Toggle sidebar

Why was Wayne Gretzky such a bad coach?

  • Xenforo Cloud has upgraded us to version 2.3.6. Please report any issues you experience.
  • We are currently aware of "log in/security error" issues that are affecting some users. We apologize and ask for your patience as we try to get these issues fixed.
Strangle said:
I always thought of Gretzky as a coach telling his players “just put the puck into the net. That’s what worked for me. Get open, get a good look and shoot it into the net, past the goalie. See? Watch, just like this. Now it’s your turn, there ya go.” *jesus Christ why isn’t this working?*

In the penalty kill “just strip the puck from the d-man at the blue line or the winger on the wall and skate straight down the ice for a breakaway. That’s the best thing to do on the penalty kill”. *shit, why can’t these guys just make the simple play?*

“hey you guys, you forgot to shoot the puck in the net. Remember? Passed the goalie? Don’t shoot it AT the goalie, shoot it PASSED him. Easy peasy, come on guys FOCUS!”
Click to expand...
I hate to be that guy....but this was soo great until you used passed (and even capitalized it at one point) instead of past. 😉
 
  • Like
Reactions: Summer Rose and Doubledose
Bruce Granville said:
Yeah, Olli Jokinen once explained this.
He was coached by the Great One, moving up the ice in practice, head on a swivel, looking to pass to a teammate.
Afterwards Gretzky asked him, why didn‘t pass to the 4th guy who just stepped on the ice and was out of sight, exactly behind him crossing the blue line.
“Coach, I didn’t see him, even if I tried.”
Gretzky looked puzzled…”Yeah, but didn’t you KNOW where he was?”
It was OJ’s turn to look puzzled. But at least he realised that Gretzky has an otherworldly vision and IQ.
You just can’t teach it. And if you are not able to understand the limitations of your players, you become a shitty coach.
Click to expand...

But when Gretzky told him to go have a burger, relax, and don't think about hockey, he was on it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pablo El Perro and Summer Rose
He couldn't relate to players if I had to guess, that's most elite level players who become coaches. There's more 4th liners + plugs who become better coaches than the elite talent that's played the game. You need to be relatable to the 13th forward as much as you are to the franchise forward.
 
Bondurant said:
How many elite players in any sport became good coaches? Off the top of my head, only two come to mind.
Click to expand...
The only elite baseball players to have been successful managers spent their careers prior to WWII, and many of them were player/managers. Some of them benefited greatly from other people building their teams (like Bill Terry, whose success faded out as the legacy of John McGraw got further into the past).

Just about the only ones who play and manage after the war are Joe Torre and Frank Robinson (and Robinson was never particularly successful as a manager, though I don't think he was bad). Sure, guys like Dusty Baker, Mike Scioscia, or Lou Piniella were fine players, but they weren't elite.

The #2 manager in games above .500 never played a single major league game (Joe McCarthy). #4 Walter Alston played one. #7 Earl Weaver played zero, Tony La Russa played 132 games, Sparky Anderson 152. Tommy Lasorda 26. Terry Francona and Billy Martin had careers, but they were bad players. Charlie Grimm and Joe Girardi were not especially good players.

Ted Williams was an awful manager. Eddie Mathews was unsuccessful. Yogi Berra didn't make waves. Paul Molitor, Ryne Sandberg, Tony Perez, Mel Ott, Alan Trammell, Rogers Hornsby - all failures.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sabremike
I don’t think most people realize that Gretzky didn’t even try. He was rarely ever at practice, or with the team in general, and only showed up to “coach” the games.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Summer Rose
His team sucked.
No other team ever offered him a coaching job other than the team he partially owned
 
Don’t think it has anything to do with “being too good so he can’t explain it to the players”. He just sucked at teaching. Being good at something and being good at coaching or teaching it are completely different and completely unrelated skills.
 
  • Like
Reactions: PM88RU and Summer Rose
I mean the good coaches who were 4th line grinders become coaches because they’re poor and need a job. The elite players don’t need to ride a bus in the O for 2 years to prove himself so there’s no way to filter them out before they become NHL coaches. There are probably a lot of NHL stars who would be good coaches if they started small at first but never tried because being a retired millionaire at 40 is a pretty sweet life.

Wayne was a somehow better coach than he is a commentator, I’ll give him that.
 
Shorsey has potential to be a great coach because he makes up for his deficiencies as a player with intangibles (leadership, sacrifice, effort and communication).

Gretzky’s a bum.
 
Cas said:
The only elite baseball players to have been successful managers spent their careers prior to WWII, and many of them were player/managers. Some of them benefited greatly from other people building their teams (like Bill Terry, whose success faded out as the legacy of John McGraw got further into the past).

Just about the only ones who play and manage after the war are Joe Torre and Frank Robinson (and Robinson was never particularly successful as a manager, though I don't think he was bad). Sure, guys like Dusty Baker, Mike Scioscia, or Lou Piniella were fine players, but they weren't elite.
Click to expand...
Gil Hodges would be another.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Summer Rose
His team was terrible and I doubt he was much of a systems guy because he had a god like vision and intuition on the ice.

Pretty tough to teach plugs to play with something they don’t have.
 
I played hockey with a guy whose brother played for him. He said Gretzky would say to his brother (a fourth line mostly AHL guy) things about certain plays like “when that guy does this and the puck goes here you have to do this and go here” and his brother would basically be thinking “how the hell am i going to process all that that quick”. Basically Gretzky thought the game at too advanced a level for it to translate to normies.
 
Seems to be a theme that the good two-way players make good coaches because they can see all of the elements of a good team better than a purely offensive one.

Toe Blake
Rick Tocchet
Larry Robinson
Bob Gainey
Jacques Lemaire
Rod Brind'Amour
Darryl Sutter
Brent Sutter
Sergei Fedorov
Igor Larionov
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pablo El Perro
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Ad

Ad

Top Bottom