Perhaps predictably, the Coyotes' decision to hire 26 year-old John Chayka as the club's new GM was met by the talking heads of the NHL with derision, scorn, disbelief, outright dismissal and what occasionally appeared to be anger.
Watching TSN, Sportsnet and listening to the radio for the last 24 hours has been eye-opening. Outright scorn for his methods, people flat-out stating it was a bad decision to hire him, condescending theories about his and Dave Tippetts tiles/ dynamic, a bevy of false comparisons to other young guys who maybe had similar opportunities and didn't do so well, etc. etc. etc.
This is a league, mind you, where three teams this week were rumored to be interested in hiring Randy Carlye, a coach whose teams demonstrate consistently bad puck possession results, and who is widely considered to be one of the worst coaches in the league. Not once did I see anyone on the TV bring this up and call it what it is: a terrible management decision.
And yet, a team goes outside the old-boy's club and does something innovative, and it is instantly dubbed a failure. No qualifications necessary, just say something uninformed and condescending about advanced stats and move on.
Now, If you want to criticize the move, go ahead. I think it was an interesting and potentially excellent idea, but I don't need anyone to agree with me. I just think that people forget hockey is just a game played by millionaires and paid for regular people, that doesn't need to be taken so seriously. If he fails, you try again. Big deal. The world isn't going to end because someone wanted to try a new way of doing things. (Well, unless that thing is fracking, but I digress).
In this game, a 26 year-old kid just defied odds that must be a billion to one and landed one of the coolest, best jobs any person could ever hope to get. Instead of making the obvious inference that this must be an extremely unusually smart person, people just dismiss it because he has no experience. (Apparently. He likely has lots).
He should really just be congratulated and given a chance to prove himself. Who cares about his age or his methods, let's see how the team does under his watch and then decide. But perhaps we shouldn't, you know, make this about analytics vs eye-test, since, at best, it will be but a single anecdote. But a good one, and he's awesome for achieving so much so young. My most successful friend is the ex-host of a late-night psychic infomercial, and she's way older than John Chayka. So praise of the highest order is deserved for his remarkable achievement.
I mean, we get it that Pierre McGuire is mad he can't get a job, but his outright dismissal of the hiring was bizarre.
Pierre McGuire on Coyotes analytics-related hire: "it didn't work in Toronto." #TSN690
— Conor McKenna (@mckennaconor) May 5, 2016
Pierre, do you mean the same Toronto that has the #1 pick in the draft, the best player in the AHL and the best player in the OHL? That Toronto?
And as if Pierre had to be topped, topped he was.
This is #bulletproof #logic that I frankly don't have the mental capacity to challenge. You win, good sir. pic.twitter.com/qTm2J9jm9E
— Prashanth Iyer (@iyer_prashanth) May 5, 2016
Apparently sensitive to the notion that people were making a point that it was probably a good thing that someone from outside the circle of trust was given the job of NHL executive, Simmons pointed out that 100% of recent Cup Winners were built by hockey lifers, even though that isn't very impressive when you consider that that exclusive list pretty much contains 100% of all General Managers in the history of the NHL until yesterday.
So, things were overall quite ridiculous and the general take-away is that the NHL talking heads hate this move, while predictably everyone who doesn't stand to lose out on a potential job because of this move was quite pleased.
(Doug Mclean could not be reached for comment).
No doubt the media's job is to question things, but I felt yesterday's general reaction was disappointing because a team made a bold and unusual decision (not only to hire a young GM but to also appoint an owner is President of Hockey Ops) and that should at least be met with some form of respect for trying something new. As a people we should always want to encourage new ideas and ways of doing things.
Perhaps I am being unfair - certainly I didn't listen to or read everything and probably some people did say some nice things. But overall, it became clear to me that when almost no one is happy for the guy for achieving something amazing, and when no one is encouraging the development of new ideas, we might be in a bad place.
We take hockey way too seriously. We forget that the people involved are just people. And we are way to jealous and petty and mean to each other.
So congrats to John Chayka. I'm 34 and I live in my Mom's basement and sleep on a homemade futon, so you sir, are killing it.
My only question is why isn't the story: '26-Year-Old Accomplishes Something Amazing and Unheard of,' instead of 'Cheap Jerks Ruin Hockey For Old Guys'?
An analytical person fails & it's an indictment of analytics, but every other failure in history is somehow not an indictment of tradition.
— Christopher D. Long (@octonion) May 5, 2016
The end.