Protect This Crease: Why Dustin Tokarski is the Last Person to Blame for Montreal’s Elimination

Now that the Montreal Canadiens have been eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs, leaving the Rangers as the lone team standing in the East, sports pundits are starting to compile lists of five reasons why the Habs lost, presumably because five is the magic number. Maybe the pundits assume that five is the limit of what the human brain can easily remember, or perhaps they just figure that, whenever your team is knocked out of the playoffs, you turn to your friend, stretch out your fingers, and exclaim, “Give me five reasons why we lost.” Anyhow, if Yahoo News were your friend (and it’s hard to imagine anyone being so desperate as to resort to being friends with this online yellow journalism site) in the aforementioned scenario, here’s the list one of their experts would offer you.

Where is Dustin Tokarski on this list? Right at number two, even though he doesn’t belong on this list at all. Oh, the journalist tried to veil his criticism, so he wouldn’t be accused of bullying the twenty-four-year-old making his playoff debut in the third round, but he still basically asserts that Tokarski is to blame for the offense of big guns like Pacioretty and Subban never really firing in Game 6, which is total nonsense. Tokarski is a goaltender, and a rookie one at that. It’s not his job to be a sniper or a playmaker.

Quite frankly, so-called experts on hockey should not fault goalies for losses unless the team they’re playing for scores at least one goal in the sixty minutes of regulation, because, as shocking a revelation as this may prove to be, you can’t win a hockey game without scoring at least one goal. Relying on your goaltender to keep the game scoreless so you can hopefully pot one in the opposing net in overtime would be a foolishly optimistic strategy in any game, nonetheless an elimination one.

As such, it is safe to assume that wasn’t the Montreal Canadien game plan, and that they did want to have the offense score at least one goal during regulation. The fact that the offense failed to do so is on them, as well as on their coach, who was outmatched to a borderline comical degree by Alain Vigneault. Unless you expect Tokarski to score goals for his team (which is silly, considering that the NHL record for goals by a goalie is a whopping three held by Martin Brodeur, and he entered the league when dinosaurs were still roaming and the trapezoid trapping goaltenders didn’t exist), you can’t point condemning fingers at Tokarski’s performance.

In fact, I will go so far as to suggest that you should be impressed. What he did by playing for the storied Montreal Canadiens was analogous to a rookie coming in to bat fourth for the New York Yankees during the World Series to hit a grand slam but still get picked apart by the media vultures afterward because nobody else in the lineup could bat to save their necks, so the team still lost. At only twenty-four, Tokarski was a match for Lundqvist, and at times even outplayed his Broadway Blueshirt counterpart. He had some breathtaking saves like this spectacular one on Chris Kreider, and his aggressive butterfly style reminded me of Jonathan Quick. In game six, he gave his team a chance of winning although a majority of the shots were coming against him rather than Lundqvist, which is all any team can expect from a goaltender to turn the momentum in their favor during a big game.

Blame Kreider for injuring Price, though I thought that the drop off between Price and Tokarski was minimal, or blame the Montreal defense for propelling Kreider into their own goaltender. Blame Therrien for being outfoxed by Alain Vigneault. Blame Subban for failing to man his point effectively on the powerplay. Blame Pacioretty for forgetting how to score. Blame Vanek for leading the team in on ice invisibility time.

Just don’t blame the rookie goalie when he did better than anyone with any grip on reality could have expected him to do under the circumstances and totally earned that kiss from Subban that he received after Game 5. Better yet, don’t even assign blame and just appreciate the glorious upset that the Habs had over the Bruins and the humor of a Montreal Canadiens’ flag being flown over Boston City Hall as payment for a bet between mayors.

Breaking Down a Miracle on Ice Film: Don’t Quit Until You’re Fired

When we left off last time, Herb threatened to cut some of the boys if they caused any more trouble. Moving along with the theme of scratching some people off the team, Patrick exits the training center to be greeted with the following shout from the guy I believe is Dave Christian, “Hey, Patrick, you’ve got the names?”

It should also be noted that when he poses this inquiry, he throws his arms about so much that it would be tempting to include this moment in any top ten hockey goal celebration collection. Overacting was definitely the bread and butter of the actors in this movie, I assure you.

Obviously able to hear Dave’s shout, a tangle of boys including OC, Rizzo, Jim, and possibly Silk if my recognition skills aren’t hilariously subpar, stops tossing around a football and charges over to hear Patrick’s answer for themselves as Patrick explains, “Twenty-six names on the bulletin board in the morning. Rizzie, Herb wants to see you.”

Jim and Rizzo swap scared, startled glances, and then Rizzo, handing the football to Jim, replies, “Okay. I’ll see yous later.” Yous? Seriously, scriptwriters, didn’t we learn in third grade not to ever use the word “yous”? Then again, maybe the scriptwriters are still in second grade, which would explain a ton about the dialogue in this film.

I hate to be the grammar police, but what is this garbage assaulting my eardrums? In English, the word “you” functions as both a singular and plural noun. To avoid confusion, I understand the urge to use informal “you” plural addresses such as “you guys” which I’ve been known to indulge in myself in casual conversation or even “y’all” if you’re from the South, but “yous” just sounds ten times more ignorant than either of those even if it’s technically no more wrong. I maintain that college-educated people like Rizzo shouldn’t use the word “yous” unless they want to have their degrees revoked.

As Rizzo disappears to inflict more grammatical errors on Herb, Jim asks, “What? Is he cutting Rizzie?”

Wearing a slyly obtuse smile reminiscent of the Cheshire Cat’s when giving Alice directions in Wonderland, Patrick says, “Hey, I just work here. Who’s buying the beers?”

When the boys shake their heads in disgust and drift away, Patrick, demonstrating that he cannot pick up on non-verbal cues even when they hit him in the face like a sledgehammer, calls after the guys, “Hey, you telling me I’m not welcome?” Yeah, Sherlock, that’s exactly what they’re telling you, because if you came along for drinks, the scene would probably become as awkward as a dinner of semi-phallic food with a family of nudists.

At his most whiny, Patrick tries to mend the fences again, yelling, “Hey, where you guys going to be in case Herb wants to see you later on?” He is informed that the boys will be across the street at Cecil’s, having a few drinks before the cuts. We are spared the sight of any more Patrick wimpiness by a merciful scene transition.

The scene shifts to Herb’s office, where Herb is telling Rizzo, “Think it over, Rizzie. That’s my best advice.”

When Rizzo asks what will happen if he refuses, Herb responds enigmatically, “We’ll see, but if I keep you, it’s going to be for the good of the team.”

Apparently forgetting how to knock, Patrick bursts in, announcing, “I need you, Herb. In private.”

Plainly irritated at the abrupt interruption, Herb demands in a sharp voice, “Can’t it wait?”

With a shrug, Patrick answers, “Just trying to do the job you gave me.”

As he leaves, Rizzo tells Herb that he’ll have to let him know in the morning, which is a perfectly legitimate and sensible response to whatever Herb could have been proposing to him, but since rationality and Herb are like oil and water in this movie, Herb, of course, replies, “You’re making it hard on both of us.”

The scriptwriters decide that we don’t deserve to see the conversation between Herb and Patrick even though it was important enough for Patrick to barge in on Herb’s discussion with Rizzo, so, instead, the scene shifts to a diner, where Rizzo and Les Auge are chatting in a booth.

As we join them, Rizzo confides to Les, “Les, maybe I’ve got no future in hockey. I’m just average, and I’m too small. Maybe I would be better off coaching than playing.”

It’s interesting that this movie chooses to address the idea of Rizzo being an assistant coach for the 1980 team rather than a player on it, because shortly before the Olympics, when Rizzo was in a scoring slump, Herb basically threatened to bring Rizzo along as an assistant coach instead of a player, explaining to Rizzo that he would tell the media that Rizzo had gotten injured in training. Here, obviously, the timeline is altered and Rizzo is given at least the pretense of a choice, though if he refuses, I’m sure he’s wondering how astronomically high the odds of him being cut from the team are.

Not letting Rizzo wallow in the tough market that faces small hockey players, Les Auge points out that Herb has given Rizzo a choice, not cut him. Not exactly encouraged by this, Rizzo argues that Herb could very well end up cutting him later, but if he accepts Herb’s offer of an assistant coaching position, he’ll have the guarantee of being with the team through the Olympics.

Les Auge scoffs, “Yeah, as assistant coach. That’s terrific. That’s a once every four year job.” Actually, it’s not even that. If you’re an assistant coach for one Olympics, there’s no guarantee that you’ll be an assistant coach for the next. The coaching staff can undergo a complete makeover between one Olympics and the next. Being an assistant coach in the Olympics is a one time job, but if you’re savvy you could probably parlay that experience into another more permanent coaching job elsewhere.

Rizzo expresses this last notion, claiming that if he accepts the position of assistant coach for the Olympics, he could probably get a job as an assistant coach at some college when the Olympics are completed.

Aggravated, Les Auge explodes, “Oh, come on. Wake up! You’re a hockey player! Let me tell you something. Smart guys hang in until the end. If you have any hope in hell of playing, just stay with it.” Geez, I’m feeling inspired myself now. Perhaps Les Auge was the one who should have pursued a career in motivational speaking…

Leaning forward, Les Auge continues, “You know, baseball and football. There you’re talking about big business. There’s lots of opportunities. You’ve got a chance here. Don’t give up.” I’m glad that someone is around to encourage Rizzo to try to take one of the few opportunities open to American hockey players at this time.

Les Auge concludes his grand speech: “Listen, if you can’t find your name on that list tomorrow, then come to me and tell me about your coaching jobs, but until then, just keep running them into corners. Don’t quit until he fires you.” I’ve got to say that my affection for Les Auge is growing. I’m getting sad that he’s going to be cut, whereas I can’t wait to see the back of Thompson.

Switching scenes again, we’re in a living room with a lot of the guys from the team including OC, Bill Baker, Rob McClanahan, Ken Morrow, and Jim Craig talking amongst themselves while an agent tries to hold court about the upcoming game schedule, saying with varying notes of pathetic desperation, “Okay, fellows. All right. Hold it. Listen up. Listen up now, fellows. Listen, it’s a good schedule. Some games in Europe. Some exhibitations against the NHL. You’ve got sixty-one games in all. That’s in five months. Only the fittest survive this.”

I hope this is meant as a not-so-subtle info dump for the movie audience, since it would be really pathetic if the boys needed an agent to tell them what they could easily garner from a schedule for themselves. These guys shouldn’t need an agent to read off a paper what teams they’ll be facing and how many games they’ll be playing. If this Olympic squad has even half the organization of a recreational beer league, they’ll already know all this basic information.

Placing his drink on the coffee table, Ken remarks, “Yeah, that’s the point. A guy could get injured right out playing hockey with a schedule like that.” This hurts my heart, since it was untimely injuries that forced Ken Morrow out of the NHL early. At least he got some Stanley Cup rings with that Islander dynasty first, though…

With a meaningful glance at Morrow and the other boys, Kaminsky leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, and counters, “Not if he stays on top of his game. Okay, you can’t prevent bad luck, but cheap injuries, that’s something else.”

This is so wrong that I feel the dumber for even considering for a millisecond the possibility that such an absurd premise could be true. Cheapshots are so terrible precisely because they are unpredictable and illegal. Check out this compilation of NHL cheapshots to see what I mean. Yes, I’m aware those all come from a more recent era, so here’s a collection of cheapshots from the 1980’s, and you can bet that injuries sustained during the 1970’s would probably be even worse, since hockey was more physical in the 1970’s than the 1980’s and safety gear was more primitive and optional. Just good Lord. Is Kaminsky really going to contend with a straight face that the victim of every cheapshot in hockey history could somehow have prevented the injury by being “on top of his game”? That’s like saying every robbery victim who ever existed deserved to be stolen from just for not looking after possessions properly.

Fortunately not falling for this drivel, Jim points out, “Yeah, but a pro gets paid for the risk of bad luck.”

The guy (whose face I can’t recognize) next to Jim chips in his two cents, adding, “Yeah, and a pro’s insured.”

These are legitimate concerns, since an athlete’s livelihood depends on his body’s health, so if there are questions about where the money to treat an injury would come from, I could definitely see that as something that could scare guys with other options away from the Olympic team.

Kaminsky answers, “We’re working on that.”

Then there is a knock on the door, and OC opens it to reveal Herb, who enters and glares around the room to put all the peasants who had the gumption to worry about their medical insurance in their place. This is just like Peterloo.

OC cracks his fingers together in a signal for all the boys to leave, which they do, leaving Herb alone with the agent and Kaminsky.

The agent dons his jacket and announces that he’ll be leaving for a drink, gesturing at Herb and Kaminsky before saying, “With you two, it’s personal. If you get past that, call me. We’ll talk business.”

Once the agent leaves, Kaminsky clears his throat and offers Herb a drink, which prompts Herb to vent, “You said you’d keep away from my kids.”

Not responding to this, Kaminsky asks, “How come you get along so well with my partner?”

“Leave him out of it,” Herb snaps. “Who invited you here?”

Kaminsky answers that it’s just common sense for him to be here and a rumor that Herb needed him.

As the Rumor Weed Song from a childhood of listening to Veggie Tales echoes in my head, Herb goes into full snide mode, asserting that of all the things he needs, Kaminsky is the least and that the rumor Kaminsky should have listened to was the one detailing how much he didn’t care for Kaminsky. I have observed that, thus far, Herb is the only character in this film who is allowed to have even halfway witty put-downs.

Not descending to Herb’s level, Kaminsky remarks, “Well, as I see it, Herb, you are caught between a rock and hard place. That tends to make a man nervous, tight. Sometimes makes him look for something to focus it all on, and something tells me that I’m your Patsy.” Kaminsky is so dramatic here. At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear him break into this catchy tune about how much of a Patsy he is.

Shaking his head, Herb comments, “You’re nobody’s Patsy. A guy doesn’t get to be big and important in pro hockey circles by being a Patsy.”

Kaminsky admits that’s true, but argues that he did whatever was necessary to advance in pro hockey circles in order to further the cause of young American hockey players, because, according to him, he’s the only one who believes in them and wants to give them the chances that Canadian junior players usually had first dibs on as he is convinced that American players can be as good as Canadian ones. He’s also adamant that this approach isn’t making him rich.

Unmoved by this, Herb sarcastically suggests, “You ought to register as a charity. I’d send you a couple bucks myself.”

Kamisky responds that would be just fine, and then goes on to make the following appeal, “Now, listen. If you’re going to cut fifteen of the best that we represent, would you please tell me now? I’ve got pros sniffing around every one of them, Herb. These kids need my advice. If I believe you’ve got half a chance at a good showing, I’m going to tell them to stay. If I believe that the Russians are going to humiliate you, my advice is going to be to split, to get them out before they make laughingstocks of themselves.”

As I noted in the previous section, this is about as straightforward and fair a deal as you can expect from an agent, and it’s a pity that Herb is too stubborn to cooperate, because, no matter how much he tries to paint Kaminsky as a villain here, I don’t perceive him in that light. Kaminsky is just trying to do his job by looking out for his clients. He wasn’t hired to be the Olympic team’s GM, after all.

In this vein, Kaminsky continues, “Herb, give me room. Maybe I can help you. You keep playing God, you’re going to find yourself with an empty locker room. Now I’m doing my job as a lawyer, as a player’s rep.”

Herb volleys back, pointing at his chest, “Maybe in your head, but what about here? What about your heart?”

Game, set, and match to you, Herb. You said the secret word. I’m sure that if Kaminsky digs deeply into his masochistic heart he’ll realize that he really does want to see as many of his clients embarrassed on the Olympic stage as possible.

Pressing on, Herb demands, “Law or athletics? Kaminsky, I’m inviting you to join the squad as an honorary member. Put it on the line for the team. Just as though you were wearing the skates yourself. This is no ego trip for me. You know as well as I do that no athlete ever made it without sacrifice for the game, not for meat.”

When Kaminsky says that he’s not questioning Herb’s motives, Herb retorts, “Just my sanity, right?” Well, at this point, given how manic you’ve been acting, Herb, that would be a totally justifiable thing to doubt…

Before Kaminsky can answer, Herb states, “Let’s play it straight. This whole thing as far as I’m concerned is a fantasy.”

Kaminsky looks about as startled by this revelation as the first caveman who discovered that wood ignited. The overacting really makes every scene extra unbelievable.

Getting past the almost comically horrid acting, Herb throws all his cards on the table, observing, “And you know what? I’m beginning to doubt your sanity, too.”

Again with that incredibly fake expression of shock, Kaminsky asks, “Why me?”

Herb fires back, “You coming all the way out here. You, the fastest telephone in the East, coming out here. I’d like to see your cost analysis of this trip.”

Kaminsky confesses that Herb is right, and this wasn’t a business trip, as he came out to see for himself whether Herb was obsessed because Herb was the last man cut from the ’60 gold medal team and that could cloud Herb’s judgment. When Herb presses for Kaminsky’s verdict on his obsession level, Kaminsky sums the situation up perfectly by explaining, “I think you’re crazy like a fox.”

On that note, I’ll leave you until next time to speculate on how Herb will sneak into the chicken coop and which chickens in the coop he’s after anyway…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Breaking Down a Miracle on Ice Movie: Beers and Brawls

After Herb and Patrick’s heated discussion about agents, the scene transitions back to the arena, where Patrick is putting the boys through a skating drill that involves him blowing a whistle every couple of seconds at which point the guys performing the drill come to a hockey stop.

Since a hockey stop is one of the first things a player should learn, I find it vaguely amusing that any significant Olympic training is devoted to honing what should be an automatic reaction by now. Then again, maybe I shouldn’t laugh, because the Florida Panthers have been known to have more men on the ice than on the bench as a hilarious result of a routine line change, so perhaps Herb is prudent to return to the basics, and not assume that his players were ever taught the fundamentals of hockey. Just because you have skill doesn’t mean you were educated in technique, after all.

Watching the hockey stop drill from his perch on the bleachers, Herb shakes his head and makes notes on a clipboard. Then the scene shifts to his office, where he is seen removing pictures from the wall and tucking them in an envelope containing photos of the guys to be cut.

After that, we’re in a bar, and a tender is placing a drink in front of Jim Craig. I think Steve Guttenberg actually looks better in the dim light. I guess for Steve Guttenberg moonlight is becoming, and total darkness even more, but I digress. Let’s focus on the fact that some curly-haired girl is with Thompson but obviously bored because he’s ignoring her, so she saunters over to Jim, giving a radiant smile, as she says, “Hi.”

Jim glances over his shoulder to check that she’s talking to him, and then answers with a grin, “Hi.”

Leaning closer to Jim, the girl asks, “You a hockey player?”

Jim replies that he’s a goalie, and then the girl jumps to the question that really interests her, wanting to know, “You alone?”

His mouth twisting, Jim responds, “Well, if you don’t count the twenty-odd hockey players roaming around this place, yeah, I guess you could say I’m alone.”

The girl and Jim share a laugh at that, but I’m not really amused. Jim Craig actually had a fiancée during this time, so unless their engagement involves some wacky beliefs about only women needing to keep their virtue or a provision about one night stands with strangers just met in bars being completely acceptable, I cannot approve of what’s going on here.

Thompson, who is also not a fan of the road this conversation is speeding down, steps out of the shadows and demands, “Hey, Craig, shouldn’t you be in bed?” Jeez, Thompson, beds might not be the best objects to bring up when your girlfriend is hitting on another guy, but the jealous male is clearly not a rational creature, so I will give a partial pass.

When Jim responds with a half smile that it’s a thought, Thompson continues in an even more belligerent tone, “Well, uh, Mary’s my friend.” What a nice depiction of female empowerment by the script writers: having the girl be argued over by two hormonal guys like the last cookie in the jar would be quarreled over by Kindergartners. Maybe the boys can reach an agreement to share her or something, since what she wants doesn’t factor into this territorial squabble at all.

Pointing between Mary and Thompson, Jim seems to have an epiphany, saying, “Oh, oh.” Then he drops the gauntlet with, “Well, any friend of yours, Thompson, is a friend of mine.”

This just doesn’t feel like Jim at all, honestly. I have trouble imagining him as the kind of guy who would want a one night stand with a random girl he met at a bar, and I don’t think that he’d wish to meddle into other people’s relationships like this. He seems like the type to seek out deep connections, so this whole conflict just is wildly inconsistent with his character, as far as I’m concerned.

Thompson, drawing on a retort common among elementary students, snaps, “Get lost, Craig.”

Raising his eyebrows suggestively at Mary, Jim asks, “Shall we?”

Obviously on the verge of losing whatever reign he was keeping on his temper, Thompson snarls, “Move it, or I’ll move you.”

This is a textbook example of a menacing threat, so Jim can only respond with a classic insult: “Thompson, you’re such a jerk.”

Deciding to make this whole situation even more childish, Thompson hurls a drink in Jim’s face, and Jim bolts to his feet to take a swing at Thompson. A brawl ensues, but we don’t get to see any more of it, since the scene switches to Herb’s office for about the umpteenth time in this film.

Herb begins haranguing the boys about the fight: “Let me tell you guys something. I think it’s time for a pep talk. All this stuff that you guys are up to is—no, forget it. You guys are already acting like big time. I know. Some of you have big time lawyers, and some have big time offers, so I guess a college coach’s pep talks won’t work. “

Oh, so now you understand about agents and contracts, eh, Herb? Do you have selective memory loss or something?

Rizzo pipes up, “Mr. Brooks, I think this is all just a misunderstanding.”

Respect and rationality don’t have any effect on Herb, who growls, “Mr. Brooks is my father’s name. I’m Herb.” Ha. I actually like that line, because I remember reading an article where Rizzo described how when he first introduced himself to Herb, calling Herb “Mr. Brooks,” he got basically the same answer. Something is somewhat accurate in this film. I feel like doing cartwheels.

Put in his place, Rizzo replies, “Yes, sir.”

Getting up to put marks under pictures of Jim and Thompson, Herb threatens, “One more X, and you boys are going right back where you came from. I could lose a lot of good players that way maybe.”

Basically, Herb is disciplining these boys like an elementary school teacher would, warning that if you get two marks next to your name you don’t get to go to recess, which, in this case is the Olympics. This is a reasonable course of action, since everyone knows that the average hockey player has a maturity level of a six-year-old. I mean, otherwise stoic Rangers like Ryan McDonagh get excited to add a piece to the Stanley Cup puzzle in the locker room and don a weird hat probably coated with Leetch’s sweat and Messier’s lice because it marks them as their team’s MVP for the game. In a nutshell, coaching hockey players is like running a daycare center with toddlers who cuss a lot.

Going on with his admonishment, Herb states, “But you’re already making a name for yourselves that will keep you out of pro hockey forever. Understand me and understand me good, nobody is indispensable. Nobody. I want a winning team, but more than that, I want a team that I can be proud of. I want men on that team that have character. I would rather cut you all, and be embarrassed, and be shipped down to my old job than to win with a bunch of kids who would dishonor me and themselves. Nothing is worth that. Now get out.”

For the most part, that rings true to Herb’s philosophy, so hurrah for a speech that actually makes sense in this film. May it not be the last.

After the boys make their awkward departure, Patrick comes in, shuts the door, and points out, “Herb, some of them are barely old enough to vote. They’re just kids.” Come on, Patrick. Don’t be a softie. Everyone should be perfect by age twenty-two if not sooner.

Herb, demonstrating a remarkable ability to read the minds of strangers on the other side of the globe, counters sharply, “That’s exactly what the Russians think about them, so that’s one surprise we can give them. Show them some kids with character. Might take the edge off losing.”

Ugh, this movie drives me crazy. Why does that last sentence have to exist? Is it really necessary to ruin a good bit of characterization with a complete sabotage of it in the next sentence? It makes perfect sense that Herb would want to surprise the Russians with how his boys could play with the discipline of men, but it makes no sense to me at all that Herb would already be bowing his head and envisioning utter defeat. It’s been his dream since the Sixties when he first saw the Russians play at World Championships to come up with a team that could match their speed and cycling plays, so he isn’t going to give up about a week into the process after all these years of working to earn a chance to coach an Olympic team.

At this rate, I expect that, instead of the stirring speech he delivered in the locker room before the game against the Soviets, the film version of Herb will just declare: “Well, guys, we can count this game as lost without even playing it, but if we keep the score close, we should be able to beat out the Finns for bronze on point differential. Go for the bronze, because that’s really the best America could ever hope for, but if we don’t get the bronze, at least we made it to the medal round, which is more than anyone could expect from a bunch of idiotic college kids.”

I’ll leave you all to stew in that sacrilege until next time…

 

 

 

Breaking Down a Miracle on Ice Movie: Not-So Secret Agents

Last installment, we were left wondering whether certain guys—namely Johnson and Paradis—were, to paraphrase Herb’s terminology, tough enough to stand up. Now we’re ready to begin to find out, because the boys are engaged in a speed skating drill around the rink that involves Herb barking out the seconds and the verbal equivalent of a whip’s encouragement.

Patrick, in his role as the blind optimist on this coaching staff, remarks that they’re fast, and Herb, as the Debbie Downer who is never satisfied, counters crisply that they aren’t fast enough. At the moment, I’m left with the general impression that even a blazing comet wouldn’t be fast enough to please Herb, but maybe a European would, since he shouts at the boys, “You guys think you can beat the Europeans skating that way? Let’s go! Hit your spots!”

Talking to Patrick again, Herb instructs his assistant coach to tell Paradis to put his heart into training because he’s shirking. All the evidence thus far points to Paradis being about as able to stand up under the barrage of Herb’s training as a Dixie Cup can the wheels of a Chevrolet Suburban.

Throwing his hand in the air, Patrick protests, “Come on, Herb. He’s one of the best skaters out there.” Ah, yes, but can he beat the Europeans skating like that? We’re not going to find out unless he puts his heart into it.

Expressing this sentiment, Herb retorts, “But he’s not giving us one-hundred percent. You tell him I want no loafers on the forward line.”

As Herb is shouting more of his unique brand of encouragement at his charges, a short man in a suit who has the unfortunate distinction of having a hair malfunction—at least, I hope it’s a hair malfunction and not an intentional style– that makes him resemble nothing more than an Oompa Loompa enters the arena.

Leaning against the edge of the rink, the newcomer offers a wave, an odd lingering glance, and a perky, “Hello, Herb. If you’ve got time later, I’d like to talk to you about one of my clients, Grazier.” Homoeroticism yay! If I were Herb, based on the scary sidelong glances this man was casting over me, I’d be filing a restraining order instead of taking the risk of talking to him alone, since he makes the Stalker Song ring in my ears like alarm bells.

Seriously, how did Grazier’s parents decide this walking sexual harassment case waiting to happen was a wise choice to represent and presumably at times be alone with their child? Now I can imagine why Grazier busted. He had this creep as his agent. Most likely, he’s in a padded room somewhere, a quivering mess as he tearfully uses a rag doll to show the therapist all the places where the scary man touched him. That being said, I sincerely apologize for poking fun at Grazier when he was sitting next to OC on the plane, because I didn’t know the deep, dark pain he was living with after the abuse he suffered from his agent.

When Herb just stares in revulsion at this borderline pedophile, Patrick supplies, coming to the rescue in his alternate persona of Captain Obvious, “It’s Grazier’s lawyer.”

Instead of calling the police to escort the unwelcome agent from the premises, Herb demonstrates a notable disregard for Patrick safety, ordering him to get Grazier’s lawyer out of here. Being the prototypical gullible second-in-command, Patrick does this, and I’m burning incense in gratitude that he didn’t end up dead and bleeding in an alley somewhere.

The scene finally shifts from the creepy agent back to Herb’s office, where he removes Grazier’s picture from the wall, tearing it and venting to Patrick, “It’s a waste, a total waste. The only reason he came to camp was to make the pros think he didn’t need them.” That’s weird, since I didn’t see any pro scouts lurking around the rink. They must have concealed themselves behind the bleachers really well.

Shaking his head and gazing downward, Patrick says in an almost whine, “I’m sorry, Herb. It’s just one guy. I can’t be everywhere.”

Unrelenting as granite, Herb counters, “Well, you’ve got to be. Patrick, you’re my eyes and ears with this bunch. I thought we had a deal with the lawyers. Who’s next?”

Instead of pulling out an answer from a fortune cookie, Patrick responds, “Herb, most of what the guys tell me—well, it’s like over beer—in confidence.” Here Patrick sounds like he’s a busybody at a neighborhood block party pretending to be reluctant to share a supposed friend’s secret when really he would take the utmost joy in it and only requires the slightest prodding to spill out everything he knows and suspects. Of course, I don’t believe that Patrick means to be devious here, so I won’t blame him for that. I will fault him for being a stupid coward, though, and let me expound upon why.

Patrick is an idiot to bring up the aspect of confidentiality, as it lets Herb know that he and some of the boys have something to hide, and it must be pretty terrible if it can’t be shared without scandal. If you have a secret that you want to keep, the first step is not posting up a gigantic billboard declaring that you have one, Patrick. Apart from the fact that Patrick is a total moron, we also learn that he is not a vertebrae, after all, since he has no backbone and will be telling Herb everything he knows as soon as Herb glares at him.

Then again, the boys who confide in Patrick are partly to blame for Herb uncovering their secrets. I mean, what sort of fool entrusts any important, confidential information to this film’s version of Craig Patrick? Merciful Lord, you’d be smarter to confide your secret to your worst enemy, because at least when your foe came forward with your dreadful secret, everybody would consider the source and probably decide it was a vicious falsehood. However, when someone who seemingly has your trust reveals a confidential story about you, everyone is going to believe it, even though that person has just proved himself a liar. That Sociology 101 lecture is done now, so we can progress with the rest of the scene.

Perhaps Herb is as disgusted with Patrick’s flakiness as I am, because he scoffs, “Really? Well, you’d better get it through your head that you’re part of management now. I’m not asking you to be a spy. I’m asking you to do your job as my assistant, and if this bunch is going to disappear on me, let me know, so that I can quit before I get fired.”

Not to be a Negative Nancy about this whole script, but that bit of dialogue would have been a million times better without that final clause. First of all, I doubt that Herb would be in jeopardy of getting fired just because some boys that could have been on the team chose to go pro. Since the pros were where all the money was, it would be hard for any coach to convince all the top talents to remain amateur for the Olympics. It’s the same sort of reason why NCAA coaches today aren’t routinely fired just because some of their best players move onto the greener pastures of the NHL. USA Hockey would know that and not create a revolving door of coaching staff unless they felt that something else was seriously lacking in Herb’s coaching.

Apart from the whole idea of Herb being fired because some guys deciding to go pro being rather far-fetched, it’s not consistent with Herb’s character to have him be such a defeatist. He’s the type of guy who is going to fight tooth-and-nail to make this team successful, and he’s not going to quit at basically the first sign of adversity. Anyway, it would be totally hypocritical of him to demand unconditional commitment to the team from the boys when he’s prepared to abandon ship over any imagined leak. Ugh. What a way to butcher Herb’s character.

Deciding to betray every confidence he’s ever received from anyone on the team in one fell swoop, Patrick rifles through a list of the boys’ names and announces, “Morrow’s firm, but that might change. He’s getting married in two weeks.”

Herb’s murderous look conveys how much he hates weddings and all the cake that comes along with them.

Patrick continues, “The Eastern guys. They’re all borderline, especially Craig. He’s hard-pressed financially.”

Leaning forward to check a list on his desk, Herb says, “Well, if he’s going pro, he’s going to the Atlanta Flames. They own him. Is he talking to them? Phoning?” How is Patrick supposed to know that? Is he supposed to have wire-tapped Jim’s phone or just eavesdropped on line for the pay phone?

Patrick answers that Jim hasn’t been contacting the Atlanta Flames, but “that doesn’t mean anything” because “he’s represented by lawyers.”

Herb demands, “By who—Kaminsky?”

When Patrick replies by Bob Murray, Herb snarls as if Patrick invented the concept of athletes being represented by agents, “Same thing, damn it. They work together, Patrick. I thought they promised to keep these kids amateur.”

Trying to placate the angry Herb before he orders a human sacrifice, Patrick says, “So far so good. They’re telling the guys to stick with it—to see the team you come up with.” When it comes down to it, that’s really the best a team’s management can expect from agents. An agent’s primary responsibility is to represent his client’s interests, not a team’s. That’s what they’re hired to do, and there’s nothing wrong with them doing their jobs, although Herb, naturally, doesn’t perceive it that way.

All bitterness, he grumbles, “So now I’ve got another set of guys to answer to: lawyers and agents.” Welcome to being a GM, Herb.

“They’re part of the business, Herb,” argues Patrick, obviously calling on his experience as an NHL player. “You’ve got to face it: our best guys have other choices, and they know it.”

Shaking his head and poking his desk with a fervent finger, Herb declares, “Guys with choices on their minds don’t help us one bit. This has got to be the only thing in their lives. Not choices, this.”

Herb is starting to remind me of another Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory character who always wanted stuff now and didn’t care how. Herb would be really comfortable in a Communist regime, obviously, as he doesn’t want to run his team at all like a democracy. With Herb’s manic anti-choice stance, I can easily picture the following scene transpiring as the team’s bus pulls into a rest stop in the middle of the night…

Patrick: All right, boys. I’m going to run into Seven-Eleven to buy us all some drinks. Let me take a tally of who wants what. Raise your right hand if you want a can of Coke, and your left hand if you want a can of Pepsi.

Herb: Damn it all to Hell, Patrick! How many times do I have to remind you not to overwhelm their toddler brains with choices? Choices shouldn’t cross their minds at all. They should only be thinking about the Olympics, not sodas. Just buy about twenty-five bottles of Poland Spring, and be done with it. Water is good enough for this bunch. We need to leave soft drinks to the soft.

Perhaps having similar thoughts to the ones racing around my head, Patrick is so aghast he is speechless, and I’ll leave my readers to recover from their heart attacks at Herb’s mania until next time.

 

 

 

 

 

Breaking Down a Miracle on Ice Movie: Smile at the Camera

Since I have the night off from watching playoff hockey (funny how the elimination of more teams from the playoff picture correlates with an increase in the time I can devote to other leisure activities), I decided to fulfill my promise to watch and blog about the next installment of the 1981 Miracle on Ice film. This section focuses on part of the trials process associated with selecting the Olympic team, but since this movie centers around the trials more than its twenty-first century counterpart does, I will continue to examine the trials process in the next blog post as well, as the trials process appears to extend beyond the portion that I’m being for this post. With that caveat, wagons ho! We’re about to depart on the next part of our wonderful journey to gold in Lake Placid.

When we last left our boys, they were besieging Patrick with a million and one questions. Apparently having received answers to all their manifold inquiries, they are now giving their names and getting their photographs taken. This is probably intended to serve as our introduction to all the boys—providing us with a way to place all the faces with a name—but it feels like too little too late, since we’ve already been thrown into the deep end without a life vest, and, anyway, most of these actors (a term I employ here in the loosest possible sense) bear an uncanny resemblance to one another. Basically, this is my disclaimer that at some point in the movie I might end up saying something about how Mark Johnson has this great line when really it was Rob McClanahan who said it, because casting makes everyone look the same. In real life, though, I would never in a million years confuse those two, so I can still keep my real Miracle fan badge, right?

While the Miracle fan board reviews my case, the first guy to come forward to get his picture taken is Rizzo. He strikes a pose that is more arrogant than outgoing, and I’m not sure that’s really him. I’d believe he’d give off a confident but also friendly vibe. Once Rizzo is done with his photo op, OC steps forward to have his picture taken while chewing a wad of gum just like Brett Connolly did in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft when he went to the podium to shake Steve Yzerman’s hand, and we just had to be grateful that he didn’t spit or pick his nose since neither his parents nor his agent had coached him in how to meet a GM and Hall of Famer. Unlike Brett Connolly, OC does not seem as if he is operating under the influence of horse tranquilizers, and he puts on this cocky smirk that I believe is perfect for his character. So far he’s one of the better portrayed guys in this film, though that may be damning with faint praise.

Jim’s up next, and he needs to be told to look at the camera, which I guess could be the filmmaker’s way of trying to establish that he was something of a loner. After giving his name, he gives this horrible half smile, and I cringe in disgust. Why, oh way, did casting think Steve Guttenberg was a perfect fit for this role? You could torture me like in that graphic and only appropriate for adult audiences scene in Braveheart, and I’d still refuse to believe that Guttenberg was Craig, until the bitter end shouting, “Freedom!”

After Jim, Ken Morrow follows, and he gives his name so quietly that Patrick asks him to repeat it, which is a reasonably clever and relatively subtle way of showing how reserved Ken was. Kudos to the script writers here.

Buzz is up next, and all I can think is that at least he’s better looking than the guy who plays Jim Craig in this movie. His smile is a bit more smug and less kind than I would have imagined, but maybe that’s just me.

Les Auge follows Buzz, and, like OC, he’s chewing gum. It’s a gum-chewing pandemic. I hope that none of them gets attacked like Hugh Jessiman by their suddenly sentient gum when celebrating a goal. I mean, it’s a sure sign that you’re basically a total bust as a professional athlete when you can’t even celebrate a goal without some hilariously ungainly malfunction, and you don’t want to give Herb that sort of insight into your failings.

Next up is Rob McClanahan, who seems pretty regular and inoffensive, which is about all you can ask from this film at this point. Then we have Pav, who is totally blank for the camera, and that goes well with his hating-the-spotlight personality. Pav is followed by John Harrington, who seems normal though plumper than he looked in earlier shots of him. It must be the light…

We shift over to the rink, where some guys are performing a warm-up skate after having their pictures snapped. Les Auge skates up to Rizzo and introduces himself before remarking about how there isn’t much competition. In response, Rizzo observes that is a good thing because he’s still tired from the trip. Since Rizzo mentions jet lag, I’ll just point out that many of the boys who tried out for the ’80 Olympic team actually arrived in Colorado Springs many days in advance so that they could adapt to the higher altitude.

On that note, we’re back to Patrick taking a picture of a guy named Steve Thompson. I admit that unlike Les Auge, Cox, and Hughes, I don’t remember reading a word about this Thompson fellow in any of the books or articles I’ve studied about the Miracle on Ice, but it’s still interesting to have a face to go with one of the names that Herb will (spoiler alert) end up cutting in this movie. Thompson is followed by some other dude with the surname Parides that I’ve never read about either. It’s weird and vaguely sad how some names are utterly lost in the annals of hockey history.

After those two guys who are the merest footnotes of history in this movie, we have a dude who I have heard of: one Bill Baker, who gives a slight smile and nod at the camera. He’s pretty cute, even though he is apparently not Eric Strobel after all.

Following Bill, we have Mark Johnson, who has dark hair and white skin but other than that really does not look at all like Mark in terms of facial structure or eye color. He also has this arrogant expression on his face that isn’t at all suitable for Mark to be wearing. Why did the director allow this to happen?

When Patrick is done taking Mark’s photo, the scene shifts to focus on all the boys skating around the rink, and then zones in on the bleachers, where Patrick joins Herb, who is watching the warm-ups like a hawk, and asks, “Now what?”

Herb replies that Patrick took the words right out of his mouth, and Patrick looks aghast at his rudeness. I predict that Patrick will spend about half of his screen time going into cardiac arrest because of all the nasty things that emerge from Herb’s irritable lips. Proving me right, Herb, being his blithe self, continues, “What’s this—a hockey camp or a rehearsal for the ice companies?”

That’s actually a good bit of dialogue (or else my standards have just been lowered by the abysmal quality of the rest of the script, because I can’t even tell any more), and I have some time to appreciate it before Patrick responds with a chuckle, “Relax, Coach. There’s got to be twenty great ones in that line-up.”

Being a total boar, Herb counters, “Good. When you find out who they are, let me know.” Again, Patrick looks astonished by Herb’s terseness. I see this conversation is going nowhere, and maybe the emotionally stunted Herb actually senses the same thing, because he goes on, “Meanwhile, would you get them started? Sprints and everything. Work ‘em. Work ‘em hard.”

Patrick stands up and blows his whistle, but we are left to imagine the horrible paces the boys are put through, since the next scene transpires in Herb’s office, where we are looking down at a pile of the pictures Patrick has just taken on Herb’s desk.

Herb, who presumably was using the phone to attempt a call to his wife, puts it down, stating that she must have taken the kids to a movie. Switching from the personal to business, he scoops up the pile of pictures and begins to rifle through them, asking Patrick, who is seated in the chair opposite his desk, what on a scale of one to ten he thinks of Grazier.

Patrick estimates a nine, and then bumps it up to a nine-and-a-half, reasoning that Grazier is dependable in clutch situations.

Herb demands who would back Grazier up, and Patrick, looking pensive, says Johnson and Parides could. I’m assuming from the fact that Grazier’s and Parides’ names are linked with Johnson’s that these guys were seen as talented, top prospects in 1979, but since I’ve never heard of them, I’m guessing that they busted. That’s the interesting thing about prospect development. Sometimes a late round pick blossoms into a Chara, Pavelski, or Lundqvist, and a first overall pick can be a disappointment like Alexandre Daigle or Marc-Andre Fleury.

Referring to Parides and Johnson, Patrick says, “They’re both talented.”

Hurling down the pictures, Herb wants to know, “But are they tough? Will they stand up?”

My immediate reaction to this line is that the scriptwriters are trying to be all philosophical and whatnot, but are actually betraying the fact that they’ve never drawn up a hockey roster or even contemplated doing so for more than six seconds. Toughness probably isn’t within the top five qualities that coaches and GMs look for in a first line center. Things like stickhandling, skating speed, playmaking abilities, shooting strength, and overall hockey sense are all more important. You look for skill in a first line center, and toughness in a fourth line center, because, a fourth line goon considers it a great triumph to get a star center to drop the gloves and earn a coincidental penalty.

That’s my reaction if it’s physical toughness being questioned here. However, if it’s mental toughness, that’s much more valid a concern, but still a slippery slope, since the hockey world tends to overrate the toughness of players who are chirpy on the ice but then delve into full turtle mode if anyone actually raises a fist while underrating the bravery and endurance of quieter leaders like Steve Yzerman whom Scotty Bowman said had the highest pain threshold of any player he ever coached.

All I can say is we better not be headed down the path of “Mark Johnson was a talented player but a weak one,” because Mark Johnson got his shoulder speared in the Czechoslovakia game and returned to the line-up in the next one even though he had to have his arm in a weird sling under his equipment. It was like playoff hockey, and, on that note, tune in to NBC tomorrow to watch Jonathan Toews, who wears number nineteen just like Steve Yzerman, lead the Blackhawks against the Kings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Halfway to Heaven: Why the Remaining Teams in the Stanley Cup Race Survived and Could Win It All

As those of you who follow hockey as compulsively as I do (which basically means you go through minor withdrawal syndromes on nights like Thursday where there is no playoff hockey so you have to hunt through YouTube for old Stanley Cup games you already know the outcome to but can pretend you don’t) know, there are only four teams who have staved off elimination as we head into the Eastern and Western Conference Finals that will set the scene for the Stanley Cup Finals.

In the Eastern bracket, we have the loathed Rangers facing off against the Montreal Canadiens who have the distinction of being the only NHL team with a Twitter account that routinely posts in first French and then English. Going over to the Western side of the great divide, we’ve got an impending battle between the juggernauts that are the Los Angeles Kings and the Chicago Blackhawks. This all means that the only possible Stanley Cup Final match-ups are the following: the Blackhawks versus the Canadiens, the Blackhawks versus the Rangers, the Kings versus the Canadiens, and the Kings versus the Rangers. Although there are basically no guarantees in playoff hockey (and that’s what makes it so exciting), we can be one hundred percent certain that the captains of one of these four remaining teams will lift the Stanley Cup high in the air and pass it around to their exultant teammates.

Now that we have been reminded of which teams remain standing halfway through the playoffs, let’s examine the strengths that have allowed each of them to travel down such a rocky path as well as the potential pitfalls that could end in their falling off it. First off, because as any bright elementary school child can explain, the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, let’s start with the Eastern Conference, and, to get the miserable experience of talking about the Rangers winning a Stanley Cup out of my life before I barf all over my keyboard, we’ll begin by looking at the Broadway Blueshirts.

The New York Rangers:Let’s be honest. The Rangers weren’t supposed to make it to the Conference Finals, which at least gives Steve Yzerman a chance to celebrate that one of the draft picks he got in the captain to captain swap of Marty St. Louis and Ryan Callahan will change from a second round pick to a first round pick. On a side note, doesn’t Yzerman sound like he’s internally seething over the trade St. Louis’ long tantrum in Tampa essentially forced him into making? Yeah, I believe that one of Yzerman’s former teammates described the situation succinctly when he remarked, “I’ve seen him angry, but never that angry.” I also believe that we’ll never see St. Louis’ number raised to the rafters in Tampa since, after playing all his life in Detroit, Yzerman will probably have high standards about only retiring numbers of players who ended their careers in Tampa or, at the very least, aren’t captains who demand to leave their teams before a playoff run and hose down their team by only being willing to waive their no-trade clause to go to a specific destination…

Anyway, getting off the topic of the fallout of St. Louis’ acrimonious departure from Tampa, let’s get back to analyzing the situation of his new team, the Rangers. Odds were about even that the Rangers would be knocked out by their rivals the Philadelphia Flyers, who always seem to have their number in the way that a stalking ex does. Once they survived that seven game series against the Flyers, they had to face another, even more dreaded Pennsylvania team, namely the Pittsburg Penguins. Although they were exhausted from the insanely packed schedule the NHL organizers apparently drew up under the influence of several bottles of Captain Morgan rum, the Rangers managed to steal game one in Pittsburg. After that, they lost the next three and seemed about to disintegrate like paper in water on the bench at the end of game four against the Penguins. All the commentators were basically assuring us that the Pittsburg Penguins just had to drive one final nail into the unresisting Rangers’ coffin.

Unfortunately, as anyone who had to watch the debacle that has been Bylsma coaching in Pittsburg, is well aware, there is perhaps no coach in the modern NHL who is so skilled at getting his players to drop series in embarrassing fashions to lower-seeded teams after taking a significant lead. Compounding on this, the Rangers decided there was no time like the present to fight for their playoff lives. This was especially true because St. Louis’ mother passed away right around Mother’s Day between games four and five, which was obviously devastating to him and gave the team someone to rally around when he came back to play despite his recent loss.

The Rangers had motivation to fight for their lives and St. Louis, while the Penguins seemed to have lost any interest in playing hockey at a competitive level in games five and six. This resulted in the Rangers spanking the Penguins in both those games, which set the stage for a final rumble in Pittsburg between the Rangers and the Penguins. Despite Malkin and a handful of other Penguins actually deigning to show up for game seven, it was too little too late to save Shero’s (and, if I’m reading the writing on the wall right, Bylsma’s) job, as the Pittsburg Penguins toppled to the Rangers in a score of 2-1.

Now, the Rangers will be up against the Montreal Canadiens, a team confident after emerging victorious from a playoff series with the Boston Bruins, who were favored to win the Eastern Conference and seen as serious contenders for the Stanley Cup. Before we study the success of the Canadiens in more depth, though, let’s enumerate some of the strengths and weaknesses the Rangers have displayed to date.

What’s Been Working for the Boys in Blue: Their goaltender, Henrik Lundqvist, is in top form right now. He’s been stopping all kinds of shots from dangerous forwards like Crosby and Malkin, so he should be primed to face Pacioretty in the next round. He has the confidence and the talent to compete with goalies like Price, Crawford, and Quick. He can steal games for them, and if the Rangers lose, it won’t be because of his performance in net.

In the defense department, Ryan McDonagh, who coming back from a shoulder injury sustained from a Burrows’ cheapshot at times resembled a moose trying to skate after getting hit by a tranquilizer gun, has been playing much better. He’s forechecking and backchecking much more effectively and aggressively, as well as putting up some points. That’s good for the Rangers who will need their defense to be as strong as possible if they are to vanquish the Canadiens, the Kings, or the Blackhawks.

Their offense also has been clicking better. They have scored some power play goals and gotten St. Louis on the score sheet. That’s reassuring to them, since it’s impossible to win a hockey game, nonetheless a best of seven series, without getting some pucks in the opponent’s net.

In the intangibles, they also have a reason to win all the way for a grieving Marty St. Louis, and the Blueshirts haven’t won it all since Leetch took the Con Smythe back in 1994, so they just might be due for another banner in their arena…

What Might Send the Boys Home Early and Blue: Goaltending is the core of this team, but Lundqvist’s skill in net might not be able to whitewash all his team’s mistakes as they climb ever higher on the playoff mountain. Lundqvist will have to be essentially flawless if his team wants to drink out of the Stanley Cup this year, and even that might not be enough if his teammates can’t find a way to score consistently.

With their defense, while McDonagh has been playing much stronger, I’m not convinced that he’s one hundred percent recovered from his injury no matter what Alain Vigneault insists on the contrary, and I actually have a gut feeling that he might go in for surgery on that shoulder whenever the Rangers’ season comes to a close. It’s hard to win when the guy who has been your number one defenseman all year is operating at less than one hundred percent, and two seven game series might already have taken a significant toll on McDonagh’s reserves of energy. He might not have the grit this year to beat Subban and then Doughty or Duncan Keith. Two more best of seven rounds is a tough order on a battered body even if McDonagh’s appears to be capable of superhuman feats.

Also, what I pointed out about the powerplay clicking and St. Louis scoring in the previous section was sort of damning the offense with faint praise. Their powerplay needs to stop looking like a bad Pee Wee team’s because successful penalty kills give opponent’s a morale boost, and their forwards need to put the puck in the net more. If the Rangers can’t score, they will be going home regardless of how well Lundqvist does in goal.

Finally, while the Marty St. Louis motivation is touching, we have to remember how crushed the Rangers bench looked after game four. A successful playoff team can’t let itself get that lost and despairing. The St. Louis motivation better last them through the Finals or else we could see some disturbing lack of morale on the bench if the Rangers face elimination in a series.

Now that we’ve discussed the Rangers far too much for my taste as an ardent Devils fan, let’s explore the chances of a team that might do that eliminating in the Eastern Conference Finals: the Montreal Canadiens.

The Montreal Canadiens:As far as first round match-ups go, the Canadiens had it relatively easy against the Tampa Bay Lightning, whose regular goaltender was injured, leaving them with a sieve in net who probably shouldn’t have even been a starter for an AHL team. The Canadiens were able to sweep Tampa, and then recover while they watched the Detroit Red Wings battle the Boston Bruins to see who they would be facing in the next round. After seeing the Bruins defeat the Red Wings in five games, they knew they would be up against the Bruins, the team that many had pegged as the winner of the Eastern Conference.

The Canadiens took advantage of the energy their rest from sweeping Tampa afforded them to steal the first game in Boston from the Bruins, which allowed them to return to Montreal with home ice advantage that, unfortunately, they were unable to keep as the Bruins took a game in Montreal, and the series returned to Boston all tied at two. This time, the Bruins were able to maintain home ice advantage by beating the Canadiens, who managed to stay alive by winning the next game in Montreal. Since the Canadiens and Bruins are rivals almost as old as hockey, they had a powerful desire to come into Boston and steal the Bruins’ hopes of winning the Stanley Cup on home ice, which they did in a very convincing victory that should serve as a warning to the Rangers, Blackhawks, and Kings.

What’s Working for the Habs: The Price is right. After outdueling Rask, he could be poised to show the world that he’s living up to his billing of having the potential to be an elite goaltender, and if he needs inspiration at home, he can always look to the rafters and remember Dryden and Roy. It would be quite a handsome feather in his cap if he could be between the pipes for Canada winning gold and the Habs winning the Stanley Cup in the same season.

On the blueline, P.K. Subban is making statement after statement. He’s scoring, generating offensive opportunities, and thwarting opposing teams efforts to gain momentum. Whenever the Canadiens win, Subban is a major factor in why.

Offensively, the Canadiens may lack that elite center which is why many commentators and teams could underestimate them, but with players like Pacioretty, their firepower might be stronger and more evenly distributed across four lines than they are given credit for, so if you see an opposing goalie being lit up by the Habs, don’t die of a heart attack.

Why the Cup Might Not Come to Canada This Year: Price is performing excellently in the net, but beating Lundqvist and then Crawford or Quick, both goaltenders who have been in net for a Stanley Cup win, is no picnic. If he falters, he will probably find that his counterpart won’t, and it might be his team that goes to the golf course.

From the defense angle, as much as Subban justifiably garners headlines when the Habs win, when they lose, he is also a major reason why. When his style is nullified by an opposing team’s strategy or line match-ups, he cannot contribute effectively to his team’s Cup bid, and his team suffers a defeat. Subban will need to find a way around getting shut down by line match-ups if he wants to help his team on a long run for the Cup.

On the offensive end, depth scoring is wonderful, but sometimes you need that elite center to break through and score that impossible goal or orchestrate that incredible assist. If the Habs find themselves battling the Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Finals, they might find that lack of an elite center being repeatedly exposed and exploited by Jonathan Toews.

Speaking of Jonathan Toews, let’s explore what’s carried him and his Blackhawks to the Western Conference Finals and what, if they play their cards right, might take them to another Stanley Cup victory.

The Chicago Blackhawks: In the first round, the Blackhawks were up against the St. Louis Blues, another favorite to win the Stanley Cup, and everyone who knew anything about hockey was eager to point out that this playoff series was good enough to be a Stanley Cup Final. The series didn’t disappoint with triple overtime in the first game and overtime in the second. After going down 2-0 against the Blues, the Blackhawks regrouped on home ice, returning the series to St. Louis tied at two games apiece. They stole home ice advantage by winning game five in St. Louis, and then came back to Chicago to eliminate the Blues in game six. The second round was supposed to be easier, but it still took the Blackhawks six games to defeat the Wild, as their offense stagnated against the tight defense of the Wild. However, an overtime goal from Patrick Kane kept the Wild home for good and sent the Blackhawks flying to the Western Conference Finals.

Why the Blackhawks are Flying High: The Blackhawks are well-coached and have a killer instinct. They find a way to win when they’re being outplayed, and they don’t let series go to seven games if they have a chance to seal the deal in six. That determination to win at all costs can quickly stifle an opposing team’s hopes.

In the net, Crawford has stolen some games for them in the playoffs, and he is, in my opinion, playing better than he did when the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup last year. Crawford has every reason to be confident in his play going into a series against Quick, and his team has every cause to have faith in his capabilities.

On the blueline, Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook are getting the job done as their team’s top defensive pairing. Even when Seabrook was serving a suspension for his hit on Backes, Brookbank was able to step in and handle Seabrook’s responsibilities quite competently. As long as Duncan Keith is knocked out of the playoffs by a severe injury, Chicago’s defense should be a quite impregnable fortress around Crawford.

Offensively, both the stars and the depth players are scoring for the Blackhawks when it’s needed. Jonathan Toews or Patrick Kane always seem to find a way to deliver when the playoff pressure is most intense, and if they can do that through the Stanley Cup Finals, the Cup might be staying in Chicago for another year.

Why the Cup Might be Headed out of Town: Although the Blackhawks are well-coached, some of their line combinations can get really wacky and sometimes their top guns aren’t deployed all together when that might be necessary. If the Blackhawks need something to spark their firepower, and Toews and Kane aren’t put on the same line until it’s too late, the team could be headed home early.

Crawford has taken great strides from last year, but he still has quite a road to travel before he is considered among the best goaltenders in the league. Next round, he will be facing one of the best goaltenders in the league in Quick, and if he loses that goalie duel, his team could be booking tee times at the country club for the summer.

Chicago’s defense can’t afford to earn any more suspensions. It could give their foes potential rallying cries in series, it will earn them bad reputations with the refs that could result in a lot of unfavorable calls against them, and it could remove key players like Seabrook from their line-up. The Blackhawks defense needs to keep their play fierce but legal.

Patrick Kane looks wonderful when he’s scoring overtime goals, but he has gone into his Olympic floating mode at other times when he’s frustrated by the lack of scoring opportunities that he’s getting because of an opposing team’s stifling defensive structure. If Patrick Kane forgets how to make scoring opportunities despite tight defensive coverage, the Stanley Cup might be moving to somewhere like Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Kings: As the third seed in the Pacific Division, the Kings found themselves facing the second seeded San Jose Sharks in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. After being crushed in a blitz by San Jose forwards, Los Angeles fell behind their Northern California rivals. Returning home to the Staples Center, the Kings took the third game to overtime but lost, giving the Sharks a commanding series lead of 3-0. Backs against the wall, the Kings staved off elimination in games four, five, and six before ending the Sharks’ season in game seven.

The exhilaration of being one of the few NHL teams in history to successfully mount a comeback after falling behind in a series by three games gave the Kings a massive energy boost heading into their series against another California team, the Anaheim Ducks. Taking advantage of this wave of momentum, the Kings rode its crest to win the first two games of the series in Anaheim, but found themselves stymied by the Ducks and a rookie goaltender named Gibson during the subsequent games in Los Angeles. They returned to Orange Country, where the Ducks took a 3-2 lead, but the Kings tied the series up again when it went back to the Staples Center. Thriving off the excitement of a game seven, the Kings made foie gras in Anaheim and will be preparing to go to war against the Blackhawks at 3:00 on Sunday afternoon.

Why the Kings Could be Crowned Again: The Kings are a team built for the playoffs. They shine when the refs put away their whistles, and they know how to maintain a lead to deny an opponent any prayer of a comeback. Call it boring hockey or ugly hockey, but don’t try to deny that it’s effective hockey. When the Kings score first, they are nearly impossible to dethrone.

This is a team that thrives rather than crumbles under the pressure of an elimination game. Since they started this year’s playoff run, they have won six elimination games. If a series gets to game seven, Quick will be in his God as a goalie mode, and the Kings will be in their element. Quick and Doughty may not be having their most impressive playoffs, but they are still getting the job done and being dangerous when it matters the most.

Owing to their comeback prowess, the Kings cannot be counted out until they have been officially eliminated by losing four games in a best of seven series, and, as anyone who has watched the Kings can assure you, that fourth victory will be the hardest fought. The Ducks and Sharks sure learned that the hard way if they didn’t already realize that grim fact.

Why the Kings Could Experience Regicide: The flip side of the Kings being able to maintain a lead once they score the first goal is that when the other team scores first, they can become a bit frantic and make sloppy mistakes trying to catch up. When the other team has the lead, the Kings taut defense opens up and leaves Quick vulnerable to scoring attempts from breakaways, odd-man-rushes, and turnovers. If the Kings don’t score first this playoffs, they can find the opposing side of the scoreboard lighting up pretty fast.

Likewise, while the Kings shine under the strain of an elimination game, it also should be noted that the Kings put themselves in a situation to end their season early in the game sixes of both series they have participated in thus far. Against Chicago, they will be meeting a team with the killer instinct to dispatch them in a game six if they let themselves fall behind in a series. Just because the Sharks and Ducks could not capitalize on this vulnerability does not mean it does not exist and cannot be exploited by the Blackhawks, who, as I observed earlier in this post, have a knack for doing away with teams in the sixth game of a series. The Kings may be the undisputed monarchs of game seven, but the Blackhawks are the reigning chieftains of game six.

As far as Quick goes, the Blackhawks published the book on how to defeat him. Last time they faced him in a series, they demonstrated that his aggression can backfire on him, and that he can be beaten on wraparound attempts. He also is a goalie who performs better when he has loads of chances to feel the puck. The fewer shots there are against him, the less prepared he is to make his spectacular saves. If the Blackhawks are able to use the knowledge they’ve acquired on Quick’s goaltending, the Kings might not be moving onto the Stanley Cup Finals.

The Bottom Line: It’s the playoffs, so buckle up for a wild ride. Any team who has made it this far could win it all. Stars could light up the scoreboard, or they could be invisible. As we approach the Stanley Cup Finals, we just must train ourselves to expect the utterly unpredictable.

 

 

 

Breaking Down a Miracle on Ice: Herb’s Warm Welcome

Ladies and gentlemen of the blog world, I’m pleased to announce that I’ve found some spare time between watching playoff hockey and working my rear end off for pennies to see the next segment of Miracle on Ice. Since I’m sure that you’re all quivering masses of excitement at the prospect, I’ll get on with the welcome the boys will be receiving to the trials, so hold onto your hats because this wagon doesn’t have any brakes and will be smashing through Colorado Springs.

In case you didn’t pick up on the subtle hint in the last sentence, these trials take place in Colorado Springs, which, as the name suggests, is in North Dakota, just as Baja California is in Mexico. Just kidding, of course. Colorado Springs is really in Colorado, unlike Baja California, which actually is in Mexico. Look it up if you think I’m a typical American who can’t navigate her way off her block with a GPS and a map.

A bus pulls up to the curb, and a stream of hockey players climb out, carrying their equipment. This river of hockey players includes Rob McClanahan, the guy I’m referring to as Steve Christoff until proof (which could be a long time in coming given this movie’s penchant to not give characters names) that he’s not arrives, and a blond dude I’m going to assume is Eric Strobel on the basis of hair color and age. What I mean by that is Rob, Steve, and Eric were all in the same class at the University of Minnesota, so, even if they weren’t friends, they still might find it somewhat reassuring to show up to trials together, because the devil you know is less scary than the one from Michigan, Wisconsin, or—God forbid—Massachusetts that you don’t know, right? Yeah, operating under that unassailable logic, the blond dude is definitely Eric Strobel until someone in the movie calls him by another name.

Rob, the guy who will be known as Steve for the time being, and the dude I’m presuming is Eric gawk at their surroundings for a bit, because Minnesota boys just don’t get out enough obviously, bless their hearts. While they drink in Colorado Springs, Eric says in a tone that sounds uncannily like a stoned skateboarder, “Wow, this is awesome! It makes me feel important.” Want to know one thing that isn’t awesome? This atrocious dialogue.

Getting beyond the fact that I’m cringing in embarrassment over dialogue that I wasn’t even born yet when it was written and so am in no way responsible for (so my audience should not point their pitchforks at me), Eric really should break his addiction before he’s subjected to a random drug test at the Olympics. After all, the only team allowed to have a drug-enhanced performance was the Soviet team. Should you think I’m being bigoted implying the Soviets cheated in international hockey competitions, check out Igor Larionov’s accounts of the suspicious injections members of the Soviet National team received annually leading up to the World Championships, which he insists that he, Krutov, Makarov, Fetisov, and Kasatonov all refused. The Soviet hockey program was so wacky that I don’t have to make stuff up for this blog to be exciting and scandalous.

Now that we’ve addressed the specter of suspicious Soviet injections, we can get back to the movie, where Rob, fiddling with his bag, tells his friends (who may or may not be named Eric and Steve) to “get over there for a second” so he can take a picture. Basically, Rob is that friend who you think you’ll have fun visiting the Lincoln Memorial with but who actually makes it so you never get to see much of the monument because you have to pause at every step to snap a photo.

Steve (or whoever he is) doesn’t think this is a Kodak moment, so he groans, “Come on, Robbie. Let’s stash our gear.”

Since Rob, like most tyrants with cameras, is not about to be dissuaded this easily, he responds, “No way. I promised your dad.” Jeez, so, basically, Steve’s dad is the ‘70s version of my mom, who always tells my friends (never me) to take a ton of pictures and post them on Facebook so she can admire them. I believe this is her method of monitoring my sobriety levels. Steve should be wary of such tricks from his old man, I think.

Steve snorts, “Well, that’s your problem,” and my problem is that this dialogue may have been written by a second grader. Seriously, if I hear a fart joke, I will take it as definitive evidence that the script writer never graduated elementary school, which would explain a lot about the relative maturity levels of everyone in this film.

Holding up his camera, Rob tells his friends to smile, and they actually cooperate. We can only assume that after this, Rob subjects them to about a million more pictures, because the lighting is never perfect and whatnot.

Fortunately, we are spared the ordeal of watching that as we move into an assembly room where Herb is going to give his idea of a welcome speech, which means, of course, that it will be about as welcoming as a mugging in a dark alley. In this room, the camera focuses on a knot of New England boys, including such notable personages as Ralph Cox, Jim Craig, Dave Silk, and Jack O’Callahan.

With his hands in his pockets, Silk confesses, “These guys make me nervous.” He’s going to be wetting his pants when Herb makes his grand entrance, in that case…

Jim says that he recognizes a lot of the guys from the Moscow tournament and they’re all right. My inner Miracle geek is doing cartwheels right now, because that ’79 World Championship team Jim alludes to did contain Jim Craig, Jack O’Callahan, Phil Verchota, Bill Baker, Rob McClanahan, Steve Christoff, Eric Strobel, Mark Johnson, and even this random retired NHL player named Craig Patrick. In other words, the 1980 Olympics was totally an awesome remix of the ’79 World Championship team.

Cox argues that there are “too many of them and not enough of us.” I feel like I’m watching the beginning of an after-school special on tolerance and diversity.

OC drawls, “Ah, it’s a big country, boys, we’ve got to make room for some of them—like maybe two.” OC is a riot. He gets some of the best lines in this movie, just like he does in Miracle. I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

The New Englanders take their seats, and we move over to a knot of Midwesterners in time to hear Ken Morrow say, “Hey, I’ve never seen most of these guys before.”

This results in some supposedly witty but actually painful banter about most of the guys not having seen Kenny before either, and how the other guys are Easterners who never leave concrete streets. By this point, I fully believe that Herb did his honest best to take the most annoying cast of characters possible to Lake Placid, perhaps theorizing that the Russians would capitulate instantly under an onslaught of their terrible jokes.

We have to listen to more agonizingly unnatural dialogue trying to convince us that it’s humor as the Midwestern boys discuss how the gold medal ’60 team was loaded with Easterners and how much they don’t need a history lesson. Can Herb make his grand entrance soon because this is getting to be excruciating?

The camera now shifts over to the Coneheads, who are sitting in a row diagonal to the other group of Midwesterners. Pointing across the room as if he were raised in a barn, Bah asks Buzz and Pav, “Hey, did you see McClanahan’s jeans?”

Yep, this is definitely an after-school special, all right. Now we’re getting to the point where people are being mocked behind their backs for their clothing selections. I eagerly anticipate the incoming anti-bullying sermon where we’ll be taught that we can all be buddies no matter what our socioeconomic status.

Buzz replies that he doesn’t check out guys’ jeans, and Bah continues to obsess over Rob’s pants, claiming that Rob’s wearing a fancy brand that costs “sixty bucks at least.” Presumably, he’s bitter because that money could have fed a starving child in the Iron Range for a year or something.

Pav decides not to be a bystander, and demands, “So what? He plays good hockey?” Here, a cynic could certainly speculate that Pav has a vested interest in creating a team atmosphere where nobody cares what anyone else is wearing, so that he could show up to his medal ceremony looking like a total ragamuffin, and nobody would be able to taunt him into dressing as if he had actually spared a thought to his appearance.

Bah dismisses this point, scoffing, “Yeah, I know, but what’s a rich kid doing playing hockey?”

Okay. I’ve got to give this movie props for courage here, even if I make fun of the rest of the script. Rob McClanahan was raised in North Oaks, an affluent suburb of St. Paul, while most of the team was from more blue collar origins, so he got a lot of ribbing about his upper-crust background.

Many sources, like the Miracle movie, decide they aren’t going to poke that class grenade with a ten-foot pole, and most of the sources that do touch it do so in a pretty blundering way, basically asserting that Rob was fine because while he might have seemed like a snot like all the other lazy, arrogant upper-middle class jerks in their gated communities driving their elegant cars, he wasn’t actually a snot unlike all those other rich snobs who really are arrogant, lazy jerks. In a nutshell, most of the sources just end up affirming the stereotypes about upper-middle class people instead of confronting them, so we’ll see what the movie does with the class issue. Either way, I’ll applaud their bravery for trying to deal with the issue even if I can’t approve of their execution. So far, though, I think that they’re doing pretty well, since I believe the audience is intended to identify Bah’s remark as a sort of reverse snobbery and not be sympathetic toward it.

The camera switches to Les Auge, who, when asked how he is doing, admits that he’s feeling a little nervous. I’m kind of overjoyed to see Les Auge in this film, since I’ve only ever read about him in books before. It’s nice to see him get some attention for a change.

Now that Les Auge has prepared us for Herb’s entrance by alerting us to the fact that we should all be nervous wrecks, Herb strides in and marches up to the podium to deliver his welcome speech to his crowd of Olympic hopefuls.

Herb opens with a declaration that “some of you have had the pleasure of playing on my teams before.” Way to go, Herb. When the tension between different groups in a room is thick enough to need a knife to slice through it, it’s great to crack a joke to set all the warring factions at ease. I hope he continues his standup routine with a quip about the pleasure of getting a root canal.

Sadly, Herb elects to go into serious mode instead of making any more wisecracks. He attempts to assure his audience’s attention by asserting that this isn’t a case where a player can look to his right and to his left, and then know that one of the three of them will make the team, because the odds, according to him, aren’t that much in their favor. Instead, Herb tells them to look two places on either side of them and assume that maybe none of them will make the team.

Since the boys who do ultimately make the team are organized in bunches, a more accurate version of the speech would point out that there are also some people who could look two places on either side of them and know that all five of them would make the team. Really, Herb could have glossed over the formality of a trials process and just pointed at clumps of players, announcing which ones passed muster and which ones didn’t.

Herb then talks about how the twenty boys who will make the team will be the best skaters, the bravest players, and the guys who believe in themselves and each other the most. This is all music to my ears as this team over the years has somehow been stigmatized as a talentless bunch, so it’s a wonderful change to hear them being called good.

After this, Herb waxes romantic about how he’s not looking for winners, since winners are a dime a dozen, but rather for people prepared to sacrifice for the chance to become winners. This line rings very true, since Herb once defined winners as those who are willing to make sacrifices for the unknown.

Herb concludes with a declaration that he doesn’t know what brought his players there, but he knows what can send them home, and that he’s not interested in their questions, only their answers, so if they have any questions, they should direct them to Coach Patrick, who seems astonished by Herb’s abrupt speech.

As Herb walks by him, Patrick remarks that the boys look eager, and Herb counters that they are a “bunch of cliques” that are “a long way from a team.” In other words, this Olympic team sounds like middle school.

Patrick walks up to the podium and makes a sorry excuse for a jest by commenting, “Welcome to Colorado Springs, where the atmosphere isn’t just friendly and warm; it’s downright hot.” That terrible joke may be the reason the facepalm was invented.

There is an outbreak of polite, pitying laughter from the boys who probably want brownie points from the assistant coach who apparently just wants to be one of the guys.

Coach Patrick asks if there are any questions, and everyone raises a hand. That’s good. Patrick deserves to answer stupid questions for the next century as atonement for his awful joke. On that note, we’ll end this post with Herb’s pleasant words of welcome ringing in our eardrums like a merry wedding bell.