> From:         Richard Hungerford
> They and the "organizers" were a pathetic joke.  IMNSHO
>
I have experienced pathetic rigging, and there are two solutions to it. First, you can be so much better than any other team, that you can not only overcome the other team, but the refs and organizers. (quit laughing). Second, you can just not show up the next time invited, and communicate by word for mouth the poor product delivered by the organizers. Hit them where it hurts -- in the pocketbook.

But as a coach, I have to very much disagree with this idea that fast-skating/quick-passing hockey is "better". If I have a fast, skilled team, then that is what the team will do. Wasting their time with clutching and grabbing is unproductive compared to the productivity of skating and passing. However, if I am given a big, slow, tough team, then we will play clutch-and-grab because, if successful at this strategy, we will be more productive than if we try to skate fast, which is not our comparative advantage. To force a team to skate and pass when they do not have the ability or gifts to do so is incorrect and not better.

Clearly, what is being produced above is wins. If what the coach is producing is skilled hockey players, then the question is what skill. There is not a single answer (fast skating) to that question. Now, giving into everyone's prejudices, I'd assume the more skilled team is better than the clutch-and-grab team. Well, why not put the whistle away at the end of the game? If the so-called better team has not distanced themselves from the clutch-and-grab team, then let them stew in their own juices. Give the underdog, struggling, yet competitive clutch-and-grab team a puncher's chance at knocking off the fast skating team. Or is this rooting for the underdog too American?

Nathan Hampton