I've said since the first interview came out, that if bullying occurred or the team pressured him to play through an injury or something else like that, of course that would change things. But you'd think if any of those things happened the kid would have the NHLPA involved instead of just giving a series of weird interviews, having his agent release cryptic statements, etc. The while thing seems bizarre.
Also, I do believe that if something happened, the team would know at this point. And that JD wouldn't be out there talking about things as he was, but instead giving things more in the "no comment at this time" vein. Not that I think the team is beyond reproach, but JD is smart enough to know that if something did happen, the repercussions could be pretty serious.
No arguing this, all I have been trying to do is slow the train down that’s leaving the station headed to ‘Lias is a spoiled brat’ before all of the facts come out. It’s a strange situation. We’re all emotionally invested (probably too much, damn this site!), but while I think it’s good to discuss this seems to be a somewhat unique issue. Best to let more facts come out and if they aren’t coming out as quickly as we want them to, that’s not our choice. Andersson may not be ready to fully discuss in public what occurred.
Listen, if this was nothing I’ll be the first in this thread to state my disappointment, but all I want to iterate, whether I’m doing it properly or effectively, is for people to take a deep breath and just be patient. The facts will come out.
Also, most of this post is not directed at you 2k2, just used as a jump off point
I think big gains can be made if we as an organization learn how to handle these things properly.
To handle these things correctly, I am 200% convinced that some of the starting points that are non-negotiable are:
1. Given the nature of the business we are dealing with, things will happen that must be dealt with. It has nothing to do with if you have good guys in the organization or not, there will be severe frictions, always have been and always will be.
2. There is a notion that the NHL is tough, so kids coming up in the game must be able to fight through these things otherwise they are not tough enough. I actually think its the opposite. I think that a ton of potential "performance" is lost along the way because these things are handled the god ol' way. If anything, I think its more common that tough guys have issues. There is just no link between ability to fight things off the ice and toughness on the ice, or at least not in this direction.
3. A super clear starting point must always be that the relevant part is how a player perceive something, not whether someone objectively did something that was OK or not. That is in fact in most perspectives 100% irrelevant. It is as simple as this, you want player A to perform. To perform optimally, player A must be in the state of mind X. If B does something -- Z -- to player A that puts him in the state of mind Y instead, that makes the player A perform poorly, why on earth does it matter if "Z" was OK or not? It doesn't. The only perspective that is relevant is in the perspective of how good B will be able to handle his job going forward, if the fact that B did Z is an indication of that he will make more negative things. But if handled properly, I am sure that is unlikely too. People are not evil, it is very rare. I am also sure that its much easier to get player A into the state of mind X if you are professional about it and handles things correctly, and I am also 100% convinced that NHL teams like so many other places are not good at all at accomplishing this.
In this case, we have an issue because Lias obviously feel that there have been an issue. That is what is relevant. Why does it matter if you or me or Oprah Winfrey or Dr Phil or Mike Keenan or Donald Trump thinks it is an issue? People have issues that affects them. If you take 20 years of a bunch of peoples lives, quite many of them will have had some severe issues during those periods. Its more about where the human in question is in his/her life cycle when something happen than what actually can happen.
The thing is, so many are starting to come to this conclusion in many of the most competitive, demanding, environments there is. Its just human progress. There are a ton of examples of instances were "our" instincts to handle situations have been completely wrong, and this is one of them. I've undergone elite military training for 15 months as an Artic Ranger. They picked the 400 best suited kids and managed to drive out 25% the first two weeks. I played "professional" (mens) hockey from when I was 15 until 20. I've taken an education that was tremendously competitive, and has experienced a very competitive environment on a business lawfirm and worked closely with so many managements of big international co-operations. Especially in the perspective of MeToo, I've seen first hand how many were forced to try to deal with these type of issues, related issues at least, and I am 100% that of the ones that started to do that a few years ago,
nobody wants to go back today. Bring things out, and deal with it, it is good for
everyone.
