Has the time come to name a Captain?
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Mayor Bee
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Back in the 1972 NLCS, the Pittsburgh Pirates had a 1-0 and then a 2-1 lead in the best-of-5 series. Willie Stargell played horribly, going 1/16 with 1 run and 1 RBI. The Game 2 loss (which tied the series 1-1) was 5-3, and the Game 5 loss (which ended the series) was 4-3.
In Game 5 specifically, he twice was the last out of an inning, but in the 8th he had a chance. Pittsburgh was up 3-2, and Stargell was at the plate with men on 1st and 2nd with 1 out and a chance to put the game away. Instead, he struck out looking, and Cincinnati scored twice in the bottom of the 9th to win it.
Stargell through it all was outwardly calm. After Game 5, he was asked by a reporter about how he could be so subdued when the failure had to be killing him. He just sighed and said, "Sometimes a man has to be a man."
There apparently needs to be a singular voice if we're getting a forward/defense divide in the media. I havent heard the comments, but from the postings it sounds like the D blames the F and the F blames the D. And if the comments are coming from both alternates, it could get out of hand. The ship is starting to sink before we can get Horton back, if we could weather the storm still we're able to add him, we could be ok. But with the way things are tail spinning now, we may be out of it by the time Horton comes back.
Nanabijou
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It's always hard as a fan to figure out what is going on in a locker room, but something doesn't seem right in CBJ's locker room now. In general, fans tend to love the players who call out the team in the press and hold these players up as great leaders, while quiet players are chastised for being too complacent. My personal belief is that what a player says to the media has very little to do with how much sway a player has within the locker-room - sometimes the vocal players are highly regarded within the inner circles, sometimes they aren't.
When I was a teenager, I played with a guy for a few years who was definitely a vocal player. Good guy, I still consider him a friend, but he was the type who was always barking in the dressing room. He wore an 'A' for a couple of years and was a good counter-balance to the player who wore the 'C' who was more quiet. When the captain spoke, though, we listened, while we tended to tune out the 'barker' on a regular basis. He was great when we were winning, as he'd be the loudest guy in the dressing room during the celebrations. When we were losing, though, the 'barker' would come in and throw water bottles and scream at everyone, and we all found that got pretty old quickly. When he was 'captain' for a few games due to injury or something, he tended to ramp up the yelling even more in some misguided belief that the more he yelled, the more he was leading.
His stints as captain always seemed to be a debacles. We had a couple of fistfights almost break out in the room during these times when he'd start tearing into someone after a game. Screaming at people repeatedly doesn't work well, especially when it becomes a recurring theme. Figuring out rationally where the problems were and what possible solutions always seemed like a better approach, at least to me, than just screaming about needing to try harder. None of us wanted to lose. We just lost our way from time to time and needed to figure out how to get back on track.
What does this self-indulgent story have to do with the CBJ? I'm starting to wonder whether Dubi is more 'barker' than leader. It doesn't mean he's a bad player or can't be part of the leadership group. But, if he has assumed the 'Captain' role within the dressing room, I can see how tension could arise if he's just throwing tantrums after every loss. Sure, it's great that he doesn't like to lose, but is he actually helping his teammates find a way out of this slump or is he just sulking and screaming at them? Honestly, I don't know but thought I'd voice my concerns.
When I was a teenager, I played with a guy for a few years who was definitely a vocal player. Good guy, I still consider him a friend, but he was the type who was always barking in the dressing room. He wore an 'A' for a couple of years and was a good counter-balance to the player who wore the 'C' who was more quiet. When the captain spoke, though, we listened, while we tended to tune out the 'barker' on a regular basis. He was great when we were winning, as he'd be the loudest guy in the dressing room during the celebrations. When we were losing, though, the 'barker' would come in and throw water bottles and scream at everyone, and we all found that got pretty old quickly. When he was 'captain' for a few games due to injury or something, he tended to ramp up the yelling even more in some misguided belief that the more he yelled, the more he was leading.
His stints as captain always seemed to be a debacles. We had a couple of fistfights almost break out in the room during these times when he'd start tearing into someone after a game. Screaming at people repeatedly doesn't work well, especially when it becomes a recurring theme. Figuring out rationally where the problems were and what possible solutions always seemed like a better approach, at least to me, than just screaming about needing to try harder. None of us wanted to lose. We just lost our way from time to time and needed to figure out how to get back on track.
What does this self-indulgent story have to do with the CBJ? I'm starting to wonder whether Dubi is more 'barker' than leader. It doesn't mean he's a bad player or can't be part of the leadership group. But, if he has assumed the 'Captain' role within the dressing room, I can see how tension could arise if he's just throwing tantrums after every loss. Sure, it's great that he doesn't like to lose, but is he actually helping his teammates find a way out of this slump or is he just sulking and screaming at them? Honestly, I don't know but thought I'd voice my concerns.
Dubi says the same **** about lack of effort regardless of whether we played hard or played like ****. He's a good leader for this team but its on the ice.
A Captain has to be steady, or else you'll have times where everyone's hating the guy with a C on his chest. I say give it to Murray, and it doesn't matter whether its this year or in two years.
A Captain has to be steady, or else you'll have times where everyone's hating the guy with a C on his chest. I say give it to Murray, and it doesn't matter whether its this year or in two years.
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I like potentially-relevant anecdotes, so I'll carry yours one step further. Could the reason there's no 'C' be that there is no steady presence to whom everyone listens when he speaks?
You know what? **** it. Sign Vinny and make him C until next season when Murray or Joey or Cam or Matty or Boone are ready to take the mantle.
Agree. No reason not to name one, especially given the way Dubinsky has stepped up on the ice, off the ice, in the room, and with the community and media. They can no longer hide behind the "not having a captain works for us" line when it clearly doesn't.
I got an infraction last time I suggested this, but I do stand by it - Jarmo and JD are waiting until Horton comes back and are giving him the C, based on what he did on previous teams. It couldn't be more obvious - if they were going to give it someone in the room now, they would have done it already. I can't see this going over well in the locker room and could already be a reason for some of the unrest.
(an example of this is Buffalo, where the team crashed and burned after they gave huge deals to Leino and Ehrhoff, and also in Edmonton where the gave Ference a big deal and the C. Tough for hard working players on a team see a guy from the outside get a huge deal and/or a leadership position handed to them without having played on the team, passing over the players on the team that have worked for it)
FANonymous
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Nooo! Bring back Adam Foote, make him the captain, then strip him of the captaincy and put him in a dunk tank.
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Mayor Bee
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I'll add my own potentially-relevant anecdote.
In my own days in football, when I was a sophomore there was a large and successful senior class and a small and unknown junior class. A lot of that year's seniors were two-year starters, and a few played D-1.
The next year, everyone moved up. Having had little starting experience and certainly not accustomed to leadership, it was a disaster. There were a few who were vocal, but didn't have the credibility to back up whatever they said. When we had one of these guys really nursing a minor injury so as not to endanger his own D-1 chances, and a couple of others who had the sporadic effort of Nikolai Zherdev, it's tough to look to anyone as a leader. Our own class (now juniors) was elevated to a lot of starting positions due to lack of top-end depth, but we weren't ready for that role from a leadership standpoint.
When we were seniors the next year, everything changed. There were something like 30 of us seniors, but there wasn't a vocal guy. There were a lot of high-motor guys, but I think everyone said something at least once or twice during the year that could be construed as "leading". The credibility was the difference. Our practices were extremely intense. We had a senior defensive tackle coming back from injury who wasn't quite up to speed, and our opponent that week had an All-Ohio DT. Our guy actually played two practices as scout team DT against our first-team offense to give them the best practice possible. There was almost a fight running sprints between two senior backups, because one thought the other was dogging it toward the end of a sprint.
The thing is, there were no meetings or anything before the season that prompted this. It was entirely organic, and everyone was on the same page. The end result was that anyone within a particular situation or setting could and would step up. An important part of it, though, was that the slate from the previous year had been wiped clean. I think a lot of us would look at ourselves as a junior and want to move past that, and the younger guys were willing to do exactly that.
Mayor Bee
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TIME TO PICK
In many ways, Picard was the ultimate leader. Decisive but willing to listen to all options first, knowledgeable about everything on the ship but cognizant of his own limitations, and everyone on the bridge crew had a very specific role that maximized their abilities and minimized their deficiencies. He's a lot like Earl Weaver in that sense.
Also, while generally appearing to be outwardly humorless, he had this moment after the warp core breached (very slowly) and left a gaseous cloud.
Maybe the problem is not enough JOY!
Are you suggesting we make Clode our Captain? I'm pretty sure a scenario involving a dude who was once a player, then an assistant coach who was promoted to interim head coach who didn't get the position but went to coach in juniors only to get a head coach job with another pro team only to sign with the original team as Captain is an unprecedented move.
Some of my info on Clode's history may be wrong. I don't really care.
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I think all each of my options above has his pluses and minuses, but I thin you've omitted the most obvious reason to choose Picard, and that would be because he has this nailed down already - an he'll likely need it.
ca5150
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I think all each of my options above has his pluses and minuses, but I thin you've omitted the most obvious reason to choose Picard, and that would be because he has this nailed down already - an he'll likely need it.
No Captain Caveman pic? That would be my choice!
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Arch City Zach
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FANonymous
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