[Bumped. -ed.]
For those of you who were unaware, the Stanley Cup Playoffs continue, even with Buffalo’s ouster. My team, the Pittsburgh Penguins, is about to play the 8 seed Montreal Canadiens, who just pulled off an upset of monumental proportions over the top seed Washington Capitals and their star studded lineup. The Caps had a 3-1 lead earlier in the series, and completely blew it. It only took Tony Kornheiser 3:29 seconds into his radio show yesterday morning to call them by his favorite title for them, “choking dogs”. But this brings up an interesting point, which goes beyond my not getting to see a Pens rematch with one of our most hated rivals.
According to Tom Boswell of the Washington Post, this whole choking away a series thing is not a new thing for the Capitals. In fact, they’ve done this more times then any other NHL team. Count all the times the Caps were up 2-0 in a best of 5, only to lose, and the numbers are quite shocking indeed. My question is how on EARTH does this keep happening? This has happened to multiple iterations of the Caps now, with completely different players. Nobody on the current team had ever been on a Capitals team that choked in this fashion. And yet, you could tell that this was in THEIR heads.
And it isn’t just one hockey team. The Chicago Cubs have made this an art form. I remember watching the series a few years back with the Dodgers. The Dodgers had no shot from a talent standpoint. Not only that, but like the Caps, the Cubs had very few people on that team who had been in a Cubs collapse before. And yet, they came out completely flat. They lost the first two games at home, and the second and third games, you could see the players struggling not only to hit, but to overcome the Cubs 100 year legacy of futility. The Red Sox also had this issue until recently.
How on earth does this happen? These teams are filled with completely different rosters, different coaches or managers. There should be no issue as far as the players are concerned. And yet, there is. Why on earth is this? Where is Malcolm Gladwell to explain this when you need him, anyway? What creates a sports culture of losing, especially post season losing, in which it is required for you to have some level of competence to get to the playoffs?
This is one of those questions that simply confounds me. But hey, at least we’ve settled the Crosby vs. Ovechkin debate. There is no contest right now.
GO PENS!
Man, I would TOTALLY convert this into a non-mini-post, so it’s viewable on the homepage, except I want my Defining Day to remain prominently near the top for a while longer. Maybe this afternoon I’ll convert your post. 🙂
What creates a sports culture of losing…?
I posit that the science behind how a losing culture develops and persists in collegiate and professional sports programs is closely related with the science behind why people choose to go to an inferior school and football program like fUCLA.
Okay, never mind, I’m converting it now. 🙂
I’m convinced an even stranger version of this is in play with both Cleveland and Buffalo, where failures have gotten to the point of impacting teams in other sports. I think a lot of it has to do with fan reaction. Buffalo and Cleveland fans have taken such a beating over the years that whenever anything goes slightly wrong, it feels like it’s the same disaster again and again.
The opposite can also happen, though the only examples I can think of are college teams, where one team pulling off a few improbable victories carries over to the other teams, as the fans, especially the student section, start to get a feeling that their school’s blessed.
Ahem. As today’s game demonstrates, far too many people who either don’t know enough about hockey or aren’t paying enough attention to the games are declaring that the Capitals “choked.” That simply isn’t the case.
Halak had a 98% save percentage on over 130 shots on goal in his last 3 games. That’s simply insane.
He was up in the same neighborhood for today’s game I might add, although the Caps were on average throwing even more at him than that.
This series, like the last one, rests on Halak’s shoulders. If Halak plays well, the Canadiens defense collapses into the slot essentially making rebounds, cross ice passes, and shots from the high slot incredibly difficult. If that’s the case, the Penguins will lose, just like the Capitals did. If Halak plays like he did in game 1 of this series or game 2 and 3 of the Caps series, the Pens will win.
As far as Crosby vs. Ovechkin, I’d definitely argue it’s still Ovechkin. He crushed Crosby this year (as usual) in points per game and +/- and he’s more versatile. Crosby has only beaten Ovechkin in points per game one year since the lockout.
Crow all you want about Crosby being “clutch” but he isn’t. He registered just one shot on goal and no points in the Stanley Cup game seven that they won, just barely. That’s not clutch. He may have gotten the OT game winning goal in the Gold medal game, but that’s a combination of the awesome pass that he received out of the scrum along the boards and Ryan Miller uncharacteristically not being prepared for a shot.
Not to mention those are all team accolades. I’ve seen no evidence that Crosby is an effective team leader. I’d certainly say his regular temper tantrums are in fact the opposite of effective leadership. Asking the refs to make people stop throwing hats on the ice after a hat-trick? Please.
I’m not trying to say he’s not a spectacular player, he is. But it’s a short sighted and shallow analysis that attempts to put him ahead of Ovechkin.
Ahem. Does anyone else see the irony in “Jim Kelly” commenting on a post that mentions “Buffalo” being dumped in the playoffs and is titled, “Culture of Losing”?
Jim Kelly makes several good points @#5 – it was Halak, and not so much Capital choking, that led to the Canadiens’ victory. This is an odd nuance of hockey; sometimes a busy goaltender is a better one, so the imbalance of talent toward the Capitals arguably worked toward their disadvantage, as them peppering Halak potentially made him perform even better. Its possible they would have been better off being a somewhat worse team, taking fewer shots.
The kids and I tagged along with the wife to a conference in Chicago this weekend, where I was reflecting on this topic a bit. Our hotel had several pictures of 20th century cultural ephemera; one near the pool showed the Cubs being greeted for spring training in 1930; the sign notes that they were “National League Champions”. A more damning photo is from 1946, where a bunch of men in trench coats and bowler hats are milling around the iconic sign at Wrigley, which noted that the Cubs are “National League Champions”.
No franchise, team, or organization sets out to be losers. Both Cub signs are striking since they celebrate finishing second; by 1946 the Cubs hadn’t won a World Series in almost 40 years (in a 16-team league) – in the 60+ years since they haven’t even been to a Series. Looking at the 1946 photo, one wonders if maybe there isn’t something detrimental about ‘celebrating’ not winning. And yet, management likely believed the Cubs would win one, soon, so there was no harm in pride over almost, but not quite, winning.
Which leads to the following conclusion: there are two main ways an organization or team can sustain a culture of winning and avoid the culture of losing:
1) Win early and often (perhaps through luck) such that a ‘celebration’ like the ’46 Cubs would be unimaginable – see for example the Bronx Bombers Yankees of the ’20s, who set a precedent of success such that celebrating second would have been unimaginable, or
2) Live Andy Grove’s credo that only the paranoid survive.
To illustrate the second point, imagine a team, let’s call them YouEssie. YouEssie had a long and storied history, which had been mostly characterized by success, but which also had periods of failure that should have made them paranoid about failing again in the future. YouEssie’s most recent period had been arguably their most glorious, led by the highly capable, but controversial, coach Carrollpari.
When it came time for YouEssie to replace Coach Carrollpari, he of many wins and ethics violations, senior management became aware that a similar team, called TennEssie, was coached by a glorified fan boy of YouEssie. This fan boy, named Lame Whiffin, had been known to idealize the minutiae of YouEssie life to TennEssie players, an odd practice given the relative comparability of YouEssie and TennEssie’s teams. Most of the managers at YouEssie thought that Whiffin was an immature buffoon, but a few thought his antics were pretty neat (those managers were also fan boys).
The ones who thought Whiffin was a buffoon held their tongues, though, because Carrollpari left a cloud of corruption at YouEssie such that the managers thought a real coach probably wouldn’t take the job. What the hell, said those skeptic managers, might as well hire Whiffin, how bad could it possibly be? We are great, we will always win, we can survive a couple bad years, the thinking went.
Following a Notre-Dameish pattern, Whiffin’s first season is pretty good, but then the wheels come off in year 2. The natives begin to get restless, and the management finds itself under a ton of pressure. In year 3, Whiffin wins a few games due to luck and the fading glory of the franchise, his team finishes third in the conference, which is far short of Carrollpari’s standard, but not terrible. And those managers are under pressure. And looking to cover their asses.
So you know what happens next – up goes the banner at YouEssie’s stadium: “Welcome to the Coliseum: Home of 3rd place YouEssie”. While this represents a significant lowering of the expectations bar, the managers justify it by saying they are sure to return to greatness soon, so what harm is there in celebrating 3rd place, though in reality they are simply covering their own incompetent asses. And for the next year – or years – coaches, players, fans, the media, everyone arriving at YouEssie’s stadium gets the unmistaken message: “We’re #3! Hooray!”
Thus may begin a pattern such that the next 50 years are then not pretty, but suffice it to say, roll the clock forward a half century, and the old-timers may sit around and celebrate the glory days of Carrollpari, and wonder what happened …. in summary, you have to be cautious about embracing, and then celebrating, mediocrity, or you may become mediocre.
To our esteemed guest who said basically that the Caps did NOT choke . . . come on now. If the best team in the league loses to the last team in in a 7 game series . . . if that isn’t choking, I don’t know what IS.
And at this point, Crosby v. Ovechkin is settled. And its Crosby. Not to say the Ovie can’t come roaring back, though. And I love, just love the “well, sure, he made the WINNING SHOT in the Gold Medal game, but really, I’ll explain that away.” Sure, keep thinking that if you want. But Crosby is an effective leader (in fact, in the Cup Finals last year, that was his main contribution – keeping the team focused). He’s not “Mister Clutch” yet, but he is a good leader in my book. And he represents his game and his team MUCH better then the OTHER team leader in town. You know, the Quarterback Wearing Number 7 Who Must Not Be Named. Crosby is 5 years The Quarterback’s junior . . . but his maturity level appears to be much better.
I do think Ovie isn’t going to let this debate die this year, though. He can take this year and learn from it, and go nuts next year in the playoffs. Which would only be good for hockey.
You do understand the difference between a choke and an upset, don’t you? Choking involves playing poorly, the Caps did not play poorly, save perhaps for game six. Choking is what the Sharks have done up until this year, losing to a lower seed that didn’t outplay their abilities. Halak played at a level that save for lucky bounces, was beyond nearly any ability to solve.
I’ll note on both points you won’t respond to the substance of my arguments, you’ve essentially stuck your fingers in your ears and said, “nuh uh!” You’ve made the statement that Crosby is an effective leader, but provided no evidence to back it up.
To pile on evidence that Crosby is certainly not decidedly the better player, ESPN estimates that Ovechkin will pass Gretzky to have the most career goals of all time (barring major injury of course, but including an average number of “bad years” and the occasional injury).
If you’d like an example to illustrate my point, the Penguins in game 7 last night was a choke.
Gee, looks like my comments were pretty much born out: Canadiens are legit this post-season, and Crosby is the opposite of clutch.
Well, that was indeed a choke job by the Pens. And yes, Montreal is legit.
But Crosby isn’t the OPPOSITE of clutch. Come on now. At this point, I’d say he’s clutch sometimes, and not others – pretty much like most good players. You can’t call him clutch like a Derick Jeter, but he isn’t the opposite either.
Okay, perhaps I overstated my case in order to get maximum enjoyment out of ribbing you. He’s not quite the opposite of clutch, but he does have a disturbing habit of not showing up for big games.