As a sports columnist, my family, friends and readers often ask me for my pre-season predictions. Who will win the Stanley Cup or the Super Bowl and ‘how will my team do this year’ are questions that I hear on a regular basis. While I used to work diligently trying to see into the future, predicting a league champion is not an easy task. There are too many factors involved and the biggest of course is managing to stay healthy – injuries can derail a good team in a hurry! If you are wondering how your team will do in any given season, I’ll pass along something I have learnt from my interviews and you may find your answer. How well do the guys on your favourite team get along with each other?
One of the first interviews I conducted with a professional athlete was with Dirk Hayhurst, a baseball pitcher and New York Times best-selling author. I was a rookie reporter and eager to learn about life in pro sports. As a sports fan, I had often heard the term ‘team chemistry’ and wondered if there was any truth to the phrase or if it was simply a sports cliché, so I asked Dirk about it.
“If you have guys that you have played with before and you are returning to work with them, it certainly does help your comfort level,” he said during our interview. “You make friends in this business and to be honest with you, team chemistry is big, it really is. These are the people that you are going to be around like family, so their opinions of you will either validate your feelings of confidence in yourself or it will erode it.”
Shortly after speaking with Dirk, I had the opportunity to interview and become friends with NHL and AHL veteran Bryan Helmer. He has played in 146 games at the NHL level and over 1,000 games in the AHL during his 19 seasons of pro hockey and Bryan has shared a lot of insights and stories with me over the past few years. A three-time Calder Cup champion in the AHL with Albany (1995) and Hershey (2009 and 2010), and the AHL’s all-time points leader for defenseman, he explained how in his experience, team chemistry contributed to becoming a championship team.
“I have been on three Calder Cup teams and all three have been the closest teams. I always say it is like having brothers, that’s how tight we were. The last two years I could probably be the father of most of these guys though,” Bryan said with a laugh. “You’d go through the boards for your teammates and when you have that, it really does help a lot. It’s fun to be at the rink and it is fun to be around the guys. There was not one guy on those teams that I wouldn’t have over to my house for supper. When you have that type of chemistry and the coach does a good job with it, it’s scary what you can do.”
In my interviews for the NHL Alumni Association, I hear the same thing – team chemistry helps make good teams become great. Speaking with Marty McSorley about the LA Kings and their trip to the Stanley Cup Final in 1993, Marty explained that in other years, they may have had more talent on their roster, but the ‘93 team was the closest and had great chemistry. The result was a Western Conference championship and a hard-fought loss to the Montreal Canadiens in the Final. Members of the 1989 Calgary Flames and the 1986 Canadiens have also explained to me how their team chemistry played a key role in having championship seasons.
We are also seeing a perfect example of team chemistry in today’s NHL, with the performance of the Ottawa Senators. Now, I am not saying they will go on to win the Stanley Cup this year, but most ‘experts’ had them finishing last in the NHL this season. Yet here they are at the 30-game mark, right where I thought they would be – challenging for a playoff position. They have some talented veterans mixed with a young core that won the Calder Cup with Binghamton in the AHL last season. Add a coach like Paul MacLean to the mix, a coach that knows how to win and how to tap into the team’s chemistry, and they are competitive on most nights.
So, the next time a friend asks you who will win the Stanley Cup, look at the rosters and ask yourself, does this group have good team chemistry? If they do, chances are they are on the way to a winning season.
Andrew Rodger
Andrew Rodger is the resident writer for the NHL Alumni Association (www.nhlalumni.net), operates his own website (The Voice of Sport.com) and he is a contributor on CBC News Now. You can also follow him on Twitter (@ARodgerTVOS). He shares his thoughts from inside the NHL Alumni Association and from around today’s NHL every Wednesday here at blog.xhockeyproducts.com.
