Project time!

[Professor What]

Well, since others are giving their thoughts, I'll give mine too.

- redo a positional list: My preferred option. We're talking about lists that have a decade on them, and I can see the argument on the goalies that there might be some shuffling at the top. I say we go with @rmartin65's idea and start there and work out.

- top all-time 100 or 200 again (300?): I'd definitely participate, but I think this should be delayed. As others have said, the list isn't that old, and while it has some issues (looking at you, McDavid), there will be a lot more to "correct" in a a few years.

- women's list: Might be the most worthwhile project, and as such, it was fairly high on my vote, but I've expressed my concerns about it. Might be one of the hardest projects to do right because of the research barrier.

- coaches: I'd do it, but I've expressed my concerns, and also agree with concerns that others have aired. I have to be honest, I wouldn't be as excited about this. I'd be doing it more to take part in the project experience.

- subset lists (defensive forwards, goal scoring, etc): Zero interest. I'm just not a big fan of the idea of lists that don't take in the players' entire careers, with the exception of postseason since that is just so important.

- best peak, prime, season, etc: Zero interset. See above.

- fill in awards and Allstars for old seasons: This got my #2 vote. I guess it could be argued that that goes against the rule I gave above, but filling in holes and possibly giving recognition to some players that didn't have the chance to win these accolades is attractive to me.

- builders: I basically have the same feeling about this as I do coaches based on my impression of what this would be, but part of me is still wondering what exactly we would be doing.

- teams: Very little interest. I'm just not attracted to this idea.

- hall of fame: I'm cooler on it than I was previously, but I still like the idea. I just feel like the real Hall is getting watered down while ignoring players that are very worthy. This would be our small contribution to righting that wrong.

I'd participate in most of these. The ones that I have no or very little interest in would be the exceptions. As badly as I want to work on a project, I just couldn't justify putting that kind of time into something that I didn't really believe would be advantageous to us going forward.

Either way, whether it's something that I want to do or not, I want to see this board move forward with some project. I don't want to see that die out, as I think it's one of the most valuable things that this board does.

 

[VanIslander]

coaches: I'd do it, but I've expressed my concerns, and also agree with concerns that others have aired. I have to be honest, I wouldn't be as excited about this. I'd be doing it more to take part in the project experience.

We could make something great, certainly unprecedented.

 

[ImporterExporter]

For those even considering coaching, here is the bio I did on Pete Green back in 2020.

ATD2020 Bio Thread

Vasili Pervukhin, LD Pervukhin was the long-term LD on 2nd pairing of the Soviet National Team, usually partnered with Zinetula Bilyaletdinov. Bilyaletdinov was the physical, stay at home guy; Pervukhin was the "crafty," two-way guy. His time on the national team stretched from 1976 to...

forums.hfboards.com

And here is the ongoing bio for Punch Imlach.

ATD 2024 Bio Thread

Post them below

forums.hfboards.com

I simply do not understand the notion that evaluating coaches would be hard. There is so much information already on hand and a wealth to be discovered (my bios prove this). We have their records, their rosters, a solid foundation of information with room to add more.

There is zero question, that coaching would bring about more robust discussion simply based on the logic we've never gone down this route. Sure, we've not yet done a "best peak season" but at the end of the day we're still taking about players we've talked about countless times, via an HoH project, or just in general. Kind of blows my mind that excites people more than something completely refreshing.

Isn't that what this board is supposed to be about? Rehashing players is worthwhile but don't tell me it has more value than actually giving credence to coaching, a position of significance within hockey.

Inviting new ideas and taking new paths is what makes this one of the few worthwhile boards to frequent.

To me, I get the impression that it's more to do with simply not caring enough about coaches, rather than there not being enough information or resources to judge them fairly or accurately.

 

[VanIslander]

From ATD 2012:

"... coach Art Ross, the man who chose "Bruins" as Boston's nickname to reflect ..."an untamed animal displaying speed, agility, and cunning", establishing an ethos of hard work and hard play in Boston that remains to this day. "The dour Scot" is the winningest coach in Boston Bruins history, with 361 wins behind the bench during four stints as the Bruins' coach between 1924 and 1945, only twice missing the playoffs. Four times they went to the Stanley Cup finals and won it all in 1939. Ross was selected as NHL coach of the year in 1939, a 2nd team all-star coach the year before and four years later. He led the Bruins to five regular season 1st place finishes in the thirties and "Ultimate Hockey" selected him as best coach of a decade. Ross had a habit of stepping away from coaching and doing more general manager and president duties when times were good, going back behind the bench each time the Bruins began to struggle. He is famous for several innovations including pulling the goalie to ice an extra attacker.

 

[VanIslander]

And comparing super jerk Bowman to super jerk Tikhonov? ... let's spill the guts!

 

[seventieslord]

And comparing super jerk Bowman to super jerk Tikhonov? ... let's spill the guts!

Vote then.

 

[VanIslander]

I hereby officially vote for a coaches draft.
I make my vote public.
It is valid.

 

[VanIslander]

My concerns with a coaches project would be how much of it might hinge on nothing but wins and intangibles. Wins are already an overemphasized goalie stat, and some put way too much weight on Stanley Cups. The intangibles would get us into stuff like people arguing over leadership.

Wins and intangibles.

I think that may become my 4th tattoo.

Wins & Intangibles

 

[VanIslander]

Add the period.
Wins & Intangibles.
Oh yeah.
This is life.
It's all about wins & intangibles.

 

[rmartin65]

I hereby officially vote for a coaches draft.
I make my vote public.
It is valid.

You need to rank all ten choices

 

[ImporterExporter]

I hereby officially vote for a coaches draft.
I make my vote public.
It is valid.

Please send your 1-10 rankings to seventieslord. That's the only way they'll be officially counted.

 

[seventieslord]

I hereby officially vote for a coaches draft.
I make my vote public.
It is valid.

All 10 please.

 

[bobholly39]

I'll send mine later.

Someone should really @ or pm a whole bunch of old participants. This thread isn't getting enough visibility

 

[Professor What]

Who should we reach out to? I have no problem helping to do it, but I've only worked on a couple of projects, so I have less of an idea of who would be the "usual suspects."

 

[bobholly39]

Who should we reach out to? I have no problem helping to do it, but I've only worked on a couple of projects, so I have less of an idea of who would be the "usual suspects."

Participants are listed in the OP of each project usually. Start with the most recent one and go back a few?

 

[Professor What]

Does anyone know where I can find the list of participants for the #101-200 project? I'm able to find lists for other projects, but I'm missing that one. My apologies if I'm overlooking something obvious.

 

[jigglysquishy]

@seventieslord has most of the old participants on Facebook

 

[Professor What]

Alright, I've sent PMs out to everyone I could from three of the last four projects (the 101-200 project is the exception since I couldn't find that list) that hasn't already voted. There were some names that wouldn't come up to PM (also, I know Canadiens1958 has passed away), so I don't know if they've changed usernames or something like that. If you know of someone that has participated in the past that has changed their name, either let me know or reach out to them.

 

[VanIslander]

Lol

@seventieslord has most of the old participants on Facebook

I realized in '08 that Facebook is a gateway for every high school classmate to 'contribute'. I haven't been there since.

My friends i now zoom.

The world is a better place.

 

[seventieslord]

Lol
I realized in '08 that Facebook is a gateway for every high school classmate to 'contribute'. I haven't been there since.

My friends i now zoom.

The world is a better place.

You gonna send in your vote or what?

 

[ImporterExporter]

Assessments vary so widely for coaches.

For example, take Kent Douglas's assessment of the coaches he played for. He said Eddie Shore was the best coach he ever played for, and Punch Imlach was the worst. (He also said Turk Broda, his tier II junior coach in the Toronto system, was completely clueless and only had his job because he was a former Leaf great.)

Eddie Shore was actually the owner of the Springfield Indians, not the game day bench coach. He always hired someone else to coach the games (including Imlach for one season). But Shore ran the training camp and practices, designed the systems that the team played, and he spent time coaching players 1-on-1 to improve their weaknesses. So he did have a reputation in his day as a coach, even though he isn't listed as the coach of record in the history books.

Shore had a reputation for knowing more about hockey than anyone else in the world. He had spent his career as a player trying to master the game, and he continued doing so as a team owner. His emphasis on teaching balance and using all edges as a skater was well ahead of his time, and he always spent the first week of training camp on skating fundamentals. Which frustrated some players, especially those who didn't skate to Shore's standard and didn't think they needed to learn anything. Shore himself was a marvelous skater who was in great shape even in his 50s and 60s, and he could skate and demonstrate all the drills better than any of the players. When he was in his mid-60s, his son Ted filmed him demonstrating all his skating training and drills. Now that's one piece of lost hockey film that I'd love to see.

Brian Kilrea said Shore constantly emphasized that the puck moved faster than you could skate, and drilled the team on moving without the puck and passing to the open man. He said the Springfield team passed twice as much as their opponents, and they didn't dump the puck in. During the 1972 Summit Series, Bill White told reporters that as far as he was concerned, the Russians weren't doing anything new. It was all stuff that Eddie Shore had taught them in Springfield.

Shore specialized in cheaply acquiring players who were distressed assets, coaching them up and improving them, and then getting a good return for them. As the rink owner, he could and would spend an hour or two a day using the ice to work with an individual player, and he would do so for any player who asked. I read an account from the mid-1940s of a player who had graduated junior hockey, wanted to make it in senior hockey, and he came to Shore for help. Shore spent an hour on the ice with him each day for a week before the player took the train home. I don't remember the name now but I looked up the player and he was a low scoring high PIM winger in junior who didn't make it as a senior and probably had no chance. But Shore put in the work with this young man who had asked for help.

He was especially good with defencemen, which isn't surprising considering he was an all time great himself. Douglas, White, Ted Harris, Bob McCord, and Dale Rolfe were all Shore projects. He got a lot of press for turning Douglas around, because it was so fast and dramatic, and because the Leafs sent him five players for Douglas after only one season.

Shore's individual coaching for Douglas included:

• Getting his weight down. Shore concluded that Douglas was drinking too much in the way of liquids, including water, milk, and pop (so the papers said). Douglas was leaner and quicker after cutting back on his water consumption.
• Controlling his temper. Shore convinced Douglas that he didn't have to retaliate immediately and get a penalty. There would always be an opportunity later when he could get his revenge cleanly and avoid the penalty box. (The papers were happy to point out the irony in Eddie Shore teaching this lesson.)
• Improving his balance when engaging the opponent. Shore taught Douglas to use a half-hit to bump the opponent off balance and take the puck, rather than laying out a full bodycheck that would take him out of the play with the opponent.
• Douglas said Shore had dozens of other little tricks that he passed on.

On the other hand, despite Shore's thorough knowledge of hockey and ability as a skills coach, he was also a tight-fisted owner, which alienated his players. And his abrasive manner and personal eccentricities put many players off as well. Even his supporters like Douglas, Kilrea, and White said you had to ignore his eccentricities, and then you could learn a lot from him.

Punch Imlach, on the other hand, was not a teacher of hockey at all. As a player, he never played at a higher level than senior hockey. As a coach, he didn't even run practices in Toronto, he delegated that to some of the senior players. Per Punch and his supporters, his main skills were man management and team motivation. Douglas and other detractors said Imlach was a self-promoter and a fraud who knew how to work the media but didn't know hockey. In their view, Imlach took all the credit when the team won, and blamed the players when they lost. Douglas considered that the players basically coached the team themselves, and Imlach had nothing to do with their success. He described Imlach's coaching as being limited to saying "Next line."

Imlach also alienated two young star players in Frank Mahovlich and Carl Brewer. They should have been the foundation for Toronto's post-dynasty success, along with Dave Keon.

So how do you rate Eddie Shore versus Punch Imlach as a coach? Is it all about the NHL and winning the Stanley Cup, or do Shore's player development and innovation count for anything? Was Imlach actually a great leader and motivator, or just great with the media? Did Imlach make his mark on the Leafs with his style of play? Or did he just continue the Maple Leaf way that had been established throughout the organization for years, including their sponsored minor hockey and junior hockey teams?

And then consider we have zero film or video of Imlach's Quebec Aces, and zero film or video of Shore's Springfield Indians.

It could be a fun project, but I wouldn't expect anywhere near the amount of consensus there has been for the projects on players.

There is so much wrong with what you said about Imlach, it ironically proves my point as to why the coaches need a project.

Leading off by saying Imlach never played pro hockey, sounds like a strange attempt to knock him as it relates to knowledge of the game. I don't recall Scotty Bowman playing pro hockey either (disclaimer, no I'm not putting them in the same tier) Imlach spent almost his entire adult life involved in high level hockey (be it the QSHL, the AHL, then NHL). Jean Beliveau was a pallbearer at his funeral and complimentary of Imlach's impact on his career before he even stepped onto an NHL rink.

Imlach absolutely ran most practices. When he didn't it was either a vet or King Clancy. Clancy btw, is probably the leading voice for pushing back against the notion that Imlach was this cold, completely abrasive asshole, 24/7.

Douglas and a handful of other detractors are full of shit. 100%, full stop.

The notion his grasp of hockey was so utterly limited, that he managed to not only coach, but build the damn 60's dynasty (which occurred while Toe Blake was coaching), is absolutely comical to me.

ATD 2024 Bio Thread

Post them below

forums.hfboards.com

That's not even remotely close to being finished either. So, you can already disprove multiple statements of yours above based on what I have in that partial bio.

I have no delusions that coaches will ever get a run here based on this (and past) threads. But if we're going to attempt to poke holes in a particular idea, let's not use very holey arguments.

Imlach is much more than the generalized stereotypes we've seen to date. Yeah, he could be an asshole, who failed to adapt to a changing landscape and culture which is why by the 1970's he was finished as a legitimate coach. The drill instructor MO wasn't going to work on younger, more affluent kids. This is why someone like Blake got even more out of his teams. Personality wise, he was more adaptable. Same thing with Bowman even.

However, from about 1951 through 1967 you'll find a massive amount of very positive things written about the man, which is on top of the 4 Cup victories, won with rosters he put together. I found the coverage of his death very telling as to how respected he was around the league.

I think coaches would bring about the most discussion, without a doubt, simply because we're talking about people who haven't really been talked about on this sort of scale. In some cases, very little. Sure, consensus might be a bit harder to find, but then again, is that really what we're after here? Or are we trying to improve our grasp of history.

Players is just going to end up being a lot of fancy tables and numbers with some already written and dispersed contemporary quotes sprinkled in. That's 100% the bulk of the content if we run a new top 60 D/C/W project. Or "best peaks". 90% of the names are going to be the same from previous versions.

You know it. I know it.

 

[bobholly39]

Alright, I've sent PMs out to everyone I could from three of the last four projects (the 101-200 project is the exception since I couldn't find that list) that hasn't already voted. There were some names that wouldn't come up to PM (also, I know Canadiens1958 has passed away), so I don't know if they've changed usernames or something like that. If you know of someone that has participated in the past that has changed their name, either let me know or reach out to them.

Just voted this morning.

Thanks for sending this out - I think this will help a lot.

Really hope we get a good turnout.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I forget where it was mentioned, but someone said that some old participants left on sour terms...? The only one I know about his killion from way back...I wish TDMM was still around, qpq seemed to just disappear...

 

[Professor What]

I forget where it was mentioned, but someone said that some old participants left on sour terms...? The only one I know about his killion from way back...I wish TDMM was still around, qpq seemed to just disappear...

I think I know someone else that left on bad terms, but I wasn't able to message him anyway. I did send messages to TDMM and QPQ. May not matter, but fingers crossed.

 

[jigglysquishy]

I forget where it was mentioned, but someone said that some old participants left on sour terms...? The only one I know about his killion from way back...I wish TDMM was still around, qpq seemed to just disappear...

Outside Big Phil I don't remember anyone actually leaving. Others will have more insight. But it usually ends up with me noticing 6 months out that I haven't seen them in a while