Cuddy Shark

Patience, not miracles, in store for Hurricanes

Newmarket Hurricanes fans looking for an immediate turnaround in the
fortunes of their team may be in for a disappointment.
True, the appointment of Brian Perrin as head coach to replace Jim Wells
Jr., will provide a breath of fresh air into an atmosphere that had
obviously stagnated and hit a low in the past few weeks as the Hurricanes
piled one loss on top of another.
By all appearances, the players had simply quit playing for Wells. That is,
at least, the ones still with the team and not yet traded away.
But unless Perrin is some kind of worker of miracles, it’s going to take
time to clean up this mess of a hockey team.
Perrin, for his part, understands his second go at it in Newmarket is going
to require patience. He stated as much as he scanned over the remainder of
November. There’s no soft touches, he noted. That’s not an excuse, just the
way it is for last-place teams.
Right off the bat he is handcuffed by a lineup that has been ravaged by
suspensions from an internal discipline issue and compounded by injuries.
And there is the matter of selling players on his philosophies as the way to
proceed whether they like it or not.
What the Hurricanes can expect now is a hard-ass coach willing to
show his emotions, a sharp contrast to the easygoing Wells. They can expect
special teams play to improve drastically, if not in the short term,
certainly in the long, since this has been a characteristic of
Perrin-coached teams in the past.
Given the opportunity, Perrin will likely bring the Hurricanes back to
respectability, if not this season, certainly next.
One other thing, holdovers from the Wells-era should know they will have a
clean slate with which to work. Using it wisely would be a good idea.
Followers of the team, on the other hand, will have to exercise patience.

What’s up? Fan interest at Canes game

Perhaps everyone does love a train wreck, after all.
Or, more accurately, folks are inclined to slow down for a gander at the
carnage.
Crazy as it seems, the Newmarket Hurricanes-Stouffville Spirit matchup at
the Ray Twinney Complex in Newmarket drew by a mile the largest crowd among
four games scheduled Thursday night in the Provincial Jr. A Hockey League.
In fact, the contest drew 758 fans to watch the Spirit hand a plucky
Hurricanes team, which battled from three-goal deficits twice only to lose
6-5 in the final minutes its seventh straight loss and 11th in 12 starts.
This is a Hurricanes team that is fighting to remain out of the North
Conference basement and was playing under the dark cloud of an internal
issue which saw five players, including four defencemen, suspended earlier
in the week for violating teams rules.
And then it surpasses its nightly average of 625 fans with one of its best
draws of the season.
At the same time, games in Markham, Kingston and Brampton — all teams with
winning records and situated in the top half of their conferences — drew a
combined 413 customers, topped by 175 in Markham.
Crazy, huh?

NFL: Alternative logic

The National Football League, which could easily stand for the No Freakin’
Logic football program in the opinion of many poolsters, is an odd bird.
It’s true what they say about any given Sunday, the truest testament to
parity an unbalanced and weighted schedule can provide in order to create
fan, er, betting interest.
Sometimes you must wonder, though, about the absurd nature in which games
unfold. 
Of all the sports, the NFL is the sport where coaches are well-established
as ultra control freaks, spending days on end holed up in their offices,
looking over game films to acquire the slightest edge on an opponent.
Does it not seem unfair, then, that so many games are determined by
sloppiness, bungling and sheer luck, good or bad? The human element,
including fumbling hands, bumbling blockers and plain old boneheaded play
calls — how does a coach account for all that?
How does a poolie possibly forsee it all?
There is no logic to it all that I can detect.
Of course, I’m stinkin’ it up in my NFL pool, so my question is simple —
given the illogical nature of outcomes, what kind of mind can actually sniff
this stuff out?