Ference exaggerating party culture, Oilers say
DENVER The current edition of the Edmonton Oilers is more than a little surprised to hear Andrew Ference teeing off on his ex-teammates, saying they treated hockey games like something to occupy the time between late night barhopping episodes during the time he was captain here.
In a podcast with Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, Ference described a culture of party animals who routinely stayed out until three or four in the morning and actually mocked any teammates who tried hard in practice and didn’t share the same zest for nightlife.
It’s not often you hear a former captain shred the work ethic and dedication of the team he had led, which is why Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, the only remaining regular from the 2013-14 team, thought it was a bizarre outburst.
“I don’t have too much to say about it,” he said after Tuesday’s morning skate in Denver. “But I’m a little surprised that he would come out now and say these things. It’s strange. I always got along with him, too.”
Nugent-Hopkins doesn’t remember the Oilers treating the hockey season like Mardi Gras at all. Yes, like every team in professional sports, they hit the town from time to time, and without a lot of veterans or leadership in the dressing room they had to learn from experience where the line was drawn, but he says the atmosphere Ference describes is a major exaggeration.
“To say that guys were going out all the time and were showing up hung over, I don’t remember guys doing that at all,” said Nugent-Hopkins, who has evolved into the best two-way player on the team.
He really rolled his eyes at the notion players were mocked for working hard in practice.
Young, rich athletes wanting to explore new cities certainly isn’t new, or unique to the 2014 Oilers. All teams party. All young players hit the town on occasion.
It’s guaranteed that Taylor Hall and Jordan Eberle didn’t get into half the trouble that the ’80s Oilers did in the era before social media spies. The difference is Mark Messier and Glenn Anderson won five championships in Edmonton, so nobody cared what they did off the ice.
The Dallas Eakins teams were losers, heading for yet another trip to the draft lottery.
“We weren’t a great team at the time and guys got frustrated,” said Nugent-Hopkins. “Things started going downhill and they probably went downhill too fast.”
Suggesting it was up to a bunch of 20-year-olds to come in and set the tone for an organization that was already the laughingstock of the NHL is a stretch.
It’s up to management, the coach, the captain and the veterans to set them right, let them know there is a balance to be struck between enjoying the lifestyle they worked so hard to achieve and making the sacrifices it takes to be a winner.
If the culture wasn’t good, it was incumbent on those people to change it. If they couldn’t even begin to do that, then it is further indication that they weren’t the right choices for management, coach and captain, which is why all of them were quickly changed.
And if hindsight has taught us anything, it’s that there is a huge benefit to working with a gifted young player and helping him negotiate the temptations of youth, fame and money — just as there is great peril in thinking the decisions a kid makes at 19 or 20 are the ones that should forever define him as a person, and giving up on him too quickly.
Tyler Seguin gave the Boston Bruins fits in his early days, until they had enough of his playboy lifestyle and traded him. He’s now a productive talent in Dallas that any team would love to have.
Hall, now 27, is coming off a Hart Trophy season in New Jersey.
Throwing stones at them years later doesn’t serve much purpose.
“For us, in our room, we don’t really care what (Ference) said,” said Nugent-Hopkins. “We’re a new culture, we’re a new team in here. We’ve grown over the years like all young teams and young people do.”