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Hockey's "OMG" crowd shouldn't revel in Panthers' struggles |
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There’s a disease that strikes people of a certain age and temperament – Old Man Gaze, I call it – and the symptoms are easy to spot: the squinty eyes, the sneering and sour disposition, and most of all, the overwhelming sentiment that just about everything was better when the sufferer was young and their world was new.
The OMG crowd were beating their chests Celine Dion style this week as the Florida Panthers found themselves making headlines for all the wrong reasons. As they continued to flounder in the wake of dismissing respected head coach Gerard Gallant Nov. 27, Florida decided on a management reset of sorts, reestablishing former GM Dale Tallon as the man having final say on all hockey decisions. (There’s no shortage of speculation over exactly how much power was transferred back to Tallon, but that’s an angle for another column.) And the backslide the Panthers have been on – and the reaction to it by owners Vinnie Viola and Douglas Cifu – provided all the opening certain people needed to jump on the different way Florida has been doing business.
The OMGing has been relentless in some circles ever since, with those circles decrying Florida’s increased focus on analytics as a foolish and failed exercise in reinventing the hockey wheel. Never mind that most, if not all teams now utilize quantifiable data and sports science to a far greater degree than ever before – the Panthers were the poster children for eschewing old rhythms and familiar methods, and watching them wobble brought considerable comfort to those who apparently were in dire need of a self-esteem boost.
But there’s something sad about people who feel compelled and delighted to tell new generations just how wrong they are, and just how much better everything used to be in the days when they got carded while trying to buy liquor. A romanticized past can feel like a warm yule log in the frigid fall and winter of someone’s existence, but that doesn’t make it the material you build the foundation for a Stanley Cup championship with.
No, the truth is that teams are always evolving the prisms through which they view the game, and it was ever thus.
Indeed, it wasn’t all that long ago coaching icon Roger Neilson turned the hockey world upside down with his reliance on – gasp! – video analysis of games and microphone headsets to communicate with his assistants. It wasn’t all that far back when the concept of assistant coaches themselves, including full-time goalie coaches and assistants perched in the upper loges of arenas talking to colleagues at ice level, was little more than a bold suggestion from creative thinkers. They too were ridiculed and dismissed by the OMGers of their day, but in the end, time moved on and left them mumble-swearing in the dust.
Of course, none of the above should be interpreted as a full endorsement of the Panthers’ immediate or extended future under Viola and Cifu. They’re going to have to prove their plans over the long haul, or face the wrath of the franchise’s long-suffering fan base. However, it hasn’t been nearly long enough for anyone to label them as abject failures. And, more importantly, to single them out for “doing things differently” is to ignore the other NHL organizations that don’t follow an OMG devotee’s template for success: there were people all over Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan a couple of years ago for the way he chose to structure his management team, but the deep pool of young talent Toronto has amassed has muted those critics in a major way.
Certainly, some of the moves the Panthers have made in recent weeks are worthy of criticism. The image of Gallant waiting for a taxi to pick him up from the arena mere minutes after being fired is a PR disaster of epic proportions, and did the team no favors in the close-knit industry. Any team can have otherwise sound plans derailed by an inability to work with people in implementing them.
That said, there’s something unseemly about using Florida’s struggles as a platform to brag about the good old days. Such an attitude ignores the reality that the NHL game is a living, breathing, evolving beast that can be tamed in any number of ways.
You can OMG all you want, but continually looking back to blow kisses to the past is the surest way to prevent yourself from moving ahead.
Blogger •NHL Columnist • 
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