Post by Jack Bauer on Mar 10, 2016 13:39:42 GMT -4
It's never been about us not producing elite talent.
How many other CHL teams with multiple NHL 1st rounders and the potential #1 CHL Draft eligible prospect are in the middle of their league standings? The issues go well beyond any stereotypes and end up landing on those arguments you bring up...coaching...resources...other factors.
It's great to see positive attention, but you have to appreciate that to many in the hockey world this franchise is still in turmoil. This should have been a top 2 or 3 team in the league and was around .500 for the first 55 games or so.
I really think the way to approach the whole thing is to look at a Hoyt vs Bowers situation and trade down from the kid who doesn't want to play for you and pick the kid who does. You can't force a Roy or Bowers to report if they're not interested but there's still high end kids who do want to report and play here. Focus on them as was the objective in the past, where we could focus on some NCAA players but worried about the ones local to Atlantic Canada who were more likely to report and even pick up the odd contributing free agent using the same approach.
I think the exposure is mildly over-rated from the perspective that the team isn't really generating any extra income because of these 2 elite talents. Attendance is barely ahead of the awful years from a few years back. Come October if Dubois cracks a poor NHL roster there's not much left to see here from that elite talent without a major playoff upset in round 2 this year to give the fans some sort of positive memory outside of watching great talent play on mediocre teams.
Without that, the turmoil is still kind of present. But that doesn't mean you can't find talented kids to play here. Smarter management and smarter handling of the draft will go a long way to fixing their reputation among agents and others in the hockey world. That will go a long way toward getting back to respectability.
That and a new coach and GM.
You were bang on about the possibility of Dubois going to the NHL next year, If that is the case we're right back at the beginning of a rebuild without that high end talent on our ice. We should all, as fans, enjoy what we have and not focus on what we don't have. Enjoy the moment and the season and hope for a nice long playoff run. Along with the Russians, Joly, etc. we may not see a team of this caliber for some time.
No need to clarify, your post was great. Nothing at all wrong with the fan perspective on these things. I generally add the other side to provide some context more then try and counter what someone like you is saying as both sides do have some valid claims.
To me the slap in the face is from the team in trying to force a players hand when it's the team that is forced to made the decision. Once a Bowers declares he won't report, why force that issue? Respect the decision and tell him you'll enjoy beating him with the next player who will who could even be better then him over time. It's too easy to dump on the kid but in all reality it's the team making that decision.
1 thing I keep coming back to in regards to this is the situation on the Island as a whole. We have essentially raised our last generation of kids to believe that staying here offers limited opportunity and the best chance of success, whether it be in life or sports, is to head west and whether you make your final stop Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, or elsewhere that you will end up in a better situation then you would here.
But then we get upset when a kid from somewhere else doesn't want to report here and spend his teenage years here.
If we started to change our thought process and start to create a better environment for our youth I think the chain reaction will only help the Eagles as well as the University and other areas that are starting to feel some pains in terms of numbers and revenue.
In other words, we need to believe in ourselves before we worry about the recognition we are getting from outside this region. That will come with our own sustained growth as we continue to try and develop an economy that is based on multiple skills and factors rather then worrying about getting our next group of kids trained as say Electricians to go make $40/hr in a volatile industry that may not offer long term employment as it has in the past for their dads and uncles.
Our mindset here over the last 100 years I feel like is to look at say the Bowers situation and dump on the kid as a negative. But if we flip that mindset and say but look at a Dubois, or even a Hoyt, and look at what the positives can bring then things start to look much brighter and we won't even have to have the conversation with the kid who simply doesn't want to play here no matter the reason.