Sean's Blog

Canada vs. Norway - Olympic Men's Hockey

I watched the Canada vs. Norway match from Vancouver yesterday and it was a fairly interesting game.  I thought the Canadians were a bit tentative and maybe a tad awestruck by the occasion (which is saying something for a group of NHLers) in the first period.  Obviously Babcock got them fired up between periods and much of the rink wide passing in the offensive zone turned into direct shots on goal.  Once Canada starts shooting, driving the net and playing the puck down low, there isn't a team in this Olympics that will stop them.

A few things I noticed:

- Iginla fit like a glove with Crosby and Nash.  Crosby's ability to find the open man and Iginla's ability to get open with his stick on the ice in shooting positions will be lethal for Canada's opposition.  I think that game by itself showed that Calgary in the summer must try and move one of those stud defenceman they have for a centre that can get Iggy the puck;

- I could write a whole blog entry about Rick Nash.  I love watching the guy play.  He's fast, he's big, he drives to the goal, he's got great hands, he plays the man and he hustles back to play a good defensive game.  It is a pity he re-signed, I would have loved for Burke to throw the bank at him and bring him to Toronto.  Yesterday, in five-on-five play, he was the best player on the ice;

- Roberto Luongo continues to mystify me.  He seemed like he was constantly fighting the puck, reaching for things rather than letting it come to him.  When he would venture outside of his crease to play the puck, well, it was an adventure to say the least.  Then again, he stopped all fifteen shots.  Still, for me, it is Brodeur from here on in - he will play his role of Sweeper/Keeper which should help Canada's very mobile, puck moving defense look better;

- I'd like to watch more of Duncan Keith - he's just solid.  I will be watching more Kings hockey just to watch Drew Doughty develop - that move he put on the Norway defenceman yesterday was silky, the guy is still looking for his jock.  Oh, and there was that hit!  I saw Doughty play live earlier this year in LA, I enjoyed it;

- Babcock will be the difference maker in this tournament for Canada.  When you watch him run his bench and then compare that to Ron Wilson, its a joke.  Babcock is "in" the game, a line has a good shift, he gives them a quick break and throws them back out there.  He spent the first ten minutes of the game getting everybody a turn to get them into the game right away.  He juggled his lines effectively to shift energy players around - his use of Patrice Bergeron, Jonathan Toews and Mike Richards was amazing to watch;

- The depth on the team is staggering - if Perry, Getzlaf and Stoll are your third line, you're in good shape.  Mike RIchards as your spare forward is also pretty enviable;

- It will be interesting to see how the game of the defencemen change when they have a tougher opponent.  They were high-flying, wheeling and dealing, coast-to-coast and very mobile against Norway.  It is going to be fun watching Keith, Seabrook, Weber and Pronger knuckle down against the Russians or Swedes;

- Shea Weber is the business - put him in a proper hockey market and he's going to win some Norris Trophies.  He and Phaneuf are like the prototype of the modern Canadian defenceman - big shot, aggressive, quick and physical;

- Best thing we ever did was reinstate the touch up rule for offsides, kids are learning to play the puck offensively as defencemen again.  There is a ten year hole in Canadian hockey history in relation to offensive defencemen - you had Orr, Bourque, Coffey, Neidermeyer and then nothing until the 2005 batch;

- Speaking of 2005, seven players on Team Canada played on the Gold Medal Junior team in 2005 - that's just amazing. I think people like the Hunter brothers and the Sutter brothers should all be given kudos for their work in developing young players, they have their fingerprints on quite a few of the best young players Canada has produced in the past five to ten years.

I'm looking forward to the Swiss game tomorrow!

Leafs Are Embarrassing

Living in Australia, it is hard to be an NHL fan.  Regular TV coverage on Foxtel is terrible, but thankfully Gamcenter from the NHL has made it very easy to watch every game live.  I am taking this opportunity to introduce my six year old to the Leafs and more importantly hockey in general.  Unforunately, he was subjected to Florida Panthers trap on the weekend.

The little fella did really well, he sat through two full periods.  As the Leafs/Panthers were a few minutes in front of the Habs/Rangers game, it let me flip back and also introduce him to Don Cherry and in the second intermission the Hot Stove.  He took it all in, pretty much sat still the entire time and is gaining a better understanding of the finer details of the game, like offsides and icing - things the PA Announcer in hockey mad Miami has to tell the crows about.  

Then a moment of sheer brilliance happened - mid-way through the second period he said to me, "Why are Florida all standing around in the middle?"  Even to a six year old with almost no understanding of the game he could spot the trap and what a nightmare it is.  I tried explaining the defensive strategy behind it and his response was simple, "Florida look slow."

Which turns us over to the Leafs.  They used their team speed to get around the trap fairly effectively.  They used their team speed to create plenty of time on the puck in the offensive zone.  They didn't use either of those things to create good scoring chances.  To me, it all boils down to their unwillingness to drive to the goal and contentment to fire shots from the perimeter with nobody screening the goalie or available to pick up rebounds.  Their best moment of the game came when Colton Orr moved to the slot, took a shot and Jeff Finger broke to the goal and bounced the rebound off the post.

The biggest area of embarrassment for the Leafs though has to be specialty teams.  The umbrella shooting is ridiculous because nobody is creating traffic in front of the goalie and Tomas Kaberle must be paying for his own sticks because he appears fearful of shooting and breaking one.  The Leafs consistently passed themselves into lower percentage shooting spots on their powerplay.  Even Bill Lindsay doing colour commentary for the Panthers asked why they were making low percentage cross ice passes instead of firing it from the point and using their numbers advantage down low.  Phil Kessel is more or less useless out on the hashmarks - he's never going to score from out there.  They've got to get back to basics - two point men staying out high to spread the defenders, one man screening the goalie and two wingers buzzing in and out as appropriate to try and pull a penalty killer out of position to create a higher pecentage shot.  This is coaching - draw it on the whiteboard before practice and spend fifteen minutes working on it and it will improve.

Moving on to the penalty kill and again, Lindsay nailed it - the Leafs may end up being the worst penalty killing team in the history of the NHL since they began keeping these type of statistics.  Again it is coaching.  Blind Freddy can see that the Leafs forwards are playing too deep - they are giving up plenty of point shots and goals are coming off either the players running round or rebounds.  Cory Stillman's goal was the classic example, the point shot was easy as the player had nobody on him, three Leafs were inside the hashmarks and not one took the man standing at the top of the crease who tapped in a shot that banked off the end boards.  Simple stuff, make the powerplay team play outside the box and take low percentage shots OR force them into risky passes  across the ice to find the open man.

I think part of the problem is the Leafs terrible powerplay must practice against their terrible penalty kill.  They seem to be just getting worse and worse.  Ron Wilson MUST get involved and sort this out - just go back to basics, do the easy stuff right before focussing on the complex.

Which leads us to personnel.  I can honestly say, I've never seen a player out of position as much as Francois Beauchamin was against Florida, and for that matter, just about every time I watch the Leafs.  He pinches at the wrong time, he wanders around aimlessly in his own end and he's prone to stupid passes up the middle.  He is proof positive that Scott Neidermeyer is a Hall of Famer - anyone who can make Beauchamin look that good deserves a spot in the Hall.  

Here's a stunning thought - Komisarek and Kaberle are the two best defensemen on the Leafs.  The way Luke Schenn has played the last couple of games, he seems to have gotten the simplicity back in his game and is looking good, so he's number three for me.  That means that at best Beauchamin is your number four and over the course of the year, Ian White has been arguably the best defenseman on the club, so does that not put him ahead on the depth chart meaning Beauchamin is the fifth best defenseman on the third worst team in the league.  Oh dear, Brian Burke - not good at all.

Speaking of Ian White, he was terrible against Florida and teaming him with Luke Schenn is a disaster for the young Schenn.  Ian White gave the puck away on bad passes out of his own end at least a half dozen times.  Then because of his smaller stature, he's unable to physically make up for his mistake by rubbing someone out.  On more than one occasion Schenn had to recover the situation for White, but with a young guy like that, struggling for confidence, making him do extra is a bad recipe.  I've watched White the last few games and his play has been average.

One thing that surprises me is how ordinary many of these Leaf pending free agents have played.  Ponikarovsky just doesn't go to the net like a big man should.  When he does, he tends to score, but watch him in front of goal, he never screens properly, he stays slightly off to the side so that he doesn't get hit with a shot.  Goalies on streaks like Vokoun is in right now eat that up.  There's talk the Leafs will move Stajan and Ponikarovsky pre-deadline, I'd move Ian White too, I think long term he's more of a question than an answer.  I'd re-sign Gustavsson because he's shown glimpses, although his lateral movement on the second goal was brutal, he had two chances to move sideways before the shot came and didn't get over fast enough, but on the three on one he stoned them - he's worth another season with a seasoned backup behind him who could step in if he fails.

Overall, my six year old is getting the same treatment from the Leafs that I got as a kid in the 80's.  The team was so awful that any sign of hope, no matter how small, made the day a bit brighter.  Hopefully the next game he watches doesn't involve Florida and their horrible trap.

FML is in trouble...

I'm a big fan of Football Manager Live - it is the only MMO that I've really every played and gotten into.  The game has had its ups and downs which was to be expected considering the scale of what Sports Interactive and Sega were trying to achieve.  We're now at the one year mark, user participation is falling, paid subscriptions are dropping and there is a sense of malaise among the community.  I'm sure this was never envisioned.

Marc Duffy from SI announced a series of fairly radical changes coming to FML.  Gareth Millward, of GameworldOne does a really good job of summarising the changes here.  Basically, SI are calling for a "do over".  They will be totally resetting the gameworlds, cutting back on the number of GWs and making some changes to the structure of the GWs to better suit a variety of players.  I'm more or less in favour of the reset, but it does have its flaws and the worrying part for me is that SI ALREADY appear to be missing the customer feedback.

That's a critical point as well.  Millie says in his post that SI won't get another shot at this and he's dead right.  The problem is, SI have been fairly arrogant and somewhat ignorant of the community on the crux of this issue for a very long time now - too many gameworlds.  Go back eight months ago in SI's own forums and there were a plethora of people saying that SI were opening too many gameworlds, too quickly and that eventually the old worlds would die.  They didn't listen and now here we are.

The second thing I've noticed from glancing over the forums is the sheer outrage at people losing their skills.  If I were SI, this would be a MASSIVE warning bell for me - people are complaining SOOOO bitterly about losing their skills because acquiring them ISN'T FUN!!! Skilling up falls entirely out of the gameplay and is just a necessary evil.  Rather than apologising for resetting the skills and talking about GW balance, they should be realising that skill acquisition is a massive weakness in the game and the players see it as nothing more than a laborious chore. 

I just re-subscribed last week for another 3 months.  That totally annoys me.  Basically for the full duration of this three month subscription, I'm going to be on "the green mile" so to speak.  I don't care what anyone says about trying to qualify for a "Professional" or "Hard Core" GW, alot of people are just going to pack it in.  The reset should be coming in January or whenever 1.4 is ready, not in March. 

Many people are demanding refunds and are complaining about being paying beta testers.  I don't care about the refunds or whatever, but there is something to be said about this paying beta testers.  I'm not sure if SI can fix it, but there is a bit of that as a bad taste in the mouth and two months for free isn't going to rinse it clean.  I'll get over it, but they are certainly going to lose plenty of subscribers on principle.

Despite all of that, I think they've made the only sensible decision they could have made.  I think the game is broken and to fix it they need to do something drastic.  A full reset is drastic.  I am slightly concerned that again, the community is in an uproar (largely over skills) and there doesn't seem to be a "positive" reaction.  I would have thought the best response would have been, "Wow!  This has hightlighted just how crap our skills system is, we'll work on that."  Maybe come out with a system whereby you earn skills for achieving things and they are acquired over time - I dunno, something.  However, saying, "Sorry, that's the way it is going to be" just sort of smells of the same position SI took with opening new GWs and we all now know how that turned out.

That Hit!

I've watched the Michael Liambis hit on Ben Fanelli about a half dozen times.  I'm not sick or perverse, I'm just trying to find something wrong with the hit.  Certainly the end result, a fractured skull and numerous other injuries to a 16 year-old boy is grotesque, but the actual hit itself, I'm not so sure.  Smarter people than me, like Steve Simmons and Damien Cox have all more or less deemed it a clean hit as well.  Liambis, didn't leave his feet, he was finishing his check, it wasn't late and it was shoulder on shoulder.  It was extremely violent, but hockey is a tough game.

Much discussion is being had about whether or not the removal of obstruction, an effort to open the game up and show off the speed had a hand in this.  I think there's a bit of that, but overall, the game is better off without the obstruction that existed pre-NHL lockout.

Another vein that I've seen some discussion in was around whether players respect one another.  I don't think Michael Liambis disrespected Ben Fanelli - he just finished his check.  I think hard checking is a sign of respect, it says that, "if I don't try and put some doubt in your mind, I think you're a good enough player who's passes will hurt my team." 

I think the biggest problem with this hit comes from bad coaching and weak administration of the game at the amateur level.  That's a big statement I know, but here's my argument.

Ben Fanelli turned his back to an on coming, rushing forechecker.  Twenty years ago, when I was Ben Fanelli's age, playing the same game he plays, same position (not nearly with as much skill sadly), I knew and had been taught that you NEVER turn your back to an on coming player and put yourself in a position to be hit from behind.  I'm not saying Ben Fanelli caused his own injuries, but, I am saying he didn't make a safe play.  If you watch the replay again, he also had his head down when he picked up the puck.  He certainly knew Liambis was coming, that's why he reversed the play, BUT turning your back like that is not smart, you are placing your safety totally in the hands of the other guy.

I think this fatal mistake is a result of poor coaching of kids and an amateur administration that hasn't dealt with hitting from behind properly.  When I was playing in novice, checking started at minor bantam, so teenagers.  The administrators in Ontario decided to drop the age to minor Pee Wee - they didn't grandfather it in or anything, just brought it in one year.  Luckily, I was only Atom age and at the end of that season our coaching staff worked with us in practice on how to take a hit (especially along the boards) and how to check effectively.  This was also the time when "hitting from behind" formally became a penalty.

I can say that in several years of full-contact hockey at many levels (House League, Rep, A, AA, High School, etc) I was never once hit from behind into the boards.  I also have no memory of any game I was ever involved in where someone got hammered into the boards from behind.  We were all taught to take the hits front and side on.

A few years ago, I went to watch some kids play.  They had "STOP" signs sewn onto the back of their shirts between the shoulder blades.  In that single game and the game after, I must have seen a half dozen, questionable hits and two or three squarely from behind into the boards.  More horrifying, at GTHL AA level, I saw a 13 year old boy go into the corner in his own end, face first to the boards, fishing the puck out with his stick.  He got hammered from behind and speared himself with his own stick.  The kid who hit him was tossed from the game.  I'd never seen anything like it in all the years that I played. 

To me, it was clear that the kid who was hit could have had a flashing neon sign on his back and the boards lined with airbags, but he hadn't been properly coached enough to protect himself.  It was sickening.  These kids could pass at speed, shoot like pros and stickhandle like crazy, but in two games, I saw several kids turn their back to the play along the boards.  Newsflash - a stitched on "STOP" sign won't protect you!  It is a small sample admittedly, but these kids need to be taught to play contact hockey properly.

As for the administrators, I would suggest you make it mandatory for all coaches to teach their kids self-preservation.  Hockey is fast and violent, contact is legal, being a beautiful skater with silky slick stickhandling won't help you if you have your head down.  Let' get back to teaching kids to protect themselves and not rely on the good sense of others - teach them to take matters into their own hands!

Finally, to David Branch who has suspended Michael Liambis for the rest of the season.  Perhaps part of the problem is that you had a 16 year old child, playing against a 20 year old young man.  This is the same David Branch who's argued for "special" 15 year olds to play junior.  I think it is a bad idea for boys to play against men.  Rather than blame a kid for a clean hit, perhaps we should figure out a way to deliver high quality hockey to 15 - 16 year olds, but not dump them in with 17 - 20 year olds.  I think the overage junior rule should be banished - no 20 year olds.  I think we should consider a "Minor Junior" league of 15 - 16 year olds who can "graduate" to the full Junior A squad for 17 -19 year olds.  Branch should address the real issues here, not play around the edges.

For those of you think I'm crazy, I'm going to attach the video of the hit on Ben Fanelli.  I hear Ben has been released from hosptial, which is awesome - I wish him the best of luck.  I also hope Michael Liambis recovers, clearly he was emotionally distraught from the outcome of his hit.  Goog luck in the future to both young men!

The Customer Is Always Right!

Over at Gameworldone.com they have a new blog post written by Mark Burton that I had to read twice to get my head around.  I like Mark Burton.  I reckon he is probably the best resource about FML that Sports Interactive and Sega Europe aren't paying when it comes to the game.  Mark is the Lead Moderator in the Fowler Gameworld, where as a fellow moderator, I have the immense pleasure of dealing with him.  More than that, whenever I have any sort of question about FML, Mark is my first port of call for an answer.

HOWEVER!  I think he's bumped his head and then drank the kool-aid heavily before writing the above mentioned post.  Here's a brief summary of Mark's positions:

• Sega Europe publish their Terms and Conditions and its up to you to keep abreast of the changes they make to the game;
• Even though they sell the game to those of us overseas, their primary responsibility is to the UK and Ireland for support;
• FML is the "little brother" of Football Manager, even though myself (and alot of other customers on 12 month contracts) pay more, we should "understand" that FM is actually the priority and gets the bulk of the resources; and,
• The community on the forums really ought not to expect the SI Devs to spend too much time tracking the community.

Mark is a great guy, but this blog entry is seriously warped.  Let me go through the points above and give you my flavor:

• SI/Sega need to do a way better job of keeping the community informed of the future of the game and that's totally evident by the general feeling within the posts we're seeing on the forums and some discussions on the GWs that the GWs are slowly dying.  I think SI/Sega treat their "conversation" with the customers as a bit too one way and they hold back way too much.  It is totally old school marketing where you create demand and then have a "ta da" moment unveiling.  I suggest that a few of the senior folks at SI go read "Tribes" by Seth Godin;
• The idea that its "ok" to sell the game overseas, but REALLY those of us not in the UK should just understand that support is primarily focused on the UK is ridiculous.  If I walk into JB Hi-Fi here in Sydney and can pick up a boxed copy of FML then I'm a first class citizen and the idea that I'm not disgusts me.  I hope that's no the SI/Sega Europe point of view;
• The concept of the "little brother" to FM irritates me.  I understand fully that FM is the bread winner for SI and Sega Europe, it is what let's them gamble a bit on things like EHM (I miss that game so much, shout outs to Riz and GK), but I pay a fair whack for my annual subscription to FML.  I think Mark has this wrong.  I am pretty sure SI have a separate team entirely working on FML, with its own budgets, P&L and KPIs - to do anything else would be stupid business; and,
• Having a community like the one SI have built over the years is a double edged sword.  Most companies would DIE to have such a dedicated, rabid fan base.  FM and FML fans are the football management equivalent of Twilight junkies.  Unfortunately, there are no IQ and EQ tests required to buy the games and sign up to be a member of the community.  I used to be a mod on the SI forums years ago when EHM was around and some of the people who posted made me call into question Darwinian theory.  On the other hand, those people MUST be considered a PASSIONATE fan base.  I think SI see it that way too, Ov, Miles, Duffy and a few others do spend their time getting in amongst it.  Again, I think Mark's view in his post is a bit inconsistent with SI's views - he doesn't work for them nor is he speaking for them, so that's cool.  I would suggest that SI hire their own Community Manager and get a bit more involved, I don't know Bertie from Sega, but I think someone who sits in SI's offices and is part of the team would better serve that role.

All up, I thought Mark's article was difficult to read because it was apologist.  It let's SI and Sega Europe off the hook for things they don't do well and calls into question whether the customer is right or wrong.  The customer is ALWAYS right.  Even when the customer is wrong, the customer is RIGHT.  Why?  Because the customer controls their spend.  As a software company you can be as right as you like, right about everything, but if the customers think you're wrong and don't buy your product, then ultimately, the company was wrong. 

Here's what I would like... I'd like to see a more open product roadmap.  We keep hearing about plans to "re-vitalise" the older GWs.  How about rather than telling me as a customer, why not have a conversation with me about it?  What if SI/Sega Europe outlined their high level plans and asked for some feedback?  Sure, somethings may or may not come to fruition and the ones that don't will certainly upset people who like those ideas, but forewarned is also forearmed.  I've made a decision to join SI/Sega Europe for the ride - I signed up for 12 months and will renew for another 12 months.  Instead of treating me solely as a customer, how about treating me as a partner and letting me know where the experience is headed.  Use your blogs to dream, not advertise upcoming features that are already set in stone and 95% developed.

Things like forums, blogs, Twitter and the like are "social networking".  By their very nature they imply a two way conversation.  I'm not interested in seeing the blog, with the video of the tactics engine for FM10 that is already finished and in final testing.  Post on the blog about the ideas you're toying with for Youth Academies in FML.  I know the SI team do take a lot of ideas on board that come from the community, I just think right now it has gotten away from them a bit - people now expect more engagement, sometimes it just feels that SI/Sega Europe are preaching from "on high" and not talking to us - and that's my biggest complaint about Mark's blog entry, he's making excuses for that behaviour.

Playing Youth in FML

One of the things I like to do when I get a bit of spare time is playing Football Manager Live (FML) online.  FML is a massively multiplayer football (soccer) management game from Sports Interactive.  The game is an offshoot of the successful Football Manager series that SI have been releasing for about 15 years.  I pretty much own every version of FM (and CM before that) and have spent countless cumulative months over the years playing it.

FML is the only MMO I've ever played seriously.  The community that SI hve built around their games is amazing and something I keep in the back of my mind for my professional life.  For example, Jordan Cooper who has commented on some of my previous entries runs Gameworld One, a site dedicated to all things FML and along with Gareth Millward he produces the FML Extra podcast every week.  SI currently run about 35 production gameworlds (each can have a maximum of 1000 players) and I've been lucky enough to be in the same gameworld as both Gareth and Jordan, GW Fowler.

I'm pretty average at the game, despite having been a member since Fowler launched back in November 2008.  I spent the first seven seasons struggling upward and peaked at a senior ranking of about #88.  I then decided to take a more youth focus approach and during the eighth season I sold every player in my squad over 21.  I proceeded to drop down to about 343rd in the GW.  I went on a run of 28 straight senior matches without a victory at one point.  I was demoted in my FA.  I hit rock bottom with my senior side. 

On the flip side, I became a top 20 ranked manager in the youth sides.  I've been solidly ranked in the top 16 for the past three seasons and this season I sat at #2 for a little while.  Meanwhile, my youth movement is coming to fruition - I'm back ranked in the top 100 in the GW and am progressing nicely on all fronts.  I should even get promoted back into my FA's Premiership for next season.  It has been a long three seasons, so here's some things I did right and I did wrong.

I think the way the game is geared right now, long term success can be achieved with developing a good youth side and selectively bringing in one or two new players a season and selling off some veterans for profit.  I initially made a huge mistake by selling off all of my high reputation older players and going with low reputation younger players.  To best develop your younger players you must play them at a level where they are averaging 6.8 or more per game and the side has to be reasonably successful. 

What I learned is that reputation in FML is everything right now.  You can go to just about any reputable blog on FML and they'll tell you why - I suggest you read it and take it in!  This past season I decided to compliment my very young Senior side with a few 4.5* older pros.  The result has been amazing.  They've immediately improved my side's reputation and therefore my income.  My team is playing better and winning most of the time.  Most importantly for me, my young players are seeing their reputations improve more quickly as my team is more successful and they play better!  The other thing I've done is made sure that the older players I've brought in this year, I have young guys who can replace them in a season or two when the rest of my side matures to support it.

I am enjoying this element of the game more and more - planning a couple seasons out and thinking about the make up of my side.  My goal is to be a top 50 side next season and maybe top 20 the season after in both senior and junior competitions.  After that, who knows!