OT: Yzerman set to be Canada GM again in 2014
Title says it all. I'm rooting for a successful (but not too successful) career for Yzerman, as I'm hoping like many of you that he ends up as the Red Wings' GM down the road. This seems like an important step, as did his major activity with Tampa Bay just before the trade deadline.
http://espn.go.com/olympics/hockey/story/_/id/7649266/steve-yzerman-nam…
When Holland retires, Yzerman will be offered the job first. But doing anything at all that would push Holland out the door is criminally insane.
I'm hoping he can bring Tampa Bay up to annual contender in the East, and Canada to silver medals from here on out in hopes of getting his resume onto the level it needs to be to helm Detroit when Holland chooses to retire.
That is the correct goal for the Canadian hockey team. +1
I also don't want the Lightning taking any cups in a year where the Wings are still in it.
I was under the impression there was one more person between Yzerman and the Detroit job, after Holland. Am I batshit crazy or is there truth to that? I had thought that was part of the reason he needed to leave (temporarily) in the first place.
This was pretty much conventional wisdom after the last result. More importantly, who is gm for the women's team?
*another*
Well played.
What exactly do you mean by "[i]f he played in a bigger market he would get a lot more attention"? I'm just curious because he gets a ton of attention here and this is a (relatively) big market. It's just not a "traditional" market. I'm assuming that's what you were getting at. I still don't think it's a fair comment, though, to be honest. I think his far bigger problem is that his team just hasn't been very good almost the entire time he's been in the NHL. He's been plenty good and his team went plenty far last season, with him playing the starring role in that run. All of those games, all the way through their playoff run, were on national television in the U.S. That's not enough, though, considering how the other seasons went. The other problem that he faces is that, as good as he is, he plays on a team with two other quite good players (i.e. Lecavalier and St. Louis) who are definitely the fan (and community) favorites. He's never going to win the PR battle with those two as long as they are here. I still don't know what that has to do with the size of the market, though...
OK, yeah, if you're talking about endorsement contracts, no doubt I agree. I didn't interpret attention to equal endorsements, that's all. I definitely agree with you. I still think it's a mistake to blame it on the market just because it's a non-traditional market. Everyone here (even non-hockey fans) know who Vinny and Marty are. The fact is, Stamkos, as great as he is, will be in their shadow here as long as they are all here together.
Congrats to Stevie Y, as he definitely deserves the honor of being named GM of Team Canada. I just hope that we get the same gold medal game matchup with a different result in 2014. Maybe the most heartrboken I have ever been after a sporting event, especially given who scored the game winner.
Brendan, why are you so down on Sidney Crosby? The guy is without a doubt the best player in hockey when his head isn't pounding due to concussion. Sadly, I don't think he'll ever make it back to playing full time and his legacy will be a spectacular but shortened career like that of the great Bobby Orr (the greatest player of all time not named Wayne).
Lidstrom, Lemieux, the Rocket, Yzerman, Howe, Konstantinov (my top) would all be way ahead of Orr. Konstantinov carried the puck and made plays like Lidstrom, but nobody would try to skate around him. If they did they were payed out every time and somehow the guy ended up with the puck every single time. He also smoked everyone in +/-.
As a Lightning fan, I could not be happier with the job Yzerman has done so far (re-signing Steven Stamkos for 5 years will do that). This was a team in complete disarray one year, and then the next, it was one goal away from playing for a second Stanley Cup.
I'm a realist and understand that once the Detroit GM spot opens up, he's leaving Tampa, but I'm hoping that doesn't happen for a while.
I could not be happier with the job he has done here, either. I'm not a Lightning fan, but we go to a lot of games here and the difference between the way this entire organization is run is completely different than it was before he took over. Like night and day different. We had moved a way for a few years (the transition occurred while we were away) and I cannot speak strongly enough about just how much more professional the entire game experience now feels in Tampa. I know that's a reflection of the entire organization that came in after the ownership change, not just Yzerman, but I can't help but believe that he has a played a large part in that. The game experience in Tampa is just top notch now; whereas, I definitely could not say that before. That's a large part of why I'm not concerned, in the least, about the Frozen Four being "down here".
But I am locking it in for posterity.