30-in-30 the Insiders
The Jets have a team that is believed to be rather tight. It’s still a bit of mystery as to how it is all connected but as Gary Lawless named the group, it probably has something to do with the Atlanta Association.
They may be the ringleaders of the core but by most accounts the team is tight- this is a blessing and a curse. The good part is that what group, in any industry, does not want to be connected and close within it’s ranks? That attribute helps organizations prosper and thrive amidst adversity. IT’s why there is a sub industry for corporate culture devoted to ‘team building’ to mimic and reproduce what sports teams have.
The bad part is when or if things go wrong they can go sideways fast and make changing the team difficult. Moving one player or more can upset the apple cart or make it travel smoothly down the road.
Yesterday we saw a rare glimpse into something no one really knows the full story about, at least outside those closed doors of a professional sports locker room.
Winnipeg Jets defender Jacob Trouba tells us which teammate is the funniest. Thanks for the Q, @Noel_Kendle! pic.twitter.com/SL0cmAlV3Q
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) September 8, 2015The fact that Trouba can joke about this now says many things if you are good at reading between the lines. What it probably suggests is that those who remain with Jets saw an event, revealed through possible hearsay into the media, as a funny and part of traditional prankster behaviour.
Trouba is in.
But what about the others?
This is a great piece co-created by Dr. Media Pro and I suck at Picking. The former is the genius behind many Jets media work such as the Helmet Pardy.
This piece was released yesterday and includes Maurice, Ladd, Wheeler, Buff, Little, Burmi along with TSN’s Sara Orlesky and Kate Bierness. It’s a great mock up and one that is rather key to the idea of insiders on the Jets. Some could argue that Burmistrov should not be in that group but had he not had a ‘leave of absence’ would he be part of the group? Probably, as he was never estranged from his teammates as much as he was from head coach Claude Noel. While he had challenges in Winnipeg he was not an outsider and coming back to the Jets could mean acceptance into that group.
The other players to consider would be Stuart, Enstrom, and Thorburn all of whom are original 2.0 Jets from 2011.
While not of significance in terms of their stats or play the purpose here is to note who has influence and control in the room but outside of it too. For Trouba to make the joke he made suggest that he is very comfortable in his role and hierarchy within the team. He is the only one to speak of the even in Vancouver in such a manner- he’s also just coming off his sophomore year.
The base point in all of this is that the Jets have a core group, and as pointed in the previous piece HERE they are about to add to it.
When you bring more towards any inner circle you inevitably push some out. The circle, at least social and workplace ones, tends to be one of finite circumference. You can fill it up, you can stand around it but that size never changes. That might be why Jets GM had to move some players out last season and after.
It’s not because they weren’t valuable but perhaps they had to much for that circle and did not fit in it, or could not fit. This is all metaphorical speculation but with a youth movement about to happen do the insiders make room for the new guys or are they left to earn their way in on their own, with some inevitable casualties?