The lead topic for his most recent podcast, with
his regular "Friday Round Table" contributors, was "female
coaches" and the possibility at some point that a female might coach a
professional men's team. Needless to say, the panel pretty much sided with the
"highly unlikely" viewpoint, not that a woman would not be capable
from a variety of perspectives but that the "glass ceiling" would be
very difficult to break if not as close to impossible as it might get.
It was pointed out that females have played key
roles with high profile professional men's teams, most notably in the National
Hockey League where a female teaches "power skating" and does so so
effectively that the panel agreed that there were many, many NHL players who
owe at least part of their professional careers to this woman. But, as a head
coach, hmmm, not very likely and the reasons, valid or not, are many.
Canadian's National Women's hockey team has had
many male coaches but although Canada has never had a female coach its national men's team, I
wonder what the likelihood might be for that to occur at some point. What say you?
In the sport of curling, in Canada, there have been
female coaches at the Brier but not at the helm of a men's Team Canada to date.
I'm not going very far onto a limb if I were to say that very few Canadians
would take much notice if that were to occur.
All this talk on "Prime Time Sports" plus the fact that we're into "award season" led me to reflect on the "Best Performance by a Coach in a Single Game",
my MVC (Most Valuable Coaching) Award.
My choice for the award is Daniele Savageau, Coach of Hockey Canada's national women's team (2001-02) and here's why.
By the time the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt
Lake City rolled around, the rivalry between North America's 39th parallel
cohabitants in the sport of ice hockey had been ratcheted to the frantic point.
To say that the USA was eager to capture its first IIHF women's gold medal and
of the Olympic variety at the expense of Canada would be putting it about as
mildly as possible. By the way, that hasn't changed and in a few weeks in
Sochi, Russia, the rivalry will be renewed, big time! Although Canada and the US have been the only women's
Leading to the Salt Lake Games, it’s worthy of note
that the USA had finally fielded a team that was the equal of Canada. That had been demonstrated in the 2001 IIHF Women's Championship whereby Canada scratched out a narrow victory. Actually
one could easily argue that the team the USA Hockey sent to the Utah city was
not only its best, but was the prohibitive favourite to bring the gold medal
south of the border. In preliminary games between the two countries, the
American women were 7/7!
It was evident from the drop of the puck at the E Centre in Salt Lake that the
official was clearly out-of-her-league. She was overwhelmed by the intensity of
the contest and everything that went with it. This was in the days before the
two referee system so she had no help getting the game back on track. It would be easy to point a disparaging finger at this official but as
stated above, she was placed into a position for which she was not prepared.
I’m sure she did her best. That notwithstanding, penalty after penalty was
called on Team Canada, most of them, by anyone's standards witnessing the game,
were unjustified, to the point that it's my recollection that Canada played a
full one-third of the game short-handed, one-third! In the midst of that
maelstrom, Coach Savageau came to the team's rescue.
Sensing the injustice being perpetrated on her
team, Coach Savageau would have been fully justified to rant and rave about the
unfair treatment her team was receiving from the official. She had to know that
had that been her response of choice, many hockey rednecks would have applauded
her as she acted in defense of her players.
But she took the high road, realizing that to give
in to the instincts described above would most certainly rub off on her athletes
and she needed them to be focused on the task at hand, remaining disciplined to
the tactics needed to deal with the hand dealt to them. She knew she was not
going to affect a change in the way the game was being called. Her only control
was to ensure that her team reacted in a manner that most promoted a successful
outcome.
Inwardly she might have been burning up but as with
great athletes, she not only deserved an MVC Award, she also could have been
given an Oscar for her acting performance. She was unruffled throughout the
game and her athletes picked on that and played with poise and
discipline, eventually prevailing.
As the game progressed, I kept asking myself what I
would do in her situation. I don't know but I would hope I'd keep it together
as well but I'm not sure that I would have done it with her grace and dignity.
It was the best single game coaching performance I'd ever witnessed!
I had the chance at a sports conference to briefly
meet Coach Savageau. I took the
opportunity to shake her hand and tell her what I just told you. In her
understated demeanor she simply smiled and thanked me. I knew that Coach Savageau
had been a police officer in Montreal but research led me to the knowledge that
her law enforcement duties was in the area of narcotics. I’m no expert in
criminology but one does have to be to know that the criminal element in the
world of illicit drugs is comprised of individuals not likely to win any
citizen-of-the-year awards. I learned that in one instance, the actions of
Officer Savageau who ordered a forced entry into a known drug location, saved the life of a fellow officer. This is one tough woman!
No, I don't know where she is today but if someone
reading this does, please forward this posting to her. She needs to know
how I feel about here amazing coaching performance and the role modeling it has
provided.
Coach Savageau, on behalf of my readers, thank you
and please accept “Bill’s MVC Award” for the best performance by a coach in an
incredibly difficult situation!
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