Gold Rush
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There are many videos of Herb Brooks talking about coaching, and of course the ex-Gopher
coach was one of the greatest coaches of all time in any sport. He pulled off one of the greatest
upsets of all time of course vs. the Russians but I always thought the victory over Finland 2 days later
was in some ways an even greater coaching feat because he pulled off a win in the ultimate let-down game.
Think of how easy that would have been to have a letdown after one of the greatest victories of all time
but they battled from behind, played hard and won it. If they had lost the game the best they would have accomplished was a bronze medal! Former Gophers Steve Christoff tied it and Rob McClanahan
had the game winner in a 4-2 game the movie "Miracle" glossed over except by script at the end.
This leads me to the present Gopher football team. The Gophers seem to continually earn a good victory only to throw it away the next week with a letdown game that tarnishes what could have been a great season. Everyone is telling the players what a great team they are from the fellow classmates to the national news. You just can't do that - you have to stay hungry all the way to the end of the season. Back to Herb Brooks, if you remember in the movie "Miracle" he makes the team after a lackluster effort vs. Norway skate after the game over and over until even after the lights are out. He said in an interview afterward the reason why he did that was because he never wanted them to go easy - he wanted them to go all out all the time whenever they hit the ice and this ploy worked. I am not endorsing his training methods or saying this should be adopted by PJ Fleck by any means, but they WERE effective and they did work down the road vs. Finland in a game they had to have.
So how do you guard against a letdown in a short season such as football? Every team seems to have that one game (or more!) where they do not play at their peak. The very good ones can overcome this with better talent but our window is much smaller as our teams are closer in talent and when you have several miscues, it can spell disaster. Somehow we need to figure out how to avoid these letdowns because any type of subpar effort will get you knocked off in the Big Ten. Kirby Puckett's words were always, "we just have to take it one game at a time and not get too high or too low" and while this is good advice this can be easier said than done.
And of course now we need to put the Purdue game in the rear view mirror and move on to the remainder of the schedule starting with Illinois next week. If we are STILL grousing about Purdue and lose the next game they effectively beat you twice (think of the Michigan debacle 15 years ago when they were so down they lost the next week to MSU too!) Illinois will be tough and we will need to be firing on all cylinders to win. We need this one bad!! But if we win that one, we need to be able to forget about it and play even harder the next week.
coach was one of the greatest coaches of all time in any sport. He pulled off one of the greatest
upsets of all time of course vs. the Russians but I always thought the victory over Finland 2 days later
was in some ways an even greater coaching feat because he pulled off a win in the ultimate let-down game.
Think of how easy that would have been to have a letdown after one of the greatest victories of all time
but they battled from behind, played hard and won it. If they had lost the game the best they would have accomplished was a bronze medal! Former Gophers Steve Christoff tied it and Rob McClanahan
had the game winner in a 4-2 game the movie "Miracle" glossed over except by script at the end.
This leads me to the present Gopher football team. The Gophers seem to continually earn a good victory only to throw it away the next week with a letdown game that tarnishes what could have been a great season. Everyone is telling the players what a great team they are from the fellow classmates to the national news. You just can't do that - you have to stay hungry all the way to the end of the season. Back to Herb Brooks, if you remember in the movie "Miracle" he makes the team after a lackluster effort vs. Norway skate after the game over and over until even after the lights are out. He said in an interview afterward the reason why he did that was because he never wanted them to go easy - he wanted them to go all out all the time whenever they hit the ice and this ploy worked. I am not endorsing his training methods or saying this should be adopted by PJ Fleck by any means, but they WERE effective and they did work down the road vs. Finland in a game they had to have.
So how do you guard against a letdown in a short season such as football? Every team seems to have that one game (or more!) where they do not play at their peak. The very good ones can overcome this with better talent but our window is much smaller as our teams are closer in talent and when you have several miscues, it can spell disaster. Somehow we need to figure out how to avoid these letdowns because any type of subpar effort will get you knocked off in the Big Ten. Kirby Puckett's words were always, "we just have to take it one game at a time and not get too high or too low" and while this is good advice this can be easier said than done.
And of course now we need to put the Purdue game in the rear view mirror and move on to the remainder of the schedule starting with Illinois next week. If we are STILL grousing about Purdue and lose the next game they effectively beat you twice (think of the Michigan debacle 15 years ago when they were so down they lost the next week to MSU too!) Illinois will be tough and we will need to be firing on all cylinders to win. We need this one bad!! But if we win that one, we need to be able to forget about it and play even harder the next week.
