MALICIOUS OBEDIENCE

That is the title given to a team’s, or more accurately – the individual’s, play when they are in the process of getting their coach fired.

I watched the Senators of Ottawa live on two separate occasions this year - both times I came away thinking they lacked a certain accountability and had too many players acting indifferently. They approached warmup like it was a burden, turned pucks over ad nauseum, went the independent contractor route too often, took needless penalties, and generally gave a “we could give a sh#@” effort.

But this general Senator-malaise isn’t anything new. Plenty of blamestorming and blameshifting has gone on in Canada’s capital since about mid November of last season when they were coming off of a Stanley Cup Final appearance and had a glistening 15-2 record.

Since then the fall has been dumbfoundingly spectacular and the latest person to have the finger pointed at them for it is coach Craig Hartsburg.

Today, the former North Star great is the 3rd ex-Sens head coach in the past year, and the once stable Senators are now giving the Lightning a run for their money in the serial “strangle one neck” department.

Not to say that Hartsburg is, or was, not to blame.

The Ottawa gig was his third in the NHL - the stints with the Hawks and Ducks both ended in the same fashion - which leads me to the question; Are some coaches just not wired with the tools needed to succeed at the major pro level?

Examples of this short-circuiting are seen in virtually every sport. Rick Pitino was great at Kentucky but a disaster in Beantown with the Celtics. The “Old Ball Coach” was a legend at Florida but Steve Spurrier was a dud with the Redskins. Pete Carroll is proving the theory again at USC after flamouts with the Jets and the Patriots. And Hartsburg isn’t the only hockey guy to dominate CHL but fail miserably when handed the reins of an NHL club. Don Hay is as decorated a junior hockey coach as there is (3 Memorial Cups and a World Junior title) yet he was unable to translate that to his NHL jobs with Phoenix and Calgary.

Weird huh?

They can coach…they just can’t coach pros.

Guys like Brian Kilrea who coaches the junior team in Ottawa - the 67s, he has been courted countless times by NHL clubs and he has religiously declined the offers. Same goes for “Coach K” at Duke and Bobby Bowden with those Seminoles. They and others like them want no part of the powerless role of head coach at the professional level.

Leads me to believe that those who have fell victim to the pro-team siren song have their issues more based in an inability to manage personalities and motivate those who have a lot - and/or they fail to agree to a contract with a G.M. who has their back, in an organization that is run the right way.

How does that saying go? “Sometimes the best job you accept is the one you have.”