We’ve all felt that awkward feeling of anxiety mixed with adrenaline, and nausea on our first official day at the new job. We’ve felt it before travel hockey tryouts. We’ve felt it on the first day of middle school and high school. We’ve felt it on the first date. We’ve felt it on any number of important days of our lives.
Newly minted Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock is feeling a serious case of the butterflies as he is two weeks away from diving headlong into his team’s massive, long term rebuild project. Earlier this year, Babcock was courted heavily by the Buffalo Sabres. He spent Mother's Day in Buffalo meeting with Sabres GM Tim Murray and owners Terry and Kim Pegula. It seemed sure as a back-door tap-in that Babcock would be the successor to Ted Nolan in Buffalo for the next eight seasons. That is until Brendan Shanahan and the Leafs tracked Babs down at the IIHF World Championships in Prague and switch pitched him on Toronto.
Babcock wants a bigger challenge. That's why he selected the Toronto gig over the Buffalo gig. Babcock chose not to embrace a well-articulated rebuild with valuable pieces in Evander Kane, Ryan O'Reilly, Zach Bogosian, Zemgus Girgensons, Rasmus Ristolainen, Jack Eichel, Samson Reinhart and others in Buffalo.
Babcock is a hockey purist and a traditionalist. He wants to create a new history for the once proud Maple Leafs club.
He wants to restore past glory to a Maple Leafs squad that has been mired in mediocrity since Mats Sundin skated home to Sweden many years ago.
Babcock is well out of his comfort zone for the first time in the past decade.
In a sense, Babcock is starting over. He is enrolled in a new school in a new city, with a ginormous new paycheck, and higher than the CN Tower expectations.
With great compensation and high expectations come great responsibilities.
Pressure. Lots and lots of pressure.
Babcock is the new guy for the first time in a long time. He now has to prove himself to new players, managers, owners, fans and sponsors.
Gone are his Detroit Red Wings glory days. Memories of Detroit’s 2008 Stanley Cup championship are now seven years old. Gone are his ten straight years of making the playoffs. Gone are future Hall Of Famers Hank Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk. Gone is his confidante, friend and GM Ken Holland. His rear view mirror is washed in a red filter. His windshield is awash in blue tones.
Babs belongs to Toronto now. The Leafs haven’t won a Stanley Cup in 48 years. Their fans badly want a Stanley Cup parade down Yonge Street. Babcock has been tasked with delivering Lord Stanley’s Cup to Toronto.
He accepted Toronto’s eight-year, $50-million contract and now all of their dysfunction and questions belong to him, Leafs president Brendan Shanahan, GM Lou Lamoriello, and assistant GMs Kyle Dubas, and Mark Hunter.
Heavy has always been the head that has worn the hockey crown in Toronto. Babcock's crown is $50 million worth of heavy.
Babcock told Mike Zeisberger of the Toronto Sun that he is scared yet ready for his new challenge.
“New is exciting,… he says. “It scares the crap out of you, to be honest with you. And so, that gets you on your toes and gets you dialed in.…
Babcock told Zeisberger that he is committed to the cause of building a winner in Toronto.
Time is on his side.
“We’re an Original Six franchise that doesn’t hold our rightful place in the National Hockey League right now,… he says. “We will.…
It’s well known inside NHL circles that players do not wish to play for the Maple Leafs. NHL players would much rather avoid the bright lights, constant media coverage, and forty years of futility and play in other NHL markets. Babcock acknowledges that the Toronto prejudice exists amongst NHL players and he’s committed to changing his team’s perception.
“Maybe not now,… he said. “But they are going to come. “What was the line in that movie… Field of Dreams…? ‘If you build it, they will come.’ “So, there ya go.…
The pressure can be intense at times in Toronto. When the team loses five of seven games of are winless in eleven straight games, the coach always hears about it. Just ask Paul Maurice, Ron Wilson, and Randy Carlyle. Leaf fans love venting their spleen and spewing their bile on Toronto sports talk radio. Babs will soon find out that Hell hath no fury like a Leaf fan scorned.
“The reality is, I’m the coach of this team,… Babcock said. “I’m not carrying the weight of the world on my back.
“I’m going to go to work in the morning. I’m going to work as hard as I can. I’m going to go home to my family and then the next day I’m going to do it again. But if you think I’m carrying around the weight of the world, I didn’t do it when I coached Canada at the Olympics (and) I didn’t do it when I coached Detroit.
“If you think you can evaluate me harder than I evaluate myself, you are missing the boat. That isn’t happening.…
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You may be wondering what Babcock’s blueprint is.
“We want to be a team that comes to training camp well-prepared,… he said. “We want to establish a structure and a strong work ethic. We’re going to build that through the exhibition schedule. We want to be a team that gets better every day. That’s my expectation. Are there going to be ups and downs? There always are. But to me, we are going to be very process-oriented and try to get better.
“As far as how we handle ourselves off the ice, it’s going to be about how we handle ourselves period. And to that end, we’re going to be pros.
“What does a pro do? I think a lot of people on the outside think a pro is someone who gets a salary, gets paid. To me, that has nothing to do with it. To me, a pro is someone who lives it. You sleep it. You eat it. You train it. You lift it. You practice it. To me, when you do that, you don’t get in your own way and you give yourself the best chance to be the best you can be.
“We need Kadri to be the best Kadri he can be. We need Bozak to be the best Bozak he can be. We need Rielly to be the best Rielly he can be. And the same we feel about the coaching staff, training staff, sports science staff ... we need everyone to be the best they can be. And we’re going to hold everyone to be accountable to that.…
Mike Babcock better get all the sleep that he can between now and September 17. He and his Leafs are going to have a long, exhausting season in 2015-16.
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