I’m not sure there’s any point in re-litigating the details of Mike Babcock’s situation in Columbus because his official departure is in the books and most verdicts in the court of public opinion have been rendered and aren’t changing.
My view on it all was muddied by having worked for him and having seen how he tried to get to know people quickly then (which is maybe not the best pace to try to connect with people, though I remember finding the effort admirable). All that means is, I thought it was all overblown, until the detail “several minutes with a player’s phone” got out, then I realized it was … correctly blown?
But I do think the idea of what he may have been trying to do (if viewed extremely charitably) points us to one of the initial hurdles for all coaches, but particularly ones joining a new club: how do you onboard an entire hockey team in an efficient manner? Not to just get the information, but to want to fall in line with the plan laid out before them?
Fostering that early buy-in is an integral first step. I came across this great line (and the connected studies) from MIT’s Julie Shah in a book on training algorithms that seems relevant for this topic: “There are also good human studies that show that if you have multiple people trying to achieve the same goal or intention – everyone knows what that goal or that intention is – but your people have different strategies for achieving that and their work needs to be interdependent, they’re going to perform much worse than if they have a suboptimal but coherent strategy.”
In plainspeak, you’re better off with a worse plan but with your people on the same page than a great plan with people having their own ideas for how to execute it.
We’re talking about getting to know 30-plus players in camp, a whole staff and all the connective human tissue that helps any good program run. So, as coaches arrive with said plan and try to disseminate that information, they use a variety of techniques to try to get everyone rowing in the same direction.
I’ve used this example before, but one way I saw it with the Toronto Marlies was Sheldon Keefe’s desire to keep an “interaction tracker” for himself with the coaching staff. There are some players who just show up and do their job and are so low-maintenance, they can fall through the personal-connection cracks. But Keefe wanted to make sure our staff touched base with every player regularly, and so he had me make up a monthly chart with names on the vertical axis, dates on the horizontal axis.
The idea was that at the end of the day, if Sheldon, Gord Dineen or A.J. MacLean had a meaningful chat with a player, they’d put ticks in a corresponding box. I’d go over it every so often and make sure everyone had been checked in with.
But that’s the type of thing you do once you’ve got a set roster, and involves the coaches checking in with the players. Before that, comes …
Entry meetings
In the early part of camp, conversations tend to be informal, but by the time you get down to numbers, it’s crucial to have an introductory discussion, where expectations are laid out. I actually think these are underrated in terms of setting the stage for the season (if only media interviews followed them, as they do exit interviews) because you have to manage a player’s expectations, while making them feel as though both opportunity and belief is there for them. Endless November meetings have come because “You said in September I’d get power-play time” when “You’ll get power-play time” really needed “… assuming you’re playing well enough to deserve it.” Clarity is crucial, as everyone needs their role defined and all cards laid out on the table.
There’s also …
Assistant coach pull-asides
Not everyone is super comfortable talking directly to the person who controls their opportunity, so this is a great time of year for assistant coaches to have some one-on-ones during pre-practice skate-arounds, in the dressing room, in the hotel lobby or anywhere else. It’s here where players feel like they form allies and, in fairness, they really do. It’s not uncommon for an assistant coach to be a steady lobbyist for a player in the coaches’ office (and over the course of the season, that will eventually result in opportunity).
You want the players to start forming the bonds themselves as well, and early on you have a variety of options. I love the thread that runs through the below, which is sticking players with guys they don’t normally hang out with, and hoping a few surprise bonds form. (I should note I hated it as a player, but frankly never stopped to consider why we did it.)
There is:
Pre-season golf
You see the pictures floating around social media these days. Look, here’s Willy Nylander wearing exercise shorts on the golf course. This man does what he wants:
But anyway, players are back for camp and finding a way to spend time on the course. This is a great way to stick together four guys who don’t know each other all that well for four to five hours, and suddenly they’ve got the start of some bonds with guys in the room. Coaches and captains will occasionally be strategic here, trying to pair up seasoned guys with fresh faces.
Really, anywhere you can put together unlikely players helps in the long run, whether in some way while travelling, at dinners, in groups at the weight room, anywhere.
The big one though, is:
Team parties
Coaches rarely encourage this stuff, but it can legitimately help a team connect with one another early in the season. You’ve heard people say an early road trip can be a good thing for teams (forced bonding); well, an early party can be the same. You want guys to like each other (and their coach, if the party comes with express consent).
When a new coach steps into the fold, and when there is a lot of turnover with a team, the reality is that any and all of the above are just the first baby steps in a season-long process. You can see why some (OK, fine, I mean Babcock) want to expedite that process, but it just doesn’t work when it isn’t organic.
And so the challenge goes for NHL coaches, including the six new ones who will be taking the helm of different teams this season. Relationships with meaning tend to be developed slowly, and although staffs should do what they can do jumpstart the process, there’s nothing as effective as time in connecting with the people you’ll be working with.
Hello, my name is Jack Sparrow. I'm a 50 year old self-employed Pirate from the Caribbean.
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