The struggles of this 2015 team the Boston Bruins, goes a lot deeper than the CEO Charlie Jacobs coming out and saying their play is unacceptable, yes it is part of this team turning it around as of late, some may say the players are nervous of losing their jobs? The actual fact and answer to this turn around goes to Claude the Coach, as he still has his finger on the pulse of this team, but the biggest reason of the turn around is, the actual pride of each player Individually, go right down the roster and their are all members of this team you will find responsible for this dip in their play.
Sometimes you don’t understand pride until it comes and slaps you in the face and that is what it did, when Charlie Jacobs said what he said. It all started when this team lost to Montreal in the playoffs last season, they were the best team in the league, won the President’s trophy and thought they had the Cup in the bag? I will give them a couple key injuries early in the season, but the main reason of their lack of play is, the fact of pride and not being confident in themselves to overcome adversity, you would think that Claude would fix this issue? He is not God and you may lead the horse to water, but ultimately it is the player that needs to drink that water and run with it, not just are these Bruins drinking the water, but their confidence is better, they realize what each of their strengths are, which is what the coach brings together, so the whole team can be better and stronger moving on through the season and hopefully into the playoffs.
In a full hockey season the ultimate goal is to make the playoffs, then the goal becomes to win the Stanley cup, which is the most prestigious and hardest trophy to win in all sports. The end of a Stanley cup run will have the player feel emotionally as well as physically drained, then as they turn the corner into the next season, you can’t help but still feel the affects of the season previous, its not just the job of the coach to motivate the players, but each player has to motivate themselves as well as their teammates, sometimes this motivation takes way longer then it really has to, now during this time you hear a lot of crap from the so called sports media and the fair weather fan, simply because they don’t truly understand the game of hockey, true hockey players get paid a good amount of money and the so called sports media would have you think money motivates, but hockey players get no where nears the amount of money as a baseball player and a hockey player works 10 times harder, this motivation comes from within each of the players, with a small percent coming from other areas, in order for the player to motivate himself, he has to want it and sometimes this want takes a little time to build up, a little encouragement in the right places will help greatly, but it is the Individual player that fully motivates himself, then he motivates his teammates with the same encouragement he had received.
This Bruins team and the core of this team are still a great bunch of guys on and off the ice, they still have some to give, just that they need to put the past behind them, look at the now and what is in front of them, so they can have success and get into the playoffs, then as they become better and stronger, bring that into the playoffs and have fun winning another Stanley cup, then we start another season a new, with that issue of motivation once again you get the picture, playing the game of hockey for a player, is the same of each of us walking our paths along our journey of life.
” hockey players are a lot like you and I living our lives, just that we are playing the game of our lives”
” motivation comes from within, sometimes it has to be lifted out of us”
” to motivate ourselves is sometimes the hardest thing for all of us to do, like accepting real change to our lives”