative story, such as the Bill Peters racial slur, and now there are all kinds of angles being written with regards to an epidemic of a toxic culture.  I didn’t see the intermission on Saturday, but Sheldon Kennedy and Ron MacLean, apparently, discussed hockey leading the way for change in Canada. Change for what? This is a damn good country already and no matter what you do to it to try and make it better, you are always going to end up with isolated cases that bring sadness and anger.  I put out a call on social media for people to give me good stories about coaches. I got a number of them, but I also had a couple tell me they are reluctant to praise specific individuals out of fear of someone else having a bad experience with that coach and that triggers a damning story that snowballs into something out of control. So, there you have it.  The angry mob has won and shut down an attempt to shine a different light on coaches, who I know are far more in number than the ones who are portrayed to be similar to Bill Peters. In fact, I just don’t believe that in 2019 we have a significant number of coaches using racist names and physical assault to try and get results. Sure, you will always find a bad apple in every basket.  But, to suggest this is a widespread cancer of some sort is insane.

9 – MAYBE HOW BABCOCK LOST THE ROOM – The first few games played by Toronto is a clear indication the players just quit on their coach.  I have no respect whatsoever for that. Players aren’t dumb. I wonder if in the days before Matthews, Marner, Nylander, etc. got paid big money if they didn’t realize that since Mike Babcock was making more than them if they knew the buck stopped with Babcock and he’d have the backing of upper management.  Once all of those guys got salaries higher than Babcock, they were then armed with the knowledge they will outlast the coach and are more valuable in the eyes of ownership, thus they tuned him out until he was finally canned. I think the Leafs are going to win a lot of games between now and the end of the season but this lack of character almost never ever wins a title and the selfish true colors will, eventually, show themselves again and the chances are very likely that it will tear the team apart. 

10 – NICE PERSON MENTIONS – I just want to close by naming some of the good coaches who have impacted my life since I became involved in junior hockey.  None of them have been my coach, but I wouldn’t hesitate to put my kids in their care at any time: Perry Chandler, Ken Miller (not the Riders one, but I guess him too!), Danny Flynn, Wayne Sager, Del Pedrick, Ken Seekings, Tom Skinner, Jerry Hemmings, Don Thomson, Neil Andrews, Blaine Gusdal, Don Chesney, Trent Cassan, Jamie Fiesel, Dean Brockman, Darcy Haugan, Mike Reagan, Craig Geisler, Nick Jonassen, Garrett Karcha, and Tim Kearse.  There are a lot of others I’ve missed as space won’t permit but I could count the number of ‘bad ones’ on one hand over the last 25 years.

(Mike Stackhouse is a freelance writer/broadcaster. Follow him on Twitter at @Stack1975)