Despite Baertschi’s three points, Canucks fall to Hurricanes
Top-down authoritarian style no longer as effective for coaches as it once was
RALEIGH, N.C. — If you’re asked to name a “boring, old-fashioned company,” you might find yourself saying “IBM.”
If you don’t, that’s OK, but please do accept the premise. It’s a tech company, but it sure isn’t the first place you think of when you hear “tech.”
But even boring old IBM knows that the young staff it’s hiring today need — expect even — to be handled differently from how people were treated before.
The tech company understands that millennials expect ongoing “leadership and guidance around their career and their job and where they are in relation to where they want to be,” an IBM executive told Business Insider in 2016.
That’s how young people have been conditioned. As adults, they don’t expect a once-a-year performance review; they want ongoing assessment and feed back.
It’s down to modern parenting and especially modern education. As children, today’s players went to schools that placed the student at the centre of the experience, recognizing that they all learn in different ways. The curriculum focuses as much on how people learn as on the nuts and bolts of what they are learning.
The National Hockey League has been slow to recognize how different young people are from even a decade ago. The struggle to connect with the new generation was seen first-hand in Vancouver, one of the reasons Willie Desjardins isn’t the Canucks coach anymore was because of a failure to recognize how the modern athlete expected to be handled.
For those us coming from the outside, it seems odd that a sport so dependent on young people wouldn’t be focused heavily on understanding how they think, but hereweare.
But even at the summit of hockey, it is fair to say that the wind is shifting.
In a recent column, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman noted how popular a presentation by Katie Crawford — the daughter of former Canucks coach Marc Crawford, working on her master’s in exercise and sport psychology at the University of B.C. — proved to be with attendees at a recent coaching conference.
The days of the coach being the boss and the players following along obediently — with no room for understanding the how and why of the decision — are over, she explained to Friedman. It’s conditioning that goes back to when they were in school. It’s what they’re used to.
“(Millennials) are craving true intimacy, connection with their teammates and coach. A place to belong is important,” she said. “The online world means more friends, but less-deep friends. (Attitudes of) blending in, (with) no room for individualism, are not gonna fly. The selfless values hockey teaches are good, but it’s the way you mandate them that’s important.”
Canucks coach Travis Green and Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour, both were born in 1970 and played for coaches who were very much in the school of doing things the old ways. For them, the way athletes are now isn’t an issue.
Since he stepped into his newjobayearago,Greenhas been open about how important ongoing communication with his players is. His players echo that sentiment, pointing to the coach’s focus on the players, on what they need to understand, on what they want to understand and how to connect with them.
Brind’Amour, with a team hoping to lean on a cluster of young forwards, is reading from the same playbook. It’s one that he’s had to learn in his family life.
“I’ve got kids that age, so it feels pretty easy for me to talk with them,” the Campbell River native said Tuesday, ahead of his team hosting the Canucks at Raleigh’s PNC Arena.
A father of four, Brind’Amour’s three oldest children are out of the house and starting their adult lives.
Now he’s in charge of an NHL squad filled with players his kids’ age and up.
“Be honest with them; I think that’s the key.”
A personal touch is required. “You’ve got to get to know them, because they all tick a little different,” he said.
Criticism is necessary, but the touch must be light; the tendency is that they might take it too much to heart.
“Definitely got to keep being positive with them,” he said. “But you do have to show them the stuff.”
I’ve got kids that age, so it feels pretty easy for me to talk with them.”
Rod Brind’Amour