Babcock resigning as CBJ Head Coach *Mod note, post #687*

[Rob Brown]

Now that more information has surfaced, it was imperative that Columbus moved on from Babcock.

I disagree with the vitriol towards Jenner and Goudreau though. They were probably being honest about their particular encounters with Babcock and didn't want to rock the boat.

Sure, but as leaders of the team, shouldn't they have a pulse on the rest of the group (especially the young players) and maybe check in on a few of them once this speculation (at the time) all broke? They sort of answered for the team and said it was all fine but it clearly wasn't.

 

[PensPlz]

After the last 15 or so years, I thought real journalism was dead and buried. Replaced by corporate controlled shills, approved narratives, and personal bias driven agendas.

Paul Bissonnette just might be the hero we need. Breaking the real stories. Man of the people.

 

[Confucius]

Yeah that makes perfect sense.

I cannot believe these youth softies thought this anything but a backbone test that if they stood up for themselves they would be rewarded with ice time and the PK.

We all know Babcock is a man on integrity who has never held vendettas or played mental games or embarrassed players publically. He has never scratched players for an entire year, or been known to say one thing but blatently lie.

This should all be interpreted as a regular coaching technique to illicit moral character.

You are naive.

Maybe

 

[Golden_Jet]

As said before, it works the other way around as well. As a regular person you can just get fired for whatever reason they want and unless it's due to a very narrow set of legally defined criteria there's very little you can do about it.

An NHL player is a much stronger position because he possesses a rare skill set and cannot be 'easily' replaced. If you can be 'easily' replaced in the NHL you're not going to be in the NHL for more than a minute, and it won't have anything to do with saying "no" to a coach's off-ice request.

This isn't acting where quality is highly subjective, this is also not the 1930s/40s NHL where most players were still pretty close to just being regular guys, a player that can play and is willing to sign a contract will be in the NHL.

There's two conflicting narratives about players popular on these forums, and that's why I thought about the sexual assault angle. On the one hand players are supposedly these egomaniacs who have been allowed to act as they please all their lives, protected by a culture glorifying athletic talent allowing players to get away with all kinds of misconduct because they win games for their coaches and managers. On the other hand we're supposed to believe they're poor, oppressed workers who are victims of their abusive superiors and have no power to even voice disagreement with a request made by them.

At this stage we fully know that it's impossible to run an NHL team against the locker room. No coach can succeed without players pulling in the same direction, and the days where they'll do that no matter what out of some sense of loyalty and esprit de corps are long gone. That's why it's absurd to believe that people 'couldn't speak up' in the moment. They aren't prisoners, they aren't 12 year old gymnasts at their doctors, they're professionals who have a right expect to be treated as such and an obligation to act as such.

Players on a 2 way ELC, can be sent down, and those players signed a contract.
You keep ignoring that fact, that some find it uncomfortable, and the boss can healthy scratch them,
He has a bad track record with his players, he cares about one person, himself.

 

[57special]

CBJ took a chance, and made a hire of a coach with a good track record on ice, but also some off ice warts. Obviously, they were thinking that Babcock was chastened, and had changed his behavior, after spending years away the game. Turns out he has not changed, so CBJ moved fast, and fired him before the pre season, rather than wait. What is wrong with that? A minor, but understandable mistake by the management, that is now fixed.

The only thing here that puzzles me is Babcock. He isn't stupid, but must be very stubborn, and has not taken steps to address the very issues that made him a quasi- pariah in the first place. He has basically destroyed his second chance at a very lucrative job at the highest level because of some dumb, off ice behavior. He doesn't even have that excuse of being drunk while doing it.

 

[Hanji]

Why would he lie about such a fact? When he already knows his ass is safe for the time being?

Babcock has not pulled this only on players, he did it with all the coaches in Toronto.

"For the time being" being the operative word. If Babcock did the same with coaching staff in Toronto, he got away with it because they were subordinate.

I cannot fathom, in any way, such actions being tolerated if not predicated on a power imbalance; which wasn't the case with the Columbus brass. .
But if not, Jarmo is a socially inept fool who is completely unfit for managing any office environment, let alone running an NHL team.

 

[jgatie]

Maybe you should lookup the articles relating to Babcock asking Marner to name the players he felt were not giving their best and then telling the team what Marner had reported…

I think you are not grasping the satire of that post.

 

[VivaLasVegas]

Babcock was out of line with whatever mind crap he was pulling on the players and he is doing this after Toronto. He had to go.

I'm not blaming Columbus management.

Right, Columbus management should not be blamed for whatever Babcock ultimately did of his own initiative. However, anybody with two working brain cells knew or should reasonably have known that Babcock was going to pull *something* utterly stupid sooner or later, regardless of what it actually turned out to be or when.

Babcock was an obvious (and horrendous) desperation hire by Jarmo and the second he suggested it they should have pushed him out the door. That they didn't demonstrates the obvious: Columbus management is irreparably screwed up. A strong owner would use the opportunity to clean house, but Columbus seems to have taken hands-off ownership into another dimension entirely: "Let's hire hockey professionals and let them do their jobs .... without any meaningful oversight or responsibility if they royally start to screw things up."

 

[LOFIN]

I cannot fathom, in any way, such actions being tolerated if not predicated on a power imbalance; which is wasn't the case with the Columbus brass. .
But if not, Jarmo is a socially inept fool who is completely unfit for managing any office environment, let alone running an NHL team.

So do you think Jenner and Gaudreau should also be stripped off their letters?

 

[shadow1]

Mixed press conference for Davidson and Kekalainen.

I thought the prepared remarks were strong, but things went off the rails at times with the media questions. In particular, the question about concerns regarding players reaching out to the media - rather than management - resulted in a really odd response from Jarmo. Saying he and the players have a complex relationship, rather than saying he will work to improve inclusivity, felt like a missed opportunity.

I thought both men were flustered, with Davidson being unable to even remember which day the NHLPA called him; only that he was eating dinner in Traverse City, MI and fielded the phone call in his car. To be fair, I'm sure he and Jarmo have had a hellacious last few days.

Overall, this entire situation is a huge debacle. But hey, if ownership cleans house next off-season, maybe we'll finally get Ice Hot 3?

 

[myleafs]

The guy is given a second chance, and he completely effs it up with some weirdo shit. The guy is both a coaching wizard and mentally imbalanced.

he is most definitely not a coaching wizard....lol

 

[majormajor]

Sure, but as leaders of the team, shouldn't they have a pulse on the rest of the group (especially the young players) and maybe check in on a few of them once this speculation (at the time) all broke? They sort of answered for the team and said it was all fine but it clearly wasn't.

Jenner did not in any way answer for the team. The original allegation that Biz made was about Jenner and Jenner was saying that was not true.

It didn't come out until the next day that the allegations were about young players, not Jenner. Biz kind of bungled it.

Jenner hasn't spoken about how anyone else was treated. Gaudreau and I think Werenski said that they did not hear about anyone being mistreated, and that was the closest anyone came to speaking about the team.

 

[myleafs]

I feel like this may have started innocent enough, when younger playoffs were apprehensive about giving over their phone, Babs went on full power trip mode, instead of laughing it off (“well I don’t wanna see you or the girl you are dating posing without clothes so please email a photo of you on your summer cottage vacation” and asking to be emailed/texted a pic they think represents them.

No chance.

 

[Hanji]

So do you think Jenner and Gaudreau should also be stripped off their letters?

That's for their teammates to decide. I'm not completely up-to-date on what occured, but if teammates voiced there concerns to them and they sided with Babcock instead -> accountability to teammates.

 

[myleafs]

Yeah that makes perfect sense.

I cannot believe these youth softies thought this anything but a backbone test that if they stood up for themselves they would be rewarded with ice time and the PK.

We all know Babcock is a man on integrity who has never held vendettas or played mental games or embarrassed players publically. He has never scratched players for an entire year, or been known to say one thing but blatently lie.

This should all be interpreted as a regular coaching technique to illicit moral character.

You are naive.

Your not serious right?

 

[ThisIsMyAlibi]

This reeks of boomers having a totally different relationship with their phone and privacy of the phone. My dad has asked for my phone to look at pictures of my grandkids, etc. sorry pops, not gonna happen, you aren’t seeing….all the other stuff

 

[Hoverhand]

the year is 2115, the last surviving millennialls are 120 years old.

I stub my toe on a jagged rock.

"Friggin, stupid young privileged millennials"

 

[Some Other Flame]

Jarmo's comments seem like he knows he's getting fired sooner than later

 

[CheckingLineCenter]

I know you as a Pens fan can feel pretty good about your team in this because you have Dubas, who has proven to go above and beyond for his players. But let's face it, that's not the way thing usually are in this league. Can you imagine a player going up to Lou about a similar issue? Yeah, me neither. I don't really think Jarmo is in the minority of the league when it comes to this. Players generally don't interact with the GM all that much. They do exit-interviews, maybe 1 or 2 other times a year they have a chat, that's about it. Maybe some GMs do it more, but even the ones that do it a lot are not really involved in the day-to-day activities of the teams.

And let's translate this to real working life. If I'm a blue collar worker and my superior is pulling Babcock stuff on me, my first reaction isn't going to the CEO, it's calling up my union representative. Which was the case here. Now the step that's missing in this equation is the leadership group of the team and that has to be a concern for CBJ fans.

These are all good points. I guess with that in mind my gripe is that Jarmo doesn’t see the issue that compounds when he both fails to see/understand the problem but also isn’t putting players in a position to notify him, whether directly or through an intermediary. I do not believe that’s effective GMing or leadership.

 

[Nineteen67]

I guess we’ll never know what really happened but based on what we know I have no reason to not believe Jarmo and JD, have many reasons to distrust Babcock , and every reason distrust Walsh.

Jarmo's comments seem like he knows he's getting fired sooner than later

He might be the worst GM in the league.

 

[Bubbles]

JD's comments just seem so hollow. He keeps saying "we learned"...well not really. And there was a weird comment about the assistant coach being a terrific "human being".

So I guess Babcock is NOT a terrific human being.

 

[Hanji]

This reeks of boomers having a totally different relationship with their phone and privacy of the phone. My dad has asked for my phone to look at pictures of my grandkids, etc. sorry pops, not gonna happen, you aren’t seeing….all the other stuff

They're probably thinking everybody has their AARP Consumer Cellular flip-phones.

"What's the big deal in showing someone your phone!?!?!?" lolol

 

[Clark4Ever]

Sure, but as leaders of the team, shouldn't they have a pulse on the rest of the group (especially the young players) and maybe check in on a few of them once this speculation (at the time) all broke? They sort of answered for the team and said it was all fine but it clearly wasn't.

I didn't get the sense that either of them spoke on behalf of the team though.

 

[Sniperberg]

Im totally out of the loop. What did Babcock do this time?

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Im totally out of the loop. What did Babcock do this time?

If only there was a highly-active discussion thread where you could read about this.