May 25, 2013

• Report # 1005

  Hey everyone, I hope that you’ve all been having a great start to the weekend. So I’ve finished my first week at my new job, though it was a short four day week. It’s nice to get through the first four days, and each day I’ll get a little more used to things, so from here on it should be ok. While it’s certainly not a career or a dream job, it’s work that is simple and keeps me busy the whole day, so I never have to sit around with nothing to do. The days go by relatively quickly and everyone is very friendly, so I really can’t complain about anything. Of course I am hoping there will be a conclusion to this whole visa thing soon so I can better chart out my future, though for now I am working and that is about all I can ask.

  Yesterday was a super sunny and nice day, though it’s still been relatively cool, especially after all the super nice weather we had in the beginning of May. I didn’t run all week after Monday, but now that I’ve got a routine going, I’m going to have to find time to run every single day after work… even if I don’t have too much time. I know exactly what happens after working and then coming home each day and not exercising….. people get fat ! So I know what I have to do and it will just be a matter of doing it every single day, and starting on Monday I don’t think that will be a problem. I’ve already ran with Parker this morning and I plan on taking Molly out later in the day. The house could use a vacuum, so I will get myself to do that as well.

  I’ve continued going to Tim Hortons everyday, so I’m getting lots of entries for a contest that they have going on until the middle of July. With every iced cappuccino I buy, I can peal off a number and enter it on the website. Each day they do a $ 1,000 draw, and at the end, they will draw for $ 10,000 I believe, as well as a number of smaller prizes. I will have tons of entries by the middle of July, so hopefully I can get something. I’ve probably spent like $ 10,000 in my life at Tim Hortons, so it would be nice if they could give me something than iced cappuccinos, cookies and bagels ! I’ll be happy with winning anything, it’s just a nice feeling to win something !

  I was browsing the internet the other day and I saw that the local NHL team, (National Hockey League) The Vancouver Canucks, fired longtime head coach Alain Vigneault.(pictured below) This in spite of the fact that since his arrival before the 2006/2007 NHL season, the Canucks have won their Northwest division six times, the NHL presidents trophy for most points twice, the Western Conference Championship once, and of course the head coach of the year award in his very first season. The Canucks won more games than they lost every single season under Alain Vigneault’s leadership, and they missed the playoffs only once.

  

  Former Vancouver Canucks Head Coach Alain Vigneault

  This was by far the best period in the Vancouver Canucks history, and they came just one win away of winning the NHL championship, The Stanley Cup, in 2011, losing to the Boston Bruins in seven games. This of course happened right before the shameful Vancouver Riot… but I’ve already talked about that before ! So after all of this unparalleled success, why did General Manager Mike Gills (pictured below) decide to fire Alain Vigneault and his coaching staff ? I think what it came down to was the whole thing of “what have you done for me lately.”

  

  Vancouver Canucks General Manager Mike Gillis

  While the Vancouver Canucks won the presidents trophy at the end of the 2011/2012 campaign, and won their division both that year and again after the lockout shortened 2012/2013 campaign, the team failed to achieve anything in the playoffs. Last spring the Canucks were unexpectedly dispatched by the 8th seeded Los Angeles Kings, who went on to win the Stanley Cup last year, in the first round of the NHL playoffs of their best of seven series in five games. This year, while expectations were no where near as high for the Canucks, they were swept in the first round by the San Jose Sharks. Dating back to the 2011 NHL Stanley Cup finals versus the Boston Bruins when the Canucks led that series 2 games to 0, the Canucks’ playoff record was a horrendous 2 wins and 12 losses.

  Of course that is downright terrible, and sure Alain Vigneault and his coaching staff deserve some blame for that miserable mark, but at the end of the day, the team is only as good as their players, and ultimately the players didn’t do good enough the last couple of years when it really counted. This year, while there were several injuries to the team, it was clear to almost everyone paying even some attention, that the teams’ roster was not deep enough and there was just not enough skill, offence and grit to go all the way and win a championship.

  So while the Vancouver Canucks certainly should all be extremely disappointed with how things have gone in the playoffs in the last two springs, I don’t think firing the coaching staff was the right move. Personally I would have given it one more year with head coach Alain Vigneault and his assistants, and if the same thing would happen next spring, then ok, a change in direction would be needed, but for GM Mike Gillis to pull the plug on the coaching staff this year, puts all of the blame on them, and after all they’ve achieved, that’s just not fair. As the general manager, Mike Gillis is the man responsible for putting a team together, so ultimately he wasn’t able to give the Canucks the team they needed to win…. that failure should fall on his desk.

  It’s not Alain Vigneault’s fault that Mike Gillis signed goalie Roberto Luongo to an extremely long 12 year contract which pays him over 5 million dollars a year. Personally I think any general manager who signs a player, any player, for a contract that long is an idiot. Just because someone is an amazing player when they are 25 years old, does not mean that they’ll be an amazing player when they are 37 years old. And in the case of Roberto Luongo, when the contract expires, he will be well over 40 years old… which in professional sports is considered ancient.

  Of course it’s not Roberto Luongo’s fault either. After last year’s playoffs, back-up goalie Corey Schneider, ended up assuming the starting goalie position, and Roberto Luongo has handled the whole situation with complete class, even making jokes about it. No one can blame the guy for signing the contract…. if anyone was offered a 12 year contract with over 5 million dollars a year in earnings, most people in the world wouldn’t say no ! This contract however with the amount of money, and tougher yet, the length scared so many teams that were interesting in acquiring Luongo in a potential trade, and ultimately this hurt the Vancouver Canucks more than anything.

  Imagine with that over $ 5 million each year, the Canucks would be able to get some really good players that could make the difference in them really competing for a Stanley Cup once again, or just being annual playoff disappointments. So really all of this was Mike Gillis’ fault, but he took the easy way out and fired Alain Vigneault, who was an exceptional coach here for his seven NHL seasons… winning more games than any previous Canuck coach. Of course no one needs to feel sorry for Alain Vigneault as he was fired with I believe two years remaining on his contract, so he will continue making a very nice salary, and with all of his success here in Vancouer, I am sure he won’t have a tough time finding another NHL head coaching job soon.

  The Vancouver Canucks however I believe made a mistake, and the wrong person was fired. Obviously the whole team can’t be fired, and some of the failure has to fall on the shoulders of the players as well…. they ultimately didn’t perform well enough, but I just don’t think that firing the most successful coach in the Vancouver Canucks’ history was the way to fix things. I believe that had Mike Gillis done a better job managing the team, and by upgrading over this summer, the team would have been in a great position to start the 2013/2014 NHL season, but now with a new coaching staff coming in and so much uncertainty, who knows what will happen.

  This is the life of professional sports though. As the saying goes, it’s a business. If a team doesn’t perform well, there are less playoff games played, meaning less revenue from lost home games, and the risk of upsetting season ticket holders and sponsors. Too many times though, the coaches take the blame when it’s clearly not much their own fault. No matter if it’s hockey, soccer, baseball, football or basketball, a sports fan would be able to think of a number of situations where great coaches lost their jobs when really they shouldn’t have been the ones to go. It’s seriously getting to the point where one has to ask, unless a championship is won every single year, what else can a coach do to keep their job ?

  Of course for most people, getting fired and still receiving payment for two years would not be a horrible thing, especially if there are so many other options out there. So despite the whole cruelty involved in the sacking of professional coaches, they still have it made amazingly good compared to the majority of the people. So one can argue that with the high salaries and contracts given, teams have every single right in the world to fire a coach if they see anything amiss. And while that’s all fine, if the firing of a coach does more harm than good, I really don’t see the point. And in a number of situations in every single sport, a great coach was fired, and things just worsened under the incoming coach.

  And obviously there are times when one coach is kept too long and they never get fired even though they should have been fired a long time ago, but that’s a whole other story ! For the next question:

  Do you think professional sports teams tend to throw coaches under the bus ?

  Well that’s all I have for today. I hope that everyone has an amazing weekend. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Tuesday, bye for now.

  picture sources: vancouversun.com, vancouversunsportsblog.

   

  • 3:53 pm
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