panoo

Work ethic tops on Babcock's list
Larry Wigge | NHL.com columnist
Aug 13, 2007, 9:27 AM EDT

When he was growing up, Detroit Red Wings coach Mike Babcock admired the way his father used to get a lot of work and production out of his team as a pit boss in the rock mines of northern Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.
It was only natural that when he got his own teams that he asked his dad, Mike Sr., for advice on how he might be able to get the same kind of respect and worth ethic from his men.

"He told me; ‘It all comes from your men seeing how hard you work at your job,’ " Babcock told me early last season, when the Red Wings stumbled badly. "I always say to the guys; 'I want us to work hard and be able to be proud of that work ethic.' But if you ask for that, you better show it at practices and in the games."

Coaching in the NHL is a variable anomaly. Not variably cloudy like a weatherman’s forecast that is maybe 30 percent correct. Actually, very little is the same in Babcock’s profession from year to year. The variables range from age and the fact that a veteran player can lose a step or two in an instant to the inexperience of a young player and the unpredictability he displays from season to season. Improbabilities also arise in the categories of free-agent signings and losses and from trades and retirements.

The 44-year-old Babcock has seen all of the above in his four seasons in the NHL, first with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, whom he led to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final in 2003 only to lose to the New Jersey Devils. Babcock was not rehired in Anaheim after a missing the playoffs the next season and then going through the 2004-05 lockout season without a new contract.

"I'm a big believer in the it-doesn't-matter-who-wears-the-uniform, you-put-it-on-and-you-play-hard theory," Babcock said. "But ..."

After a short pause, he added, "There isn't one coach who isn't dying to be successful. None of us wants to fail. I want to be considered one of the upper-echelon coaches in the NHL. However, one good season does not make a coach or a franchise."

As he clearly discovered after being named Coach of the Year in 2002-03 and then missing the playoffs the next.

FULL STORY