Hockey Canada Parts Ways With Head Scouts

[HartAttack]

http://www.tsn.ca/canadian_hockey/story/?id=423907

I wonder if this has anything to do with the recent controversy surrounding Brossoit not being picked for Team Canada.

Also, I'm thinking about other similar player decisions recently where there seems to be bias in who's attending selection camps & ultimately being picked for the national teams... (I'm thinking Eastern Canada players being picked over Western Canada players, etc.)

Either way, an interesting story and probably good to shake things up as to not let the politics get too out of control.

[Cheerio]

Originally Posted by HartAttack

http://www.tsn.ca/canadian_hockey/story/?id=423907

I wonder if this has anything to do with the recent controversy surrounding Brossoit not being picked for Team Canada.

Also, I'm thinking about other similar player decisions recently where there seems to be bias in who's attending selection camps & ultimately being picked for the national teams... (I'm thinking Eastern Canada players being picked over Western Canada players, etc.)

Either way, an interesting story and probably good to shake things up as to not let the politics get too out of control.

Was there really any controversy about Brossoit getting cut or was it just fans being upset with the decision?

[moon]

Seems doubtful that it was because of Brossoit since that was only a controversy amongst Flames fans and goaltending wasn't the problem with the WJHC.

My guess is that it is a very competitive job with lots of qualified people available to take it and Canada, while having great results for any other country, isn't happy with a couple of years with no Gold.

More to do with the nature of the position than any one thing in terms of selection.

[Flames Draft Watcher]

I'd say Subban and Murphy were questionable decisions. Subban was not good in the pre-tournament games. Murphy is much too one-dimensional. Both might be blamed on the head coach as well for showing favouritism to his own player (Murphy) and the top goalie from his league (Subban). Who knows how much input Pendergast and Tugnutt had on those decision.

IMO it does look bad to basically hand Subban the starting role after he's the worst of the 4 goalies in the pre-tournament games. I didn't find I had any confidence in his consistency all tournament.

Doubt that had any bearing on the scouts performance. I wonder if it is more about players they didn't bring in to camps.

[Red John]

Good that Kevin Prendergast got the boot - he should have never been near Hockey Canada in the first place. An old buddy of Lowe's.

Have to imagine that behind closed doors, things are pretty volatile over at Hockey Canada. The world juniors and world championships have been a disaster for the country the last few years. With the U.S. development rise Canada might soon not even be the best hockey country on the continent let alone world. Goaltender has to be the biggest development problem right now.

[old-fart]

Now they need to cut ties with the restnof the Oiler stink - namely Klown. How a guy who cant run his own team gets ahigh up position with Hockey Canada is amazing to me.

[cowtown75]

Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher

I'd say Subban and Murphy were questionable decisions. Subban was not good in the pre-tournament games. Murphy is much too one-dimensional. Both might be blamed on the head coach as well for showing favouritism to his own player (Murphy) and the top goalie from his league (Subban). Who knows how much input Pendergast and Tugnutt had on those decision.

IMO it does look bad to basically hand Subban the starting role after he's the worst of the 4 goalies in the pre-tournament games. I didn't find I had any confidence in his consistency all tournament.

Doubt that had any bearing on the scouts performance. I wonder if it is more about players they didn't bring in to camps.

Well said, took the words out of my mouth. I think Brossoit earned it, was the better out of the three, and the position was given to the hype surrounding Subban regardless of his lackluster performance. I don't think it was just Flames fans myphed at the decision, there were many others.

[moon]

Not to drag this out but Subban had been better all year long, had been great in the U-18's and was just fine at the WJHC.

I think the much larger body of work should have been used to determine the goalies and not just a short 4 day camp.

Even if that was the case then Patterson would have been the starter and main guy as he was by far the best goalie at the camp.

Subban's selection wasn't questionable at all in my view. Murphy may have been.

[cowtown75]

Originally Posted by moon

Not to drag this out but Subban had been better all year long, had been great in the U-18's and was just fine at the WJHC.

I think the much larger body of work should have been used to determine the goalies and not just a short 4 day camp.

Even if that was the case then Patterson would have been the starter and main guy as he was by far the best goalie at the camp.

Subban's selection wasn't questionable at all in my view. Murphy may have been.

Well going by that logic, what would be the point of even inviting Brossoit as he was clearly one of the top guys if you are just gonna hand the job over to a guy who had a better regular season in the recent past ? I would assume the camp was put in place to whomever earned it and was playing better right now, not what they did do in the past- not that Brossoit's stats and winning his MVP trophy last year was nothing to sneeze at either.

[lazypucker]

With Hockey Canada being such a huge program, I wonder why they can't/don't want to have a full-time GM/Scouting/Coaching staff who are not affiliated with any NHL or Junior clubs?

[moon]

Originally Posted by Red John

With the U.S. development rise Canada might soon not even be the best hockey country on the continent let alone world. Goaltender has to be the biggest development problem right now.

That seems very, very doubtful.

That was the first time in 15 years they failed to medal in the WJHC, and they likely would have if the bronze medal game mattered to them and they have lost about 5 games in the past 10 years in the round robin.

The US "rise" includes a 7th place finish and as many finished outside of the medals as in the top 3. They have an average of finishing 3.4 in the past 5 and 10 years while Canada is 2.4 the last 5 years (tops) and 1.9 the last 10 years (easily the tops) all while missing many more of its top players than other nations.

I know Hockey Canada tends to freak when it isn't gold, gold, gold but Canada is still by far the best hockey nation and hockey development country and despite the improvement of the US compared to what they once were they are far from being much of a threat outside of once every 8-10 years at the WJHC.

[moon]

Originally Posted by lazypucker

With Hockey Canada being such a huge program, I wonder why they can't/don't want to have a full-time GM/Scouting/Coaching staff who are not affiliated with any NHL or Junior clubs?

Not a whole lot for them to do especially in non-Olympic years. Definitely tough to get a top level guy to coach the Spengler Cup and WHC and then do nothing for the rest of the year.

The WJHC does have full time scout/coaches which is who got fired today.

[browna]

Originally Posted by Red John

Good that Kevin Prendergast got the boot - he should have never been near Hockey Canada in the first place. An old buddy of Lowe's.

A "tier 2" scout, obviously.

Originally Posted by old-fart

Now they need to cut ties with the restnof the Oiler stink - namely Klown. How a guy who cant run his own team gets ahigh up position with Hockey Canada is amazing to me.

He got it because of Gretzky in'02, and likely since has polished Nicholson's shoes and car weekly. If Nicholson moves up to President of the IIHF in a couple years, I can see Lowe taking a run at Nicholson's old job.

[Northendzone]

Relax boys, my son (a goalie) is a 2002, so he should be eligible for TC in 5 more years......

[Sakari]

I think it's as simple as the fact that we're not succeeding as a Team CANADA should. We have undoubtedly the most available skill, and yet, we're not winning.

[Red John]

Originally Posted by moon

Not to drag this out but Subban had been better all year long, had been great in the U-18's and was just fine at the WJHC.

I think the much larger body of work should have been used to determine the goalies and not just a short 4 day camp.

If you were building a team for a long season or even a best-of-seven playoff run with a bigger sample size of games, yes you need a large body of work to make your decisions.

But when its a short tournament, there's something to be said for running with the hot hand. Example would be choosing Drew Doughty for team Canada for the 2010 olympics, he had zero body of work but was just coming into his own, and he went from being a 7th defenseman on that team to a real key part of a gold medal.

Sure Subban had the better resume but why hold an evaluation camp at all if you aren't going to use it. Junior players especially go through bigger ups and downs and confidence is so huge with them - Brossoit should have made that team although none of the goalies were real stellar at that camp.

You go with the hot hand in a single-knockout, short tournament.

[cral12]

I noted after the World Junior team was selected last year that I thought the 2 players omitted that they might come to regret were Hunter Shinkaruk and Matt Dumba.

Dumba didn't have the greatest camp, but is a X-Factor they could have used.

Shinkaruk was very good at camp and is a game breaker they could have used.

Of course, hindsight always 20/20.

[FAN]

Prendergast got fired from the Oilers and deserved it and he gets hired by Hockey Canada? I thought that was a mistake to begin with.

There are always going to be surprise cuts, but it seems pretty clear that camp performance doesn't matter all that much. I get that Subban was going to make the team, but Brossoit outplayed Binnington. And Corrado was one the first cuts after scoring 2 goals.

[vilzeh]

[moon logic]Canada hasn't won since 2009, but yes, they are still the best, no one comes even close, not even USA! who have only one twice after 2009, not enough! [/moon logic].

[FAN]

Originally Posted by Red John

If you were building a team for a long season or even a best-of-seven playoff run with a bigger sample size of games, yes you need a large body of work to make your decisions.

But when its a short tournament, there's something to be said for running with the hot hand. Example would be choosing Drew Doughty for team Canada for the 2010 olympics, he had zero body of work but was just coming into his own, and he went from being a 7th defenseman on that team to a real key part of a gold medal.

Sure Subban had the better resume but why hold an evaluation camp at all if you aren't going to use it. Junior players especially go through bigger ups and downs and confidence is so huge with them - Brossoit should have made that team although none of the goalies were real stellar at that camp.

You go with the hot hand in a single-knockout, short tournament.

It's hard to compare the WJC to Olympics involving NHL players. For the Olympic team, Team Canada didn't have a "selection camp" but rather an evaluation camp.

Beyond that, selection preferences aren't that dissimilar: there's a preference given to experienced players (returnees) and usually a player or two from each position that represents the future of Team Canada would be chosen.

So saying that, if you take away the selection camp that acts more of a tryout, you can argue that Team Canada DID go with the hot hand. Comparatively speaking, Brossoit wasn't the hot hand. He was off to a slow start in the WHL and was inconsistent at best in those subway challenges and Canada vs Russia games. With that said, I think if you look at Brossoit's entire body of work, he should have been on that team. But from a who was hot standpoint, you take away Brossoit's arguably superior camp and Brossoit deserved to be cut.