Lesson Learned "On The Run" at The 2011 Memorial Cup
By Bryan Thiel
It’s springtime - meaning that if you’re a hockey fan you’ve probably tuned in to the Stanley Cup playoffs and watched as teams tried to knock each other out of the chase for the Holy Grail of hockey.
The standard response when asked about the keys to winning one of the most pristine trophies in hockey, is that you need to be prepared and you have to keep your emotions in check. If you’re not able to do that, then you’ll be out of the hunt fairly quickly.
These are the lessons other hockey players are learning on their path to hopefully play for the Stanley Cup one day. While that’s the goal, in the meantime their journeys have taken them to Mississauga, Ontario for the 2011 Memorial Cup.
The host Mississauga/St. Michael’s Majors, the OHL Champion Owen Sound Attack, the QMJHL Champion Saint John Sea Dogs, and the WHL Champion Kootenay Ice have all converged on the four-team tournament in hopes of winning it all and being named the best team in the Canadian Hockey League. They’ve quickly found out that if you don’t keep your emotions in check and you aren’t properly prepared.
Sea Dogs’ Head Coach Gerard Gallant probably put it best after his team defeated Mississauga in the opener of the tournament: “They’re young kids and they get wound up.” And like the teenagers that they are, the kids can get caught up in trying to outdo one another. “We’re probably one of the tougher teams in our league (QMJHL). They came in here tonight and tried to prove that they’re tougher and grittier and we got caught up in that.”
Mississauga had problems of their own in the first game as the host team, in the words of Head Coach Dave Cameron “losing our composure” and letting their emotions dictate their play.
We saw another instance where emotions were allowed to boil over when Kootenay Ice Captain Brayden McNabb ran his elbow through Owen Sound Attack's Joey Hishon, which came when Kootenay was frustrated and annoyed at being down 3-0 late to the OHL Champion. While Hishon’s health became the Attack’s primary concern, McNabb’s statement certainly affected the Ice as they dropped their next game 2-1 Sunday evening to the Majors, falling to 0-2.
Even in that win over Kootenay there were points were emotions could have turned a win into a loss for the Majors. After Rob Flick drove the net and set up Maxim Kitsyn’s tying goal Sunday, Flick was sent to the box after his part in some extra-fun after whistle. When he got back to the bench, there were some stern words from Cameron to get Flick’s head back in the game and get him concentrated on the task at hand. Earning a win.
But keeping the emotions in check will only take you so far. You need to have a plan for dealing with your opponent night-in and night-out, which is difficult when the tournament is an amalgamation of four teams from three different leagues. Even the two teams that “know each other” aren’t really on a first name basis with each other: Owen Sound and Mississauga met just twice in the OHL’s regular season and added seven games to that in the OHL Championship series.
So then things come down to coaching and the players learning as they go.
Tomas Jurco, who many will know for his slick puck-handling skills (and displayed them with his goal in game one) pointed to his coaching staff and his team’s ability to learn as they went. “It’s always hard to play against a team you’ve never played against. The Coaches worked with what we saw in the first period and helped us, and then we moved on.”
All four teams in this tournament have the skill to compete and win it. What they need however, is the leadership and level headedness that comes with being a champion, and the ability, as Stuart Percy said after a disappointing first game, to “put it behind us.”
The team that’s able to do that, and use that professional mindset and have a short memory will end up on top. And hopefully for some of those players, those will be the lessons they use again when they’re one day playing for a Stanley Cup.
