What happens when NHL teams don’t understand their athlete’s individual development arcs? Well, simply you see the 1st round draft pick flame outs and mid to late round picks never seem to fully materialize and talent funnels seem to be dry (see the Toronto Maple Leafs). How can this be addressed? Firstly, I think how talent is identified and developed needs to be done differently.
I’ll discuss this issue on an on-gong basis, but my theories are tied to the following principles:
Athletes need to be viewed holistically
Athlete’s talent arcs need to be identified in context of the organization the are joining, but this is only valuable if it is done objectively.
How and more importantly when do you expect to realize the athlete’s talent? This relates to when you anticipate realizing on your asset (this requires you to have a strong view and understanding of your current assets)
From a talent perspective, athletes can be categorized into one of the following groups:
Long Arcs
Those athletes who will need a long (or longer) time to mature into professional athletes.
Short Arcs
Those athletes who are able to bridge into professional athletics faster.
Flatliners
Those athletes who may not have the capacity to play at the elite level.
Blips
The most frustrating group ‘Blips’, are those that may have the capacity to play at the professional level but only for short bursts. Although, frustrating, they can be profitable to the astute holistically trained GM.
However, it is important to note that unless GM’s and coaches know which group their athletes fit into they risk damaging the athlete and limiting his total game potential (TGP) and consequently his organizational and overall asset value.
It is also critical to note that the above categorizations relate to skill only. They do not speak to the mental aspect of athlete development. Many Short Arc athletes have the physical skill to play at the highest level but may not have the mental capacity. If this isn’t recognized, talented athletes can be shredded by an organization before they are ready. There are too many cases of this to even bother outlining. Conversely, many athletes have the mental toughness and maturity to be professional athletes, but need time for their skills to develop. Organizations can lose these athletes by not giving them the direction they need to develop from a skill perspective. Speaking with professional athletes anecdotally this issue seems endemic.
If athletes can’t see a development track that is clearly communicated to them, why would they ‘buy in’ to an organization. In my opinion, this is costly not only from perspective of the lost asset, but because of how that individual may impact other organizational assets.
Providing clear development tracks is difficult of course. Scouting is not objective and neither is how coaches utilize their roster. Unless GM’s & coaches are integrated with respect to the use and development of talent any initiative undertaken at one level and not another is useless. Pushing more objectivity into how athletes are evaluated is a crucial first step to truly identifying where these athletes fit in terms of the previous four categories.
Honestly, its honesty. The number of former professional and/or elite athletes who feel they haven’t been dealt with in a forthright manner is staggering. Those athletes who do have forthright interactions with management regardless of their individual outcomes speak very highly of those experiences. If athletes know how they are viewed by the organization, what needs to be improved, if they are making the requested improvements and they understand the implications of both positive and negative development organizations can flourish.
Ultimately, the pressure for the GM is to properly identify his assets. Cull the Flatliners, realize maximum market value for Blips and create individual development plans for Long & Short Arc athletes that increase the chances of the asset realizing.
The next blog will focus on the concept of TGP as a methodology for developing talent at the NHL level.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
The Isolation of Pro Athletes Upon Retirement
One of the few things discussed when professional hockey players retire is the issue of isolation. It can be a significant problem when athletes leave the game. Isolation plays a role for several different reasons.
First, imagine for the vast majority of your formative years you were surrounded by hockey players and the falderal that is the game. You retire. Instantly, the structure, rituals and people that have defined your existence, for lets say conservatively, 15 years, are gone.
Now if you are the athlete retiring, you will soon realize that you can NEVER plug back into that lifestyle. Ever. It is impossible. That is the first ‘gotcha’ in the retirement cycle. The second issue that will arise is your inability to figure out what to do next. This relates to the structure issue. You have been told what to and when to do it for a long time. Now your time is your own. This is a frightening reality. What do you actually do?
The initial reaction is to focus on the family and your spouse. These are great instincts, but it doesn’t take into account that your spouse is now struggling significantly with her loss of status, your loss of status, the sudden change in income, the fact that you are now around ALL THE TIME cutting into her independence and she doesn’t know what to tell you to do.
So you now have a scenario where:
- The spouse is dealing with significant issues related to athletic retirement and therefore may find it difficult to act as a resource for support.
- The support structure provided by teammates and the organization is long gone the moment the locker room door closed. They think if you’ve got money, you’ll be fine.
- You have valuable skills but you are not employable in the traditional sense.
- You have gaping hole of time available and no real sense on how to use it or manage it.
The result is an athlete who is forced to retreat into himself in order to deal with the issues of athletic transition. Limited access to support and resources make for a challenging transition. The lack of support and isolation opens the athlete up to depression, which compounds the isolation issue further as the athlete pushes away or retreats from support. All of this is magnified significantly if the retirement is brought around through de-selection or serious injury.
How do you defeat the issue of isolation? The answer is education. Providing education to athletes and families about the realities of the transition process and the dangers of isolation. Information should be provided to teams and organizations about what athletes are experiencing. Teams can help minimize issues by providing avenues for retired athletes to stay connected to the team and organization, even at a bare minimum level.. Athletes need to be informed about what they will experience in retirement and the dangers of isolation as coping strategy.
If teams, families and the athlete, working in concert with support programs, are informed about isolation related issues in the transition phase of an athletic career, hopefully the negative consequences of isolation can be reduced.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Marketing Professional Hockey
I am going to preface this by saying, I am probably so wrong, I am right. Hockey has not been well marketed. The message behind why you watch it is confusing. Am I watching hockey because it’s a beautiful ballet? Am I watching hockey because I’ve heard about the star players and now feel compelled to watch? Or am I watching because I just want to figure out the rules?
Those seem to be the predominant themes that have driven the marketing of pro hockey. Talk about boring and one-dimensional. I get the impression now that if Sidney Crosby doesn’t play for or against my team, I shouldn’t even bother watching.
The game needs to be marketed as, ‘great guys, playing a tough game’. It is that simple. Hockey players are universally acknowledged as being highly accessible, very friendly and appear to actually enjoy playing the game at the professional level.
They are also, in the vast majority of cases, not pituitary gland freak shows. Nor are they required to sleep on their stomachs because of the needle they place in their ass every night in order to wake up ‘refreshed’. They aren’t ego freaks. I hear the argument occasionally; hockey players are so boring, they never say anything controversial. Good! What’s the alternative? Chad Johnson antics? Terrell Owens? Curt Schilling? Only in the hockey world is what could be viewed as a huge positive or at worst a neutral issue, be turned into a negative.
Pitch the game as tough (people actually fight), physical (people collide going 30 miles an hour chasing a puck traveling a 100 miles an hour), highly skilled (you try toe dragging a 6’4 defensemen, let alone doing that while on skates) and extraordinarily demanding game (I mean you can only play for 30-45 seconds at a time) and its played by people, who look, well, normal. If peopel understood this they would feel compelled to watch. Explaining the rules is a waste of time. I don't get NFL rules, but I still watch on T.V. Selling only 5 players to the public doesn’t work and in my opinion limits the appeal of the game. This approach hasn’t worked since Jordan left professional sport (the exception being perhaps Tiger – and we've seen that Lebron hasn’t worked out as the NBA had hoped).
Whatever the NHL has been doing hasn’t worked. So how wrong can I be?
Those seem to be the predominant themes that have driven the marketing of pro hockey. Talk about boring and one-dimensional. I get the impression now that if Sidney Crosby doesn’t play for or against my team, I shouldn’t even bother watching.
The game needs to be marketed as, ‘great guys, playing a tough game’. It is that simple. Hockey players are universally acknowledged as being highly accessible, very friendly and appear to actually enjoy playing the game at the professional level.
They are also, in the vast majority of cases, not pituitary gland freak shows. Nor are they required to sleep on their stomachs because of the needle they place in their ass every night in order to wake up ‘refreshed’. They aren’t ego freaks. I hear the argument occasionally; hockey players are so boring, they never say anything controversial. Good! What’s the alternative? Chad Johnson antics? Terrell Owens? Curt Schilling? Only in the hockey world is what could be viewed as a huge positive or at worst a neutral issue, be turned into a negative.
Pitch the game as tough (people actually fight), physical (people collide going 30 miles an hour chasing a puck traveling a 100 miles an hour), highly skilled (you try toe dragging a 6’4 defensemen, let alone doing that while on skates) and extraordinarily demanding game (I mean you can only play for 30-45 seconds at a time) and its played by people, who look, well, normal. If peopel understood this they would feel compelled to watch. Explaining the rules is a waste of time. I don't get NFL rules, but I still watch on T.V. Selling only 5 players to the public doesn’t work and in my opinion limits the appeal of the game. This approach hasn’t worked since Jordan left professional sport (the exception being perhaps Tiger – and we've seen that Lebron hasn’t worked out as the NBA had hoped).
Whatever the NHL has been doing hasn’t worked. So how wrong can I be?
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Coaching Perspectives
Coaching isn’t easy. It may look easy. Parts of the job of coaching are easy, but in reality coaching is very difficult. In my mind coaching boils down to two mantras that have been espoused by famous coaches.
The first attributed to Scotty Bowman is the belief that coaching is simply, “ the ability to have the right players on the ice at the right time.” Sounds easy doesn’t it. I mean in reality how hard it could it be? It is in fact extremely difficult. As a coach your success night in night out is hinged on your ability to be objective. Think about it you need to be objective game by game to effectively place the right people in the right situations.
However, hockey coaches rely to heavily on hunches or veteran status (and sometimes this is important). My colleague is absolutely correct, hockey needs better stats. However, stats are useless unless they are used proactively in game situations. And in my experience hockey coaches don’t do this. Or if they do they don’t do it well because it isn’t part of how they view the game. They feel they are throwing their impact on the game out the door because they are adhering to statistics outputs, not pure ‘knowledge’.
The second witticism by a coach, who I can’t remember, said “coaching is the art of treating everybody different and exactly the same, all at the same time.” Truer words about coaching have never been spoken. Athletes are a different bunch. 20 of them in a locker room is challenge.
Where coaches need to continue to explore the world of working with athletes is in the realm of the off-ice. When coaches watch their athletes walk out of the door after practice, in many ways they feel their responsibility ends. Far from it. In my experiences those coaches who went the extra mile to learn more about their athletes, understand their development objectives both at and away from the rink earned a greater degree of respect from their athletes. Coaches who were able to do this without appearing ‘buddy-buddy’ or as trying to ‘kiss ass’, were extremely successful.
I believe this was the case because the athletes felt that the coach was trying to understand where the athletes were coming from. Athletes were more willing to go the extra mile for the coach who appeared to care and understand their perspective of the demands he was making of this athletes.
This is why coaches need to understand the holistic aspect of working with athletes. The investment it takes to try to view and work with your athletes as multi-dimensional beings will pay significant dividends for you (as the coach), the athlete and by extension, your team as a whole.
The first attributed to Scotty Bowman is the belief that coaching is simply, “ the ability to have the right players on the ice at the right time.” Sounds easy doesn’t it. I mean in reality how hard it could it be? It is in fact extremely difficult. As a coach your success night in night out is hinged on your ability to be objective. Think about it you need to be objective game by game to effectively place the right people in the right situations.
However, hockey coaches rely to heavily on hunches or veteran status (and sometimes this is important). My colleague is absolutely correct, hockey needs better stats. However, stats are useless unless they are used proactively in game situations. And in my experience hockey coaches don’t do this. Or if they do they don’t do it well because it isn’t part of how they view the game. They feel they are throwing their impact on the game out the door because they are adhering to statistics outputs, not pure ‘knowledge’.
The second witticism by a coach, who I can’t remember, said “coaching is the art of treating everybody different and exactly the same, all at the same time.” Truer words about coaching have never been spoken. Athletes are a different bunch. 20 of them in a locker room is challenge.
Where coaches need to continue to explore the world of working with athletes is in the realm of the off-ice. When coaches watch their athletes walk out of the door after practice, in many ways they feel their responsibility ends. Far from it. In my experiences those coaches who went the extra mile to learn more about their athletes, understand their development objectives both at and away from the rink earned a greater degree of respect from their athletes. Coaches who were able to do this without appearing ‘buddy-buddy’ or as trying to ‘kiss ass’, were extremely successful.
I believe this was the case because the athletes felt that the coach was trying to understand where the athletes were coming from. Athletes were more willing to go the extra mile for the coach who appeared to care and understand their perspective of the demands he was making of this athletes.
This is why coaches need to understand the holistic aspect of working with athletes. The investment it takes to try to view and work with your athletes as multi-dimensional beings will pay significant dividends for you (as the coach), the athlete and by extension, your team as a whole.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Lose the 'Gunslingers'
Everybody has something to say about fighting in the NHL. There are those who say it has to go. That it drags hockey down and appeals only to spectators' base instincts. Then we have those that say the more fisticuffs we have the more ‘entertaining’ the product.
Both these positions are fundamentally flawed. Too much fighting that isn’t directly related to the game is farcical and makes a mockery of the sport. No fighting, I believe is just as dangerous. My position is simple, fighting should exist as a spontaneous reaction to the intensity of the game. What needs to be killed is the ‘side show’ 'under the big top' aspect of the fighting. The orchestrated fight is the most ridiculous thing in the game. It adds nothing and makes critics derisive allusions to the WWF, sadly, accurate.
So how do we remove the premeditated fight or the hired gun goon from the game. Very simply – Time On Ice (TOI). Uni-dimensional players are usually easily spotted by their lack of ice time. The top 5 fighters in terms of total number of fights, had TOI averages as follows:
-Jarrett Boll 8:00
-George Parros 5:56
-Riley Cote 4:11
-Zach Stortini 8:10
-David Clarkson 12:10
The NHL, using stats that are already collected every game could create a fighting major to ice time ratio creating a minimum amount of ice time required for those athletes racking up fighting majors. If this minimum wasn’t met the team would be fined and the player suspended on a graduating scale. The above 5 fighters TOI average is roughly 7.5.
I’m not a mathematician and I won’t even try to throw together a logarithm which can solve this issue. However, I believe strongly the league could create formula that ties the number of fighting majors to TOI in a fashion that is fair, impartial and transparent.
Imagine, just for example, that the minimum ice-time required by a player in the top 20 in fighting majors had to be 10 minutes average TOI. This would mean Flyers head coach John Stevens would have to find another 6 minutes of ice for Riley Cote. Ice that I’m sure he’d rather give to Joffrey Lupul or another more multi-dimensional hockey player.
This would force teams to find hockey players first and tough guys second. Arguably, New Jersey has already found this in David Clarkson, who not only played 12 minutes a night but also chipped in 22 points. In comparison Cote’s TOI nadir was 9:08.
If coaches were forced to play their one dimensional hockey players, in order to comply with this new rule, those athletes would soon be replaced. Or the tough guys would be forced to evolve.
This transition is already taking place. Chris Neil and Sean Avery represent the vanguard of the new tough guy. I say accelerate it. The game is tough and needs to be kept that way, but the side show era should be buried forever.
Both these positions are fundamentally flawed. Too much fighting that isn’t directly related to the game is farcical and makes a mockery of the sport. No fighting, I believe is just as dangerous. My position is simple, fighting should exist as a spontaneous reaction to the intensity of the game. What needs to be killed is the ‘side show’ 'under the big top' aspect of the fighting. The orchestrated fight is the most ridiculous thing in the game. It adds nothing and makes critics derisive allusions to the WWF, sadly, accurate.
So how do we remove the premeditated fight or the hired gun goon from the game. Very simply – Time On Ice (TOI). Uni-dimensional players are usually easily spotted by their lack of ice time. The top 5 fighters in terms of total number of fights, had TOI averages as follows:
-Jarrett Boll 8:00
-George Parros 5:56
-Riley Cote 4:11
-Zach Stortini 8:10
-David Clarkson 12:10
The NHL, using stats that are already collected every game could create a fighting major to ice time ratio creating a minimum amount of ice time required for those athletes racking up fighting majors. If this minimum wasn’t met the team would be fined and the player suspended on a graduating scale. The above 5 fighters TOI average is roughly 7.5.
I’m not a mathematician and I won’t even try to throw together a logarithm which can solve this issue. However, I believe strongly the league could create formula that ties the number of fighting majors to TOI in a fashion that is fair, impartial and transparent.
Imagine, just for example, that the minimum ice-time required by a player in the top 20 in fighting majors had to be 10 minutes average TOI. This would mean Flyers head coach John Stevens would have to find another 6 minutes of ice for Riley Cote. Ice that I’m sure he’d rather give to Joffrey Lupul or another more multi-dimensional hockey player.
This would force teams to find hockey players first and tough guys second. Arguably, New Jersey has already found this in David Clarkson, who not only played 12 minutes a night but also chipped in 22 points. In comparison Cote’s TOI nadir was 9:08.
If coaches were forced to play their one dimensional hockey players, in order to comply with this new rule, those athletes would soon be replaced. Or the tough guys would be forced to evolve.
This transition is already taking place. Chris Neil and Sean Avery represent the vanguard of the new tough guy. I say accelerate it. The game is tough and needs to be kept that way, but the side show era should be buried forever.
Money Puck – Measuring the right things in hockey statistics
The book “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” by Michael Lewis (Click here to go to amazon for the book) describes how Oakland A’s GM and former major league ball player Billy Beane devised a successful strategy for competing as a small market team in MLB. One of the most interesting aspects of the book is the idea that even in a statistics obsessed sport like baseball, major league teams and their scouts and general managers use the wrong statistics to measure player worth. For example, he claims that an at bat appearance where you make the starting pitcher throw a lot of pitches is important as getting to a middle reliever in baseball greatly improves your odds of winning.
If I was a GM for a NHL team, I would follow the advice of Moneyball and have my scouts and player development folks also re-examine the statistics we use to evaluate and develop talent. A quick one – anyone who knows the game appreciates the value to a team of a defenseman who can make a good first pass out of his own end of the rink. Can you name the best guy in the NHL who does it? We probably could quickly on this blog come to consensus on the top guys but none of us would have the stats to support our guy.
Now imagine if I asked you to name the guys in the CHL or NCAA who have the best percentage of first passes in their own zone. Or how about point shots that make it to the net? Or how about hits that result in turnovers in the neutral zone. Or how about plus/minus when my checking line is out against the other teams scoring line? Or how about the percent of my PIMS taken 180 feet from my net? Or how about passes that resulted in scoring chances. This last one is a real hot button for me as I think we overlook talented players who are great at setting up guys but play on a line with guys with bricks for hands.
In any event, I could go on and on about the statistics that I think we need to measure that would change how we look at evaluating talented players. What do you think we should be measuring?
If I was a GM for a NHL team, I would follow the advice of Moneyball and have my scouts and player development folks also re-examine the statistics we use to evaluate and develop talent. A quick one – anyone who knows the game appreciates the value to a team of a defenseman who can make a good first pass out of his own end of the rink. Can you name the best guy in the NHL who does it? We probably could quickly on this blog come to consensus on the top guys but none of us would have the stats to support our guy.
Now imagine if I asked you to name the guys in the CHL or NCAA who have the best percentage of first passes in their own zone. Or how about point shots that make it to the net? Or how about hits that result in turnovers in the neutral zone. Or how about plus/minus when my checking line is out against the other teams scoring line? Or how about the percent of my PIMS taken 180 feet from my net? Or how about passes that resulted in scoring chances. This last one is a real hot button for me as I think we overlook talented players who are great at setting up guys but play on a line with guys with bricks for hands.
In any event, I could go on and on about the statistics that I think we need to measure that would change how we look at evaluating talented players. What do you think we should be measuring?
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Specialization in Hockey – the next steps
The most successful league in team sports history is the NFL. The reasons are many but I want to point out just one – the ability to select, develop and utilize players in a very specialized way. Whether its outside linebackers versus long snapper for punts, or situational specific such as third and long versus goal line stand, the NFL uses its talent and hence develops it for specific functions.
Hockey can do the same. We have moved past just looking at the game as comprised of forwards, defencemen, and goalies to the recognition of power play, penalty killing, checking line, energy line, etc. assignments. The game needs to take the next step and begin drafting and developing talent based on those assignments. For example, why try to take the leading scorer in the Ontario League and convert him into a checking center on the third line? Wouldn’t it make more sense to draft the best checking center in the OHL to fill your need for that function? And, once you draft that checking center, establish a development system that enables him to learn and practice the skills that a checking center must perform. His ticket to the show isn’t going to be on points but rather on how well he shuts down the opponents and that is probably a function of both his skills in things like back-checking as well as his attitude such as a commitment to defense.
Specialization also needs to be added for other dimensions of the game. For example, why don’t teams have a scoring coach? Last time I checked, you win by scoring more goals than the other guy yet I don’t know of a single team that has an assistant coach for scoring. The current system of having a coach for forwards, one for defensemen and at most a part-time coach for goalies ignores many realities of the game. Using the NFL as a model, hockey would also have coaches for scoring, checking, passing, penalty killing, power play, etc. For example, the scoring coach would emphasize skills like a shooting accuracy, quick release, etc. as well as providing players with the options they need and the ability to recognize which option will likely work in specific situations.
Specialization in life and sport is a reality. The only question is when will a team realize that investing in this non-capped expense might provide them with the edge they need to win!
Hockey can do the same. We have moved past just looking at the game as comprised of forwards, defencemen, and goalies to the recognition of power play, penalty killing, checking line, energy line, etc. assignments. The game needs to take the next step and begin drafting and developing talent based on those assignments. For example, why try to take the leading scorer in the Ontario League and convert him into a checking center on the third line? Wouldn’t it make more sense to draft the best checking center in the OHL to fill your need for that function? And, once you draft that checking center, establish a development system that enables him to learn and practice the skills that a checking center must perform. His ticket to the show isn’t going to be on points but rather on how well he shuts down the opponents and that is probably a function of both his skills in things like back-checking as well as his attitude such as a commitment to defense.
Specialization also needs to be added for other dimensions of the game. For example, why don’t teams have a scoring coach? Last time I checked, you win by scoring more goals than the other guy yet I don’t know of a single team that has an assistant coach for scoring. The current system of having a coach for forwards, one for defensemen and at most a part-time coach for goalies ignores many realities of the game. Using the NFL as a model, hockey would also have coaches for scoring, checking, passing, penalty killing, power play, etc. For example, the scoring coach would emphasize skills like a shooting accuracy, quick release, etc. as well as providing players with the options they need and the ability to recognize which option will likely work in specific situations.
Specialization in life and sport is a reality. The only question is when will a team realize that investing in this non-capped expense might provide them with the edge they need to win!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)