Hitchcock’s Fine Whine

Posted by on . 7 comments

I just lost a lot of respect for Ken Hitchcock.

Filed under: 2008-2009, Links, Playoffs

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  1. John W. says:
    April 17, 2009 at 11:08 am

    Takes a lot of nerve for the coach of the team that had just about every penalty call and non-call go for his team, to whine about anything. Lemme guess, after Game 2 we'll here, "Holmstrom is interfering with our goalie"…Blah, blah, blah.

    Speaking of blah, blah, blah, where are you Freddie?

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  2. Earl Sleek says:
    April 17, 2009 at 11:25 am

    Shrug — I don't know why we pretend to be shocked by coach-speak gamesmanship. It happens all the time, and I generally expect that 8 coaches looking at the 1-0 series deficit will have something to say about G1 excuses.

    Reply
  3. Matt Saler says:
    April 17, 2009 at 11:34 am

    Earl,

    It's less surprise and more disgust. Ken Hitchcock is a respectable coach, and I find it a little distasteful that he's talking about faceoff violations already. That's a pretty specific charge, unlike the usual "they were getting away with grabbing, etc."

    John,

    I'm sure Freddie/Ron/persona of the day will be back after the next loss.

    Reply
  4. Jason says:
    April 17, 2009 at 11:37 am

    Haha, this sounds familiar. Ah, it's just gamesmenship–Hitchcock is:

    a) trying to keep the spotlight off his young, relatively inexperienced team that couldn't do anything with the ten minute parade to the penalty box the Wings were having (and deserved) before they actually started playing, and

    b) ensuring the refs do actually pay a little more attention to the draws because

    c) everyone cheats in the face/off circle. The Wings are just so much better at it. And as Mickey Redmond always says, if you ain't cheatin', you ain't trying. Hitch knows his team doesn't stand much of a chance if the saavy Wings centermen can keep going to their bag of tricks and misdirections, so he has to try to level the playing field, work the refs, get under Babcock's skin, whatever it takes to give the Jackets a chance, however small, of winning some games and maybe the series…

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  5. hockeychic says:
    April 17, 2009 at 12:00 pm

    Sounds like Hitch is desperate already… Just hope he doesn't whine much more or I'll have to change his name to Michel Therrien.

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  6. scapegote says:
    April 17, 2009 at 10:46 pm

    The whole gamemanship excuse always bothered me. I always feel that any advantage gained by this type of thing would be offset by the damage you do to your teams psyche by saying things like this. Why not just say "They beat us, we have to do better" it puts the responsibility for the next game in the hands of the team, not the coaches or the other team, or the league.

    That said if the dirtiest thing a team did to you in a hockey game is cheat a little on the faceoffs, maybe you should count your blessings. You could be playing someone else much dirtier. (Calgary?)

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  7. scapegote says:
    April 18, 2009 at 2:48 am

    Meant to say “in the hands of the team, not the *refs, the other team or the league”
     
    The coach is part of the team.
     

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