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View Full Version : Citizen March 25...Interesting artical



Sput
03-30-2005, 03:11 AM
JIM SWANSON, CITIZEN SPORTS EDITOR


I'd like to introduce you to a Western Hockey League franchise, one that has a history of struggles.
The team I'm about to describe has been in its current location since the mid-1990s, started play in a small, out-dated facillty, and moved not long after into a spanking-new palace that holds roughly 6,000.
The managing owner has strong ties to the city of Saskatoon, and to the Blades franchise. The owner has two family members working in the front office, and one of his good friends is the head scout. It is a family-run operation in many, many respects.
For years, the locals told the owner he didn't belong, didn't understand their kind, in the process showing little gratitude that the owner believed in that city's ability to support the business so much that he moved the team there, bought a house, and put down roots.
But the locals, they expected a winner every season, and all but begged the owner to sell the team to people from that city, people they thought knew hockey better than the owner.
When the team finally moved from the old rink to the new one, the seats were rarely full, and a lack of consistent playoff success kept those attendance numbers relatively low the next season.
But all of a sudden came a competitive team, an upstart that broke away from the tradition of mediocrity -- or worse. The reason? A string of old-style coaches had not worked, not to satisfaction, and the frustrated owner relented and searched out new blood.
The new coach came armed with systems, with a defence-first strategy, and endeavoured to change the program from top to bottom. Some of the old-style coaches around the league scoffed at him, nicknamed him 'the inventor.' Discipline was installed -- "Curfew calls? No way, we're here to party," wailed the veterans who rebelled -- and those who didn't adhere to the program were shown the door. Conversely, talented players who had run out of chances in other locales were sometimes rescued, given that last opportunity to show NHL scouts what they could do if they got their lives in order first.
The coach was supported by everyone in the organization and essentially given carte blanche with lineup decisions, and he was in the middle of all discussions about roster changes.
The team? Sure, it may sound like the Prince George Cougars, but it's not.
The team described is the Kelowna Rockets.
Bruce Hamilton and his family own the franchise, which moved from Tacoma to Kelowna in 1995, a year after the Cougars transported north from Victoria. Hamilton's brother, Gavin, is the director of marketing and sales, essentially the business manager, and Gavin's wife Anne-Marie runs game operations.
Lorne Frey, a trusted, long-time friend, is the head scout, has been since 1991.
Bruce Hamilton is not just the owner, he's the general manager and governor.
Along the way, as it was written recently in the Vancouver Sun, he discovered that the best teams don't necessarily have the biggest or even the best players, but the best people.
Hamilton has felt the same heat in Kelowna that Rick Brodsky has here -- with one major, major exception.
The Rockets turned it around, and have been to the last two Memorial Cups, winning the coveted trophy last May on home ice. Before the last two seasons, Hamilton's ring fingers were empty.
The young coach Kelowna hired? Okay, so it wasn't his first WHL head coaching position, but when Marc Habscheid came in, replacing a string of old-guard bench bosses like Marcel Comeau and Garth Malarchuk, he told Hamilton he had to be prepared to see the team take a few steps back before it started moving forward. That's what happened. Fact is, the Rockets actually struggled for the first few months after Habscheid took over, and in a touch of irony were taken out in five games by the Cougars in the 2000 playoffs. That was the ninth of 10 consecutive first-round playoff losses for the Rockets franchise, which finished higher than fourth in the division only once in its first seven seasons in Kelowna.
You think Prince George has floundered for a long time? At least the Cats, who have the added disadvantage of having the worst travel schedule in hockey, have made the Western Conference final twice in the last 10 seasons.
In each season in their first decade, the Rockets burned out by the end of March.
"When I brought in Marc Habscheid to coach (five seasons ago)... I wanted our team to become better," Hamilton, an ex-Blades player, recently told The Sun.
"But I wanted pride in the organization. I wanted kids to want to come here. Either you want to play the way we do and be a person who's respected in the community -- not just a jock -- or you change or move on."
Kelowna players are committed to the system -- Rocket robots. Frankly, that corner hasn't yet been turned in Prince George.
Habscheid, by the way, played for the Saskatoon Blades. One of his linemates? Lane Lambert.
While I'm not about to put Cougars head scout Russ Smart in the same category as Frey, nor will I lump Habscheid and Lambert in the same grouping yet, the point here, Cougar watchers, is very, very simple -- patience. Kelowna's scouting staff is not just noted for drafting well, it is lauded for doing an outstanding job of finding players after the draft. In Cougarland, those examples are endless -- Dan Hamhuis, Blair Betts, Tim Wedderburn and Trent Hunter in days gone by; youngsters Real Cyr and Dan Gendur among the current crop.
The Cougars have assembled a young, hard-working team of coaches in Lambert and Stew Malgunas, two former NHL players full of vim and vinegar. The general manager here is young, too. Dallas Thompson has had one year on the job; Lambert and Malgunas have had less than two seasons to impose their program.
The Cougars tried it the old-fashioned way, gave that style more than 10 years, and it did not work.
Call me crazy, but, given the Kelowna model, the young crew deserves at least half as long.