MIGHTY DUCKS NOTEBOOK: BABCOCK BORROWING, NOT STEALING, FROM BEST.Byline: Brice Nixon Staff Writer ANAHEIM - Mike Babcock Mike Babcock (born April 29, 1963 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada [1]) is a Canadian hockey head coach and former player. From 2002 to 2005 he was the head coach of the NHL's Anaheim Mighty Ducks, leading the Ducks to their first appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals isn't too proud to steal, and the Mighty Ducks
Mighty Ducks is a half-hour Disney animated series aired on ABC and The Disney Afternoon in the fall of 1996. Twenty-six episodes total were produced. are better for it. Throughout his first season as the Ducks' coach, and his first as an NHL NHL Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, see there head coach, Babcock has learned many lessons from other coaches and teams. And he's not afraid to use them. The New Jersey Devils The New Jersey Devils are a professional ice hockey team based in Newark, New Jersey. They are members of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The Devils have won the Stanley Cup three times, in 1995, 2000, and 2003. , who could be the Ducks' Stanley Cup Stanley Cup: see hockey, ice. Stanley Cup Trophy awarded annually to the winning team of the National Hockey League championship. Named for its donor, the Canadian governor-general Frederick Arthur Stanley, Lord Stanley of Preston Finals opponent, already taught one lesson to Babcock and the Ducks during the regular season. On Jan. 24, the Ducks' only home game against the Devils, Adam Oates Adam Oates (born August 27, 1962 in Weston, Ontario) is a retired professional ice hockey player. Playing career Oates initially did not have much hope of an NHL career, until Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute offered him a scholarship. scored a power-play goal to tie the score in the second period. The Devils then got a short-handed goal A Short-handed Goal is a goal scored in Ice Hockey when a team is outnumbered by their opponents. The reason the team would be outnumbered is due to a penalty incurred, be it a minor or major infraction. from Jay Pandolfo Jay Pandolfo (b. December 27 1974, Winchester, Massachusetts) is an American ice hockey forward who currently plays for the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League. to go up 2-1 in the third period before adding an empty-net goal. ``They came in here and it was tied late, and I felt we really were on top of them and pushed,'' Babcock said. ``They just hung in there and hung in there and did what they had to do and, bang, they got a goal and they won the game.'' It showed Babcock the value of patience, now one of the Ducks' better qualities, as the similarly stubborn Minnesota Wild The Minnesota Wild are a professional ice hockey team based in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Their symbol is a bear made to look like the wilderness. They are members of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). found out when the Ducks swept them in the conference finals. The loss to the Devils also showed Babcock it was possible to get defensive matchups even on the road. That has been evident in the playoffs when the Ducks have matched center Steve Rucchin against the opponents' top line. ``When New Jersey came in here and they got their people on and off the ice so well, and they got all the matchups,'' Babcock said, ``that's when we started doing what we did with (Rucchin). I mean, if they could do it, we could do it.'' Babcock has taken that same approach with every opponent, even while the Ducks were trying to reach the Stanley Cup Finals. That might seem almost counter-productive, but not if the Ducks are quick learners. ``We learned a lot from the Dallas series (in the second round) about attacking the net. We learned a lot from the Detroit series (in the first round) about how they stretched us out and how we had to keep things simpler. And the Minnesota series was a lot about pushing the pace and getting on top of them quicker, because they were doing it to us,'' Babcock said. ``And we'll get a lot of lessons in the next one as well. Can we adjust?'' --Tweaking: One adjustment the Ducks have been able to make is to the loss of right wing Patric Kjellberg, an important part of the team's penalty-killing unit. He left the team before the conference finals and returned to his native Sweden for ``family reasons.'' But he hasn't been forgotten. ``It's obviously a tough situation,'' Ducks captain Paul Kariya said as he sat at Kjellberg's locker, where items hang looking as though Kjellberg just came off the ice after practice. ``But of course he's meant a lot to our team and to our hockey club all year long, and he's definitely a part of this.'' CAPTION(S): photo Photo: MIKE BABCOCK Ducks coach learned art of patience from potential Finals opponent New Jersey. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion