When I am in public situations and interacting with people, my voice tends to go a bit high and timid. I don't know why. I don't do it on purpose, but it amuses my dad to no end. "Why don't they get to hear your real voice?" he's always asking. "We don't get the shy and sweet you." This is what I think of when I listen to these Caps post-game/post-practice press conferences Bruce Boudreau puts on, all low and beaten-down. You can feel the waves of "You can't blame me" coming off of him. Those who have seen the HBO 24/7 know this isn't his real voice either. This is someone who gets mad and does something about it, but if you just listened to the press conferences you'd think things happen behind the bench without Bruce being any the wiser. The decisions he had to make were all agonizing but something that had to be done. I'm not buying it, just as I'm not buying services from Hadeed Carpet, copiers from Ameritel or a Mercedes from American Service Center.
Every time I post an anti-Gabby statement, I feel bad about it because there is an air of "Enough people are negative about DC sports/hockey/the Caps, we don't need to be negative internally" around these parts. I want the man to prove me wrong. I want Ted Leonsis' faith in him to be justified. But I don't see it. I see someone who thinks because he has good players, he's a good coach, but having eyes will tell you otherwise.
By now we see a team he has molded. There is no more "This is the team he was handed and he did what he could with it." He's decided who his favorites are (Semin) and who he tolerates (Perreault). He's got the greatest player in the world so turned around he doesn't know which way is up any more. The idea of Ovie being a team player is better than the reality. This isn't working. Ovie needs to be a selfish bastard to do what he does best. The phrase "too cute" gets tossed around, and not just by the guys at Puck Buddys. It feels like a preschool team where everyone needs to touch the puck before anyone can shoot. Windows close in that time and opportunities are missed. Standing in front of the net is seen as presumptuous and holding back the defense is a waste of time because the other team still gets into the offensive zone faster.
There are times, and at the beginning of the season they could last for whole games, where there was hustle and drive and an understanding that to win you really do need to score more goals than the other team. When it leaves and you see professional hockey players looking like relief pitchers in the batting box - "How does this go again?" hope fades. These guys are are being told how to play, and so eyes should turn to the play-caller, someone who switches lines and strategies too fast for anyone to catch on smoothly, someone who benches underperformers too few and far between.
I don't think it's a coincidence that people like Bradley and Steckel, who have revealed locker room attitudes are on other teams now and that people who were thought to be potential leaders, especially Arnott, saw how things really ran and distanced themselves.
Prove me wrong, Bruce. Use your real voice. I want a Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men" moment here. I want to hear Bruce screaming, "You want me on that bench! You need me on that bench! You use words like accountability, bag skates and trying harder. I use them as punchlines. Did I order that sloppy power play with no one crashing the net? You're goddamn right I did!"
And in my version of this fantasy, he looks amazed as Knuble and Alan May drag him away.
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