Spirit vs. Guelph Storm - 1.26.08

[sensspiritfan]

Poor game for such a BIG game by the Spirit. It seems we have a number of players that have eased off a bit that don't want to put that extra pressure on the opposing team.

It is not good enough to keep the game close we need 100% from every player like we did when the team was in the winning streak.

The kneeing call on Brodie was a reaction that nearly every player makes when someone makes a last second effort to avoid a hit. That being said there was no way it should have been a major penalty. The Guelph player acted to be hurt to get the major penalty and as soon as we were called for a major then by some miracle he was right back on the ice 30 seconds later for their powerplay.

The penalty to Comrie at the end was a frustration penalty and it was a penalty as he crosschecked the Guelph player from behind.


Something has changed in this team in the last 2-3 weeks to take them away from their total effort game in game out.

Can you say team chemistry- before the last 2 trades we had 1-2 players sitting out and Sinfield was injured now we have 6 players not dressing every game so it must be very frustrating to know coming to the rink that you will not be playing when you are now losing and you were playing during the winning streak.

[donjohnson]

sensspiritfan said:

The penalty to Comrie at the end was a frustration penalty and it was a penalty as he crosschecked the Guelph player from behind.

I have to disagree with this one...it may have been a little frustration but the Guelph player did not do anything to protect himself for the hit. He played the puck and left himself vulnerable to a hit. Bad Call IMO.

[acin]

Let me just say a HUGE obvious problem here:


The Schedule.

All the guys are freaking exhausted. The have such an unfortunate schedule that I don't blame them for losing when they play 3-5 games a week while others are playing like 1 or 2 and have time to rest. Not to mention they have TWO practices a day. Maybe if they had a chance to regain energy it'd make a difference. But it's not going to when they are even practicing/going to the rink THE morning of a game as well.

[donjohnson]

don't NHL and most other teams have a "morning skate" the day of the game?

acin, i'm sure you're a billet or friend of a player, so you probably have more insider info than me but aren't these kids playing for their future? Some to get drafted and some (like Combs) playing for a shot to get invited to draft/training camps, etc? I do feel bad for the Nouvel kids because they have to go to a full day of school plus the hockey. The older kids, though, take 1 or 2 classes and do nothing else. In college, I took 5-6 classes, had a job, and drank a lot of beer and I made out just fine so it can't be too bad taking a class or two, going to practice, and playing video games.

PS - If they think the schedule is bad now...wait until that rescheduled Kingston game, i think it's four in 5 days.

[acin]

donjohnson said:

don't NHL and most other teams have a "morning skate" the day of the game?

acin, i'm sure you're a billet or friend of a player, so you probably have more insider info than me but aren't these kids playing for their future? Some to get drafted and some (like Combs) playing for a shot to get invited to draft/training camps, etc? I do feel bad for the Nouvel kids because they have to go to a full day of school plus the hockey. The older kids, though, take 1 or 2 classes and do nothing else. In college, I took 5-6 classes, had a job, and drank a lot of beer and I made out just fine so it can't be too bad taking a class or two, going to practice, and playing video games.

PS - If they think the schedule is bad now...wait until that rescheduled Kingston game, i think it's four in 5 days.

My point mainly was that they are exhausted while other teams are getting days to rest. I think the schedule is unfit and was selfishly made so that they could get more ticket sales in the later months due to the football season in the beginning. Well, no use crying about it. Just pointing it out that the Spirit are at a disadvantage half of the time.

[teamspirit08]

donjohnson said:

In college, I took 5-6 classes, had a job, and drank a lot of beer and I made out just fine so it can't be too bad taking a class or two, going to practice, and playing video games.

Ya, I see the equivalent.

Just sure you would have had 4,500 people a night analyzing your drinking or video game abilities and your teachers making you travel on exam week to cities 6 hours away!

Bad comparison.

[donjohnson]

i'm not going to argue the issue because I agree that a 3in3 or 3in4, plus practices, plus school is VERY, VERY exhausting. I just want to throw some info out there:

There are approximately 25-26 weeks of the season. If you take the number of games (68) divided by 25.5 you get 2.67 games per week. That means that an OHL team will have a 3 game week 2/3 of the time and if that isn't the case, they'll most likely have a 4 game week to make up for it.

Also, teams across the OHL have played an average of 48.1 games, leaving approx 20 games remaining. We currently have 21 and if you take into account the Kingston game, we are on par with the majority of the league.

I don't think we are in as bad of a situation compared to other teams in the league. If anything, we're actually in a better situation since 13 of the 21 remaining are at home, so the Ownership/GM actually helped us by eliminating travel.

[donjohnson]

teamspirit08 said:

donjohnson said:

In college, I took 5-6 classes, had a job, and drank a lot of beer and I made out just fine so it can't be too bad taking a class or two, going to practice, and playing video games.

Ya, I see the equivalent.

Just sure you would have had 4,500 people a night analyzing your drinking or video game abilities and your teachers making you travel on exam week to cities 6 hours away!

Bad comparison.

i don't understand your reply???

For one, the 4,500 people are FANS, not analysts...if anything the analysts are the couple of scouts that are maybe in attendance.

Also, I was equating my freetime/rest with theirs, not the work involved. Even if I go by your example, a football weekend before Monday midterms is pretty much equal with your travel example. Plus, college midterms are much more important than HS Exams.

finally, i'm sick of defending this tired stuff, yes I understand they're tired but these kids are elite level hockey players, not pansies. If they aren't going to suck it up and play at a high level when they're tired, enjoy Jr B and the beer leagues, i'm sorry, this is getting ridiculous

[sensspiritfan]

As DJ said that every team plays 62 games so they all go through times when there are many games in a short period of time but I'm willing to bet that there is no other team that played 7 games in 10 days like the Spirit did a couple weeks back.

The Spirit still play 3in3 three times for the remainder of the year.

I would think they would get far more tired from a practice than a game. They are on the ice for the entire practice while in a game they are on the ice for what anywhere between 30 seconds to 30 minutes depending on what type of player they are.

The type of practices vary widely with coach to coach with some skating and stamina is more important where others are more concerned with positional play.

[donjohnson]

sensspiritfan said:

As DJ said that every team plays 62 games so they all go through times when there are many games in a short period of time but I'm willing to bet that there is no other team that played 7 games in 10 days like the Spirit did a couple weeks back.

The Spirit still play 3in3 three times for the remainder of the year.

I would think they would get far more tired from a practice than a game. They are on the ice for the entire practice while in a game they are on the ice for what anywhere between 30 seconds to 30 minutes depending on what type of player they are.

The type of practices vary widely with coach to coach with some skating and stamina is more important where others are more concerned with positional play.

68 games

[bpfox]

Just a couple of thoughts;

The "cross checking" penalty on Comrie at the end of the game was a legit call. In fact, it could be used in ref school to show what cross checking is. The Guelph player does not have to put himself into a position to protect himself from this type of hit. You cannot take your stick with two hands shoulder space apart and jam it into a guy's back. You are going to get that call 100% of the time and you should because it's against the rules.

These guy's are not tired, or at least they shouldn't be. You can't blame the schedule. Every OHL team has the same type of schedule from time to time. Just for the record, only Kingston has played fewer games than Saginaw this season. Don't forget these guys are teenagers. Teenagers don't get tired. I know I never did. The way coach Watson has been conditioning these guys all season, there is no reason for them to be tired. I understand a few of them have been under the weather and that would account more for lack of endurance that the schedule would.

They had a bad weekend, no need to dwell on it. It is going to happen over a 68 game schedule. The good news is they didn't lose any ground on their quest to make the playoffs. They did lose ground on the quest to move up in the rankings. That said, there is plenty of time to move up a few spots.

I also don't buy the team chemistry argument. The roster is no bigger now than it has been all season. If everyone is healthy you are going to have healthy scratches sitting out games. Knowing that only the players who are playing hard and earning their spots are going to play should make the team stronger, not the other way around. I talked to Zane this past weekend and he thinks he will be ready to play for this weekends games. If that is true, that will mean more guys sitting out. I don't have a problem with that. Keep in mind that some of the guys listed as scratches aren't even here right now. Peace.

[IGive1]

I think there might be something to the players being tired. They have looked tired to me early in games. I don't think Watson gives them too many days off. I know that after this weekend of 3 games in 4 days, they have practice on Monday & Tuesday at SBIA.

[acin]

Bpfox,

Just because you were never tired as a teenager does not mean that everyone's body is going to function the same way. Saying 'teenagers' don't get tired is a biased statement. I'd love for you to survey at a college or high school how many teenagers aren't tired. I know my TEENAGE sister comes home exhausted from school and playing soccer. In fact in one of my health courses we had a lesson on sleep and a poll. Most teens and students said that they were tired most of the time. So please just speak for yourself.

[acin]

igive1 said:

I think there might be something to the players being tired. They have looked tired to me early in games. I don't think Watson gives them too many days off. I know that after this weekend of 3 games in 4 days, they have practice on Monday & Tuesday at SBIA.

This is true. I have talked to a certain player from Guelph and he said that they get days off quite frequently. In fact there are plenty of pictures of he and the team out at bars on the weekends, unlike Saginaw who has a 10pm curfew.

[igive2]

With a drinking age of 19 in Ontario and 21 here in Saginaw, I'm sure many other OHL teams across the border have public "socials" on more than on occasion.

The good thing about this slump is that the team seems to be in most games right down to the wire. I can only recall a couple of times where they've really been out of the game going into the last ten minutes of play.

For a team so young with 21 of 24 elilgible to return next year, plus an influx of new drafts and 2 Euro picks coming, I'm happy with the season regardless of where they finish.