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Changing The Attitude
Leadership off the ice paying dividends on the ice
Fan Commentary, by Bill Love aka "HESCORES"
November 6, 2007
Not too long ago, the stories fans heard about the Hawks off the ice weren't very positive and their lack of leadership showed. Remember their captain, Alexei Zhamnov getting pulled over for a DUI? And who could forget Pat Foley's rant about Alexander Karpotsev, calling him the biggest cancer in the Hawks locker room.
Yes, the locker room was divided. Even after the games, while on the road, everyone went their own direction. Sure a couple groups of guys who would go grab a bight to eat, but there was no mingling between these small groups, no bonding what so ever. There truly wasn't anything that said, "I'd go to battle with you", and most importantly no leadership to go into battle with.
As fans we've seen a slight improvement over the past couple years, but nothing like it has been this year. This year's team is like night and day compared to the Hawks of pre-lockout.
Take Kevyn Adams for example. The Hawks entrusted Pat Kane, the Hawks number 1 draft pick this year, to be Adams' training camp roommate. Would Kane have done so well without Adams? Possibly, but I'm glad we'll never really know.
"When I came in we were roommates in training camp, and I kind of drilled him with questions," Kane said. "He's been really good to me. He's kind of taken me under his wing and showed me the ropes. He gave me rides to the rink when I needed them and was going out of his way to make dinner for me and a lot of things that you take for granted but really mean a lot to you."
Making Kane comfortable off the ice goes a long way in his production on the ice. That goes for the other rookies, Toews and Burrish as well. Think Kane would have done as well with Karpotsev as his roommate? Not a chance in Detroit.
Then there is Martin Lapointe. While he doesn't have the "C" on his sweater, he is the only player who will continually wear the "A" throughout the season. He came up with a way to create some friendly competition amongst the team - he painted a helmet gold and the winner of the shootouts in practice gets to keep it until they lose it. While it may appear to be a stupid type of trophy, it does help to make something minor in practice a bit more meaningful. Don't think that players are going to take the shootouts in practice lightly.
Plus Lapointe was entrusted with Toews, the Hawks other promising number one draft pick, during training camp to show him the ropes and make him comfortable. What happened? Toews came storming out of the gate with 10 points in his first 10 games and 11 points in his first 12.
Of course though, in the locker room, leadership comes from the top and Dennis Savard has done his best to create a positive locker room atmosphere.
Savard created his own trophy, a tomahawk, to be given to the player of the game every time the team wins. It represents the warrior who has gone to and won the battle. Additionally, he has decided to rotate two of the alternate captain positions throughout the season to spread out the leadership.
Then there is the fact that Savard is not taking complacent play lightly. He's already scratched Perreault and Samsanov and benched Seabrook. A few years ago it was almost unheard of to scratch or bench anyone for their lousy play. Especially if they made more than the league minimum.
No, this isn't the same type of team we've seen around here. They still aren't an elite team. Even Kevyn Adams will tell you that.
After losing to Nashville Kevyn Adams said, "Completely unacceptable of us to come home after a big win [Saturday] night and not get the job done. That's on us players to be better."
"If we want to take a step of being an elite team in this league, we have to realize how hard that is and have to realize the consistency we need to bring every night. We're showing flashes of it, but we're not consistent enough, and that's our next challenge as a hockey team."
That's something else this team hadn't shown in a long while, players making statements like that. Not being satisfied. Sure there was the sound bite here or there, but it was pretty ho-hum for the most part. We need to do this or we need to do that. Never really coming off as believable though.
The past few season's players would have been ecstatic to be .500 after 12 games, not this group. They're slowly chipping away at that losing, complacent attitude that has plagued the team for so long. While they don't look to be Stanley Cup contenders, they're at least giving us fans things to be positive about - their heart, leadership, and willingness to go to battle with one another - on and off the ice.
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