NOTE: For those who don't know, I am a freelance writer for the Cape Coral Daily Breeze. Before I came along, the Breeze only did game coverage. In the 5 years I have covered the Blades for them, I have tried my best to turn it into a beat. This year is the first year I will do blogs on the Blades.
This is my personal blog. I have permission from both the team and the Breeze to do these blogs, but out of respect to those organizations I will refrain from using direct quotes and speculation as much as possible-you will find no tabloid type speculation or word twisting here. I don't hide the fact that I am as much a fan of the team as anyone else, but I am still a professional doing a job, so if speculation is what you want then go someplace else for it-its not that hard to find.
It is my intention to do a Blades blog once a week when they are in town for home games, and/or just before they hit the road. I will post links to every blog I do on them where you found the link to this one.
Thanks,
RR
I have to be honest-after all the changes the Everblades were expected to go through this year, because of the disappointments of the last 2, I really didn't have high hopes for the team. In fact, until this past weekend, I expected the Blades to miss the playoffs this year for the first time in team history-I really wasn't expecting them to be very good.
Until this weekend, I was predicting a 20 win season at best...
I've been covering the Blades in some capacity for 5 of the 8 years I have lived here. I've known Craig Brush for 20 years. I'm a big boy, and I can admit when I am wrong, and in this case I'm pretty certain I'm wrong-really, really wrong.
Maybe its because the league is smaller this year and the talent pool more condensed, but from purely a size and speed standpoint this is the biggest and fastest Everblades team I've ever seen.
Only 2 guys on Defense are smaller than 6 foot. Five of the remaining 6 are 6'2" or taller.
Their forwards measure the same way: only 4 of the 13 forwards on their season opening roster as of Tuesday are under 5'11. Of those 4, two of them are definitely on the Brad Zancanaro size-5'7 or 5'8, but solidly built-and, as I said in my season preview (as of this post, I don't have a link for it, but it can be found in the sports section of http://www.cape-coral-daily-breeze.com/ ) for the Breeze, Deeth should remind long time Blades fans of Zancanaro in the way he plays,which would be a good thing, I think, because Brad always flew under the radar with a lot of opponents because of his size. The rest are all 6 foot or taller...
To no ones surprise, Coach Poss is a complete 180 from Cameron. In the locker room, Poss is very laid back, where Cameron was always something of a control freak: guys weren't allowed to make to much noise when Cameron was around. For example, music wasn't allowed to be too loud-even after wins, and us media types were always restricted to the weight room area-in other words, we never had completely open access to the players.
Poss is more like Flemming-the locker room and the players are freely open to the media (we are back to conducting coaches interviews in his office), and he lets the guys be guys.
I wasn't able to catch Friday's preseason game, but after Saturday's win the locker room was a much...happier...place than I remember it under Cameron after wins. It was loud, guys were joking and laughing as they got to know each other (the media luncheon was also like that today-much more laughter than when Malcolm was around). This isn't to say Cameron treated the players as a whole badly, Cameron just ruled his ship with more of an iron fist. It's funny how things like that can go unnoticed when you aren't really looking for them...
The hiring of an assistant coach was not a surprise to me. I asked Brush about it during training camp-whether or not it was Poss's idea. Brush made it clear that it was his idea to have an assistant this year. According to him, it was an opportunity he didn't want to pass up-the right guy at the right time kind of thing. Personally, I get the impression that Brush prefers having an assistant coach. He never commented about it under Cameron, or said anything about Marks when he was brought in for the playoffs, but it was definitely an impression I got from day one under Cameron-that Cameron basically insisted, against Craigs better judgment, on not having an assistant. I can't say if Brush ever pressed the issue with Cameron, but I know Brush's hockey background pretty well because I've known him so long, and I can say with some certainty that Brush prefers having a 2 coach system.
Tapper, I think, will make as good an assistant as Nobili did. He strikes me as a very capable guy and, since he played under Poss in Germany, he knows Poss's style and expectations as a coach. They look very comfortable together...
At the media luncheon Tuesday I decided to interview former players (which is my s.o.p. for the event). I spent time with Mathieu Roy and Ross Carlson. When I do a general interview like these, I ask the same questions the same way because I find the difference in perspectives interesting.
I asked both about their feelings on the upcoming season: Roy has always been something of a character-a good sense of humor and full of energy. He was almost too excited to get started.
Ross had the general air of a businessman with me. Maybe Ross don't like me, I don't know-that is his prerogative. Don't get me wrong, Ross was professional with me and answered my questions, but he was always a pretty sarcastic guy when Cameron was around, and seemed happy. Today, it was hard to tell whether or not he was excited for the season to start.
Both, however, pointed to Evgeny Timkin, when asked about players they are excited to see play.
Timkin is a stud, that's for sure.
At 6'3 the guy is huge on skates, and he sort of glides around the ice with the ease of an ice skater instead of a hockey player. The result is that he is deceptively fast, which showed Saturday night. It is obvious why he spent most of last year up in the AHL, so we can only hope that we can keep him for most of the season. Funny thing about Timkin-he speaks barely a word of English. Because of it Vladimir Nikiforov-who is born American to Russian parents and speaks Russian-is his room mate and translator while he is in Florida...
The new affiliation with the Lightening also comes as no surprise to me. I know that Craig knows Steve Yzerman-the teams new GM. Both are members of the same country club in metropolitan Detroit-something I also knew before hand; so when I heard about the new affiliation it was no surprise to me. Other writers locally may speculate wildly about why and how this new affiliation came about but I caution readers to not pay attention-those that would do this have no clue what they are talking about. All that Blades fans should know is that this new affiliation, because of the personal connection, will be a much better fit for the Blades than the Panthers were...
I'm not arrogant enough to make any predictions for the season, but I will say that I shouldn't have had such low expectations for this years team. Brush, like him or not, knows what he is doing. He and Poss have put together another team with the potential to win it all again. Hopefully, it will happen this time...
I am easy to find at the games and have no problem talking hockey with the fans: I used to be a smoker, so during intermissions I used to go outside and smoke by the smoking section. Although I quit smoking over the summer, I made many friends who are season ticket holders that smoked. Because of that, I will still be found outside by the smoking section during the first intermission of all home games-though don't count on it during the 2nd intermission. I'm easy to approach and have no problem with criticism, so if you want to take it out on me-call me an idiot, an asshole, a know nothing, etc, feel free. Just know that I'm not afraid to dish it back at you. Anyway, come by and say hi to me, hope to see you there sometime...
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