Tag Archives: University of Manitoba

This Should be Barry Trotz’s Year

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

Now that he has been nominated — again — for the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s coach of the Year, maybe this is it.

After all, year-in and year-out, there is no better coach in the National Hockey League than Dauphin, Manitoba’s gift to the NHL, Nashville Predators bench boss, Barry Trotz.

For the sake of full disclosure, I am the president of the Barry Trotz fan club. I have, without apology, been campaigning for Trotz since the early 2000s. There is no better coach in the game.

And already this spring, he has proven it. First with a six-game victory over the Anaheim Ducks and now with  a Round 2 Game 1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks IN Vancouver.

“I’m happy because I think of the resiliency of the group that worked so hard all year, and I’m relieved because there is a little bit of a cloud that we wanted to get to the next level,”  Trotz told reporters after his Preds dispatched Anaheim. ”And if we never got there in this series, I think there would be a little bit of a carry-over.”

“We got help from everybody. Everybody contributed. That’s sort of what we do. That’s our DNA. To win this series, we needed everybody and everybody contributed.”

Certainly the country’s hockey mavens  know the players who toil for Trotz. However, for the average hockey fan, the Preds are one of the game’s greatest collection of no-names. Nick Spaling, Marcel Goc, Matt Halischuk, Cal O’Reilly, Joel Ward, Colin Wilson, Kevin Klein (he’s an actor, isn’t he?), Shane O’Brien, Cody Franson, none of those guys conjures up thoughts of Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews, Alex Ovechkin or Joe Thornton. If the Preds have a “superstar” it’s Shea Weber and he’s a defenseman with 16 goals. The only forward with a “big” name, even in Nashville, is Martin Erat because he’s played his entire nine-year NHL career in Nashville. He had one more goal than Weber this season.

Call it odd, but the Nashville Predators didn’t realize what fame was until their general manager, David Poile (the only GM they’ve ever had), made a deal to acquire Mike Fisher. Fisher is a grinder who is only famous because he’s married to American Idol Carrie Underwood.

If there is a lunch bucket team in the NHL, it’s the Predators. And to their credit, they can all carry their lunch buckets into the second round of the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.

And the man who is truly responsible for this year’s success is a) the fiercest looking coach in the NHL and b) the nicest man in the game today.

Trotz is the only coach the Predators have ever had. He’s been in Nashville for the entire time the Preds have been the Preds. He has coached 985 consecutive games in Nashville. That’s the NHL record for most games coached from the start of a franchise’s history.

In fact, the 48-year-old Trotz, has been with the Predators since their inaugural season in 1998. His overall record is 455-398-60-71 and while that doesn’t sound like much, one must consider that the expansion Preds didn’t have a winning record until the 2003-04 season. However, since the 2004-05 lockout, Trotz’s Predators have gone 272-174-0-50 and on Sunday night, as the Preds reached the second round of the playoffs for the first time in history, it had become apparent that no coach in the NHL does as much with as little as Barry Trotz.

This past season, the best coach in the NHL coaxed his team to a 44-27-11 record, fifth in the West. He’s now taken out the No. 4 team in the conference and won’t know his team’s next opponent until, at least, tomorrow.

Trotz, who was born in Dauphin, spent three seasons with the Western Hockey League’s Regina Pats and then went to the University of Manitoba where he still believed he could make it to the NHL one day. Trouble was, he’d been injured in the off-season when he was 19 and the pain just wouldn’t go away.

“I hurt my back in the summer of 1982 and it just never got better,” Trotz told me in 1999. “It was my lower-back and I tried to play through the pain for a year at the U of M, but I just couldn’t do it. It got so bad that I could barely walk. With some rest, I tried to go out to training camp the next year, hoping I could get back by Christmas, but I had nothing. It wasn’t coming around and then one day, the head coach at the U of M, Wayne Fleming, asked me to become his assistant.”

The next season Trotz took over as coach and general manager of his hometown Manitoba Junior Hockey League club, the Dauphin Kings, but then moved back to the U of M as a 26-year-old head coach while Fleming went to Europe on a sabbatical. When Fleming returned, Trotz stayed on as his assistant and picked up a side job as a regional scout with the Washington Capitals.

In 1990, the Capitals asked him to join their farm team, the Baltimore Skipjacks of the AHL as an assistant and Trotz jumped at the chance. He eventually became the team’s head coach and when the Skipjacks folded, he took a job as head coach of the AHL franchise in Portland, Me. There, he won a Calder Cup, and when his old boss, former Caps GM Poile became the first GM of the Nashville Predators, he immediately hired Trotz as his first head coach.

They have seldom missed a day together since.

“Barry is the fairest-minded, most honest coach in the game,” Poile once said. “His players love him and will do anything for him because there are no mind games, no favorites, no phoniness. Barry Trotz is a very good human being and as a result, an extremely good coach.”

Indeed. And now, maybe, just maybe, this year he’ll finally be recognized as the best coach in the National Hockey League.

(Portions of this updated post originally appeared at www.fantrax.com)

 

 

 

 

 

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Watching Commercials, Thinking About the Bombers

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

I’m spending a Sunday afternoon in front of my two TV screens and two computer screens watching commercials.

Many people would suggest I’m actually watching NFL games, but that would be a misnomer. There are considerably more commercials than there is actual professional football. In fact, as I write this, there are commercial breaks on all four my screens. Did you know that there are commercials after a touchdown, then a kickoff, more commercials, then a three-and-out, more commercials, a punt, more commercials and more commercials. NFL football on TV is an exaggeration. It’s actually commercials on TV with some football in between.

Of course, it gives me plenty of opportunity to congratulate a group of people who have had a tremendous week.

Hats off to the board of directors of the Winnipeg Football Club. The most diverse group ever to head up the Blue Bombers found a way to get the new football stadium at the University of Manitoba completed with the least negative affect on the public purse. This is the best board the Bombers have ever had and their decision to make former Goldeyes co-owner Jeff Thompson, the Chief Transition Officer was inspired. He’s a brilliant guy and more importantly, a brilliant businessman. He’s quiet, dedicated and creative and he’ll do the best job possible.

This week, I had an opportunity to talk with Bombers president Jim Bell and he’s as sincerely optimistic about the future of the club as anyone in the organization since the days of Mike Riley. In fact, Bell is looking ahead to 2011 with more optimism than he did the day in 2010 that he took over from Lyle Bauer as the president and CEO of the Club.

“When we release our financial statements in April, I believe we will have some good news,” Bell said last week. “Right now, I’m reviewing the books and I believe we will looking at some black ink – not red ink – this year. I’m starting to get a feel for where we’ll be in 2011 and I think we’ll be in good shape.”

Despite the fact the teams was 4-14 in 2010, Bell is convinced the team is going in the right direction.

“Given our record on the field in 2010, the fact that we will turn a small profit this year is a testament to out loyal following,” Bell continued. “We want to win more games in 2011 and I believe we will win a lot more games, but the important thing this year is that despite all the changes we made to the organization, our fans are telling us that we’re going in the right direction. They’re telling us to play better, but they believe we’re doing the right things.

“In 2011 we’ll be a much better team on the field and we will be marching toward a June 2012 opening for our brand new stadium at the University of Manitoba.”

Bell is also convinced the Canadian Football League will have a strong year in 2011.

“I don’t think our league’s business model has ever been better,” he said. “This year we’ll hear more about the Ottawa situation and we’ll hear more about expansion to places like Moncton, Quebec City and Halifax. If there is one thing I’m confident of heading into 2011, it’s that our business is solid and our future is bright.”

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Another Week of Craziness

Posted on November 20, 2010 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

While watching Northwestern play Illinois at Wrigley Field, with both teams’ offences going in the same direction (it does sound weird, doesn’t it?), it’s time to look at the good, bad and ugly of another week in loony-land.

(1) I have to admit, I was excited that Tiger Woods had agreed to be interviewed by Mike & Mike on ESPN. I was excited to hear if Tiger had a new swing coach, how much golf he was playing these days, what was his workout regime and did he think he’d be ready to challenge on the Tour again.

What I got for 11 minutes was Mike Golic asking Woods the same questions everyone has asked for more than a year. Without fear of argument, it was the worst interview I have EVER heard on professional sports radio. It was as if Golic was asking questions to satisfy his own ego. It was as if the answers Woods has given for a year weren’t real answers until Golic asked the questions.

Now I’m told that if I’d hung around, I’d have heard Golic actually get into real time, but I was just sick and tired of 11 minutes of year-old repetition. Who gives a crap about, “How did what happened last November affect your life?” We’ve heard the answers already. 100 times. It was just a waste of expensive radio time.

How do these guys get work? It was proof that you could put a monkey on ESPN and the producers would find A-listers for the monkey to interview.

(2) Read this in the National Post following the announcement that Marty Gold’s radio show had been taken off 92-KICK FM:

Graham Thomson, the college’s dean of business and applied arts and a non-voting executive member of the board that canned the show, acknowledged that the Winnipeg Free Press contacted president Stephanie Forsyth, but denied any outside influence. Ms. Forsyth declined to comment.

“As I understand it, the president did get a communication from the Free Press,” he said, later adding that he believed the communication came from editor Margo Goodhand. “There were some concerns about Marty having taken shots at the Free Press … I believe that the concern about the show was voiced by the president to one of our vice-presidents who is on the board.”

The story was written by Kathryn Blaze Carlson. I hope it’s not true and here’s why: On Oct. 18, the Free Press wrote a fawning feature about the new president. Then “communication” from the Free Press to the new president about Gold’s show arrived no later than Oct. 22.

If it is true, and as I said, I hope it isn’t, then it is an illustration of everything that is wrong with big media. And nobody likes a bully.

Gold’s program provided listeners with a load of local sports news that wasn’t available anywhere else. Marty was a great friend of the Winnipeg Goldeyes, local pro wrestling, the province’s aboriginal athletes and those young, often underprivileged, athletes who didn’t get a lot of publicity in the mainstream media.

His program will be missed.

(3) Friday night, the Atlanta Thrashers drew an announced crowd of 11,155 for a game against the always exciting Washington Capitals. There might have been 5,000 — maybe — in the building.

When will the NHL realize that the best league in professional hockey should have more teams in a country that actually cares about hockey? Atlanta is a college football town. It is no place for a National Hockey League franchise.

(4) I have had an incredible level of response for a piece I wrote in the Nov. 9, edition of Grassroots News (you can read it at www.grassrootsnewsmb.com). It was about aboriginal hockey star Brigette Lacquette, a member of Canada’s national under-22 women’s team, who had agreed to play at the University of Manitoba. After being cut by the national women’s senior team, the 17-year-old realized she wouldn’t get the same level of competition at a Canadian university as she would at an NCAA Division 1 school. So after discussing it with her family, she decided to play out the 2010-11 season at the U of M and then move on to play at the University of Minnesota-Duluth next fall.

However, to her credit, she was honest about it. Instead of just playing out the season and then saying, “See ya,” in April, she was forthright with her coach, Jon Rempel, and told him immediately about her decision.

In a shocking result, she was punished for her honesty. If she’d played out the season and just left at the end of the year, she could have benefited from a full season of play. Instead, by telling the truth, she was kicked off the team.

I guess that’s what our education system teaches kids these days. Lie and you will be rewarded. Tell the truth and you will suffer the consequences. It’s an horrendous thing to teach children and it leads me to worry about the future.

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If Selinger Says So, Then it Has to Be True

Posted on March 27, 2010 by Scott Taylor| 2 Comments

Saturday morning, David Asper woke up to the best news he’s had since the Winnipeg Football Club accepted his proposal to build a new football stadium in Winnipeg way back in January of 2007.

The Winnipeg Free Press reported that Premier Greg Selinger would make an announcement “in days,” guaranteeing that he would “step in to ensure a new home  for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers will be built at the University of Manitoba.”

As the story unfolded it became apparent that no one in Manitoba, including Asper, knew much of this incredible development but it was clear he was going to be the beneficiary of what appeared to be $85 million in provincial government money — $85 million that had not been written into the provincial budget.

But yesterday, Asper didn’t sound too happy.

“I’m not talking about it,” Asper snapped, when asked about the new deal. “Scott, I’m not going to talk about it.”

According to the Free Press, “Sources confirmed late Friday Selinger, Creswin (Properties), the City of Winnipeg, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Ottawa are close to hammering out a new deal to build a scaled-down stadium, likely beginning this summer.”

That was news to Winnipeg mayor Sam Katz.

“I don’t know anything about it, nobody’s talked to me” Katz said on Saturday morning. “Right now I have people running around trying to find out what was promised the last few years. I do know that we can’t put any more money into the stadium we have now. The Tower Report, five or six years ago, said we needed about $10 million to improve the current stadium. That’s more than doubled. I won’t spend taxpayers money on that stadium.”

It’s funny, but only a couple of people who would be involved in the deal spoke to the Free Press, and not one of them said they knew anything of Selinger’s plans. However, I certainly believe the story is true. Everybody in town knows that if the provincial NDP government asks the Free Press to write a story, they’ll write it. The FP didn’t earn the nickname, “Official Newspaper of the Provincial NDP Government,” for nothing. This story definitely has legs.

Sadly, in its effort to get a stadium built, we hear that the government wants to scale back the new venue from a $135 million project to a $100 million project. One wonders what we’ll get for $100 million. The University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium is very nice, but not spectacular and it cost $288 million US. The total capital cost of the MTS Centre was $133.8 million and it’s a scaled down 15,001-seat AHL hockey rink. One wonders how many seats $100 million will buy?

Still, if this story is true, and I certainly believe it is, Selinger is going to give Asper an $85 million gift while the feds give him $15 million. When Asper gets his new mall operating, he’ll get an option to purchase the team. Wow! that IS a new deal. It’s not even close to the agreement the Bombers have with Asper. Not even close.

No wonder Asper wasn’t very happy this morning.

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It’s Week 15 in the NFL and it’s Already Crazy.

Posted on December 20, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

It was quite a Saturday night in the NFL.

After three quarters, the Dallas Cowboys held a 24-3 lead over the unbeaten New Orleans Saints, but when you’re trying to get to 14-0, there is usually no give-up in you.

So the Saints put up 14 unanswered in the fourth quarter and were driving for the tying touchdown when the Cowboys brilliant outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware stripped Drew Brees of the football, ending the Saints dream of 16-0.

It was a pretty good football game other than the NFL Network’s coverage of it. Technically, the telecast was weak (the Superdome P.A. announcer was louder than NFL Network play-by-play man Bob Papa) and the commentating was just annoying. In fact, it was another night of football with the mute button on.

It’s great that every NFL game is on television. It’s unfortunate that there aren’t enough quality broadcasters to go around. Matt Millen? Simply grating. Like fingernails on a chalkboard. Why doesn’t the NFL just showcase the home radio crews. I’ll guarantee most of them are easier to listen to than the alleged “national” broadcasters.

More thoughts from a wild and woolly week:

1) On the afternoon that Lyle Bauer announced his resignation as CEO of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, CJOB radio’s Geoff Currier made the most insightful comment of the day.

“If you look at the record, the most successful Blue Bombers coach during the Lyle Bauer Era was Dave Ritchie,” Currier said. “And Dave Ritchie was the only coach Lyle didn’t hire.”

It’s true. Bauer inherited Ritchie and never much liked him. Bauer did hire Jim Daley, Doug Berry and Mike Kelly, all, in the end failures. Although Kelly has left the Bombers with the best team they’ve had since 2000.

2) CBS Sports is promoting its 2010 PGA Tour golf coverage without using any images of Tiger Woods. Wow! Can’t wait for that showdown in the final round of the FedEx-Accenture-Buick-Ford-Disney Invitational Open World Golf Classic between Jerry Kelly and Zach Johnson.

Thrilling? No, sleep inducing. Pass the remote.

3) Although Mike Babcock has done a terrific job as head coach of the beaten-to-a-pulp Detroit Red Wings this season, there is very little doubt that the coach of the year in the NHL right now, is Nashville Predators boss, Barry Trotz.

Trotz, who came out of Dauphin, Man., to start his coaching career as an assistant at the University of Manitoba, has made the no-name Predators one of the top teams in the NHL this season, In fact, after Saturday night’s 5-3 win over Calgary, the Preds are now 22-11-3, tied with power-house Chicago for first in the Central Division.

While Babcock, who will do a tremendous job as head coach of Canada’s 2010 Olympic team, has kept Detroit in the playoff hunt despite the fact the Wings are currently without top line players’ Dan Cleary, Johan Franzen, Valterri Flippula, Niklas Kronwall, Jason Williams, Jonathan Ericsson, Darren Helm, and now Henrik Zetterberg, what Trotz has done is nothing short of remarkable.

He’s taken a low-budget team of has-beens, never-weres and not-likelys and turned them into one of only six NHL teams with at least 22 wins. He is a brilliant coach and the man Winnipeg would need if the NHL ever returned.

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Asper says. “I haven’t got a clue,” when asked about Stadium future.

Posted on December 19, 2008 by Scott Taylor| 1 Comment

Manitoba Premier Gary Doer says a deal for a new football stadium in Winnipeg could be completed in January. Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz has signed off on the project. And now Manitoba’s federal conservative lieutenant Vic Toews, says, “the discussions are moving forward positively.”

 

That’s all great news, but for the most part, it’s still news to Winnipeg businessman, David Asper, the man behind the deal. He says he “doesn’t have a clue,” what’s going to happen.

 

Almost two years ago, Asper presented a plan to build a brand new football stadium in his home town, take over proprietorship of the community-owned Winnipeg Blue Bombers and, in theory, rescue the financially fragile franchise.

 

Over a period of about 23 months, Asper’s original idea has morphed into a 35,000-40,000-seat state of the art football complex at the University of Manitoba. It will service both the U of M and the Winnipeg Football Club as well as Manitoba’s amateur athletic community. The training rooms will be available to the public, a bubble will be built inside the facility for winter practices and amateur groups will be invited to use the building at a nominal fee.

 

As well, Asper will build “a commercial hub” (OK, a mall) at the current site of the stadium in the middle of an already huge commercial district. All profits from the “mall” will be directed toward both the Blue Bombers and an amateur football component that Asper envisions as one day making Manitoba, “the Texas of the North.”

 

The cost will be somewhere around $135 million, of which Asper is asking the province and feds to kick in $35 million — $20 million from Manitoba and another $15 million from Ottawa.

 

It’s a sensible arrangement that assists the U of M, grassroots amateur sport, Olympic-level sport, the local football side and even, in a sense, the Canadian Football League – a popular national sports loop playing most of its games in aging, run-down stadiums.

 

However, on the day Mike Kelly, the 27th head coach in Blue Bombers’ history was re-introduced to the local media, Asper still wondered what was going to happen to his stadium dream. After all, for nearly two years, Asper has been negotiating the funding of the project with Toews. Now, with parliament on hiatus and, perhaps, a new Liberal/NDP/Bloc Troika about to take control of the country, Asper’s dream might be in for a financial wakeup call.

 

“It’s frustrating because we’ve come so far,” Asper said. “Mr. Toews publicly supported our project as did most other Manitoba Conservatives. We’re ready, but what’s going on in Ottawa could delay the project, I just don’t have a clue. You have to admit, the world has changed dramatically since we came up with the first proposal (way back in January of 2007).”

 

By the time Asper’s brilliant idea celebrates its second birthday next month, the man behind a new stadium in Winnipeg could be negotiating with a whole new crew. And that whole new crew will have very little representation from Western Canada. As a result, it might not feel obligated to talk about stadium funding with a group from PC-heavy Manitoba.

 

“I don’t really know what will happen either, but I suspect that at best, it will cause a delay,” said Ken Hildahl, the current president of the Winnipeg Football Club. “David has been negotiating with Vic (Toews) for nearly two years and my sense is that the negotiations have gone well. We certainly have a provincial commitment so maybe with an NDP provincial government, the new coalition in Ottawa won’t make any difference, but, really, who knows?”

 

The Bombers current stadium will be 55-years-old this summer and it not only looks old, it feels older. And yet, thanks to the upheaval in Ottawa, the old dump could still celebrate a few more birthdays.

 

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The 2008 NHL award nominees are in, here are my picks.

Posted on April 30, 2008 by Scott Taylor| Comments Off

The nominees for all of the NHL’s major awards are now in and while we agree wholeheartedly with most of them, there were a couple we thought were a little weak.

 

Here are the nominees with my picks and why. The awards will be handed out in Toronto on June 12…

 

The Vezina Trophy (Top Goaltender): The nominees are San Jose’s Evgeni Nabokov, New Jersey’s Martin Brodeur and the Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist.

 

Our pick is Brodeur. He played  in all but five games this season and was brilliant in almost all 77 appearances. Brodeur’s 44 wins were second in the League behind only Nabokov’s 46. His 2.17 goals-against average was fifth best and his .920 save percentage tied him for fourth (among goalies who played in at least 41 games). He was clearly the best goaltender simply because he got a marginal team into the playoffs.

 

The Norris Trophy (Best Defenceman): The nominees are Detroit’s Nicklas Lidstrom, Calgary’s Dion Phaneuf and Boston’s Zdeno Chara.

 

Our pick is Lidstrom in a landslide. Phaneuf was fine and Chara had his moments, but the second-best defenceman in the league this year was Brian Campbell (Buffalo and San Jose). Lidstrom has won five of the last six Norris Trophies and he  should win easily again this year.

 

The Calder Trophy (Rookie of the Year): The nominees are Chicago’s Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews and Washington’s Nicklas Backstrom. 

 

Three outstanding nominees, but our pick is Jonathan Toews. He missed 16 games and still led all NHL rookies in goals. He was the Blackhawks alternate captain and emerged as a team leader. He was third overall in rookie scoring and despite his injury, he didn’t tire down the stretch like Backstrom. I love Kane, and he’ll likely win the voting, but Toews was the best rookie in the NHL this season.

 

The Lady Byng Trophy (Skill and sportsmanship): The nominees are Detroit’s Pavel Datsyuk, Buffalo’s Jason Pominville and Tampa’s Martin St. Louis.

 

No question, Pavel Datsyuk. In fact, Datsyuk isn’t far from being the league’s MVP. He had 96 points, was a plus-41 and played all 82 games. He was the best player on a great Red Wings’ team and although he was a magnificent defensive checker, he picked up only 10 minor penalties all year.

 

The Selke Trophy (Best Defensive Forward): Detroit’s Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg and New Jersey’s John Madden.

 

Zetterberg was tremendous but my pick is Datsyuk (see above).

 

The Hart Trophy (MVP): The nominees are Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin, Washington’s Alexander Ovechkin and Calgary’s Jarome Iginla.

 

Three more outstanding nominees. My vote would go to Ovechkin at the end of the season, but if they counted the playoffs, it would be Malkin. The Pens’ star has been magnificent in the post season and really stepped up during the regular season whenever  Sidney Crosby was hurt (which seemed like a lot), but Ovechkin had 65 goals and 47 assists in all 82 games and that’s impossible to ignore.

 

The Adams Trophy (Coach of the Year): The nominees are Detroit’s Mike Babcock, Washington’s Bruce Boudreau and Montreal’s Guy Carbonneau.

 

Carbonneau will likely win but Nashville’s Barry Trotz was coach of the year.

 

Here’s why… this is my column from the National Post which ran April 7, 2008.

 

Scott Taylor in Winnipeg

 

At the beginning of the 2007-08 season, the Nashville Predators were left for dead.

 

Even if one ignored the off-ice fact that the franchise could be re-located on any given day without notice, one couldn’t ignore the on-ice fact that, at least on paper, the Preds were a bad hockey team.

 

Gone in an off-season housecleaning that made the books look better and the product look dreadful, were No. 1 goalie Tomas Vokoun, No. 1 defenceman Kimmo Timonen, leading scorer Paul Kariya and gifted rent-a-player Peter Forsberg. Two of the team’s most reliable forwards, Scott Hartnell and Scottie Upshall had moved on and No. 2 scorer Steve Sullivan was hurt. And he’s been gone all season. 

 

When they went to training camp in September, head coach Barry Trotz’s best player was 33-year-old Jason Arnott, a guy who hadn‘t been a top line centre since his days in New Jersey a decade ago. J.P. Dumont, a talented underachiever wasn’t bad and Alexander Radulov, a gifted 21-year-old Russian who has been a victim of unrealized potential, was about due. Dan Ellis, Martin Erat, David Legwand, Vernon Fiddler, Dan Hamhuis and Jordin Tootoo were all good players, but they were no-names who could have been up-and-coming country singers for all anybody knew.

 

“Yeah, like who is Dan Ellis?” asked Vancouver Canucks forward Jason Jaffray on Friday. “I’d never heard of him before and I looked in the paper and he had some of the best goalie stats in the league. I had no idea who he was.”

 

Dan Ellis is a 27-year-old from Saskatoon who played at Nebraska-Omaha and was with AHL Iowa last year, but yeah, who knew?

 

Naturally, the anonymous Preds started the season as if they were going to be so bad, they’d be sold to an owner who wanted to re-locate them to Minsk. Or Winnipeg.

 

They won their first two games, then lost six straight. They were 14th in the West (14-16-2), after a five-game losing streak ended on Dec. 22. But Trotz had faith. He had faith that his team wouldn’t quit and he believed, in his heart, that this collection of would-bes, never-weres and has-beens were resilient enough to overcome all the off-ice distractions and play like professionals.

 

“Resilient. That’s our identity,” said Trotz, an old University of Manitoba assistant coach who came out of Dauphin, Man., to become the only head coach the Predators have ever had. “We’re kind of a hockey version of Major League, the old baseball movie with all the misfits and cast-offs. We sat down in December, when we were almost last, and just decided to play as hard as we could and try to fight back into the playoff race.

 

“We didn’t say ‘Let’s go out and win 10 straight,’ we just tried to win two-of-three, pick up a point whenever we could and just tried to chip away. When you lose the guys we had lost and somehow you stay in the playoff hunt, I think resilient is the only way to describe us.”

 

This week, the surprising, No. 8 Nashville Predators will open the 2008 Stanley Cup Western Conference playoffs against the President’s Trophy-winning, No. 1 Detroit Red Wings in what should be a mismatch.

 

But it might not be. In eight meetings this season, the Wings and Preds went 3-3-2 against each other.

 

“It’s just another example of how close the league is today,” Trotz said. “We struggled against St. Louis and I really thought that Chicago was the most talented team in our conference. But Detroit, as outstanding as they were, weren’t that intimidating for us. We matched up well against them.

 

“Of course, we weren’t intimidated by anybody, all year. We’re a lot better than people think.”

 

This season, a veteran coach took a mediocre team in a lousy situation, convinced them to focus on the job at hand and found a way to keep them from thinking about moving locations or missing assignments. Now they’re in the playoffs. 

 

Certainly, Montreal’s Guy Carbonneau and Washington’s Bruce Boudreau have each done a wonderful job this season, but Barry Trotz would also make a pretty deserving coach of the year.

 

National Post

 

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