I have mentioned before here that as fate would have it I have been good friends with Mike Sullivan since he was a 13 yr old freshman at Boston College High School in Dorchester/Boston. He and my little brother remain exceptional close to this day. My entire family is so proud of him. Here are some excerpts of his pc today.... pretty cool stuff for those who are Pens fans, or really just fans of hockey. What is really interesting is his best and worst games of his playing career were both in that very arena. In 1994 he was beaten badly defensively for a key goal while playing for the Sharks and cut the next day. Next year as a member of The Flames he scored his only career hat trick against SJ in a playoff game.
NHL Live
June 14, 2016
Mike Sullivan
“We had a pretty good comfort level on the bench that we were playing the game the right way. I was trying to make sure that we kept the shifts short enough so that our players had enough energy to play the way that we wanted to play, so that we didn’t get caught out there defending when they were tired and that’s usually when mistakes are made or penalties occur and so I was trying to keep the shifts short and get everybody involved.
“When I was watching the players carry the Stanley Cup around the rink – I could not have been more proud of how hard they worked, how they came together as a team…it’s the hardest trophy to win in pro sports. I love the way our team did it.
It took every one of our guys. Everyone contributed in some way shape or form to get there… I could not be more proud of them.
Every experience you go through in hockey – we all take something from it…(On Blackhawks) their clear vision of what they are. They have an identity as an organization. It starts from the top with Stan Bowman and it filters down right to the team, as far as what that identity is and they have really defined that extremely well… its something I tried to do with this group when I first took this team over was to create an identity for this team and what we were going to represent or how we are going to play and down to a man – what’s your contribution, what’s your role and how you contribute to this identity so that we can give ourselves the best chance to win…
They are tremendous athletes and I told them(Malkin & Crosby) that, but it was my responsibility to challenge them to push their games to another level… if I did not try to do that it would be irresponsible of me as the head coach.
We certainly try to do it the right way and we tried to challenge this group, we try to challenge them everyday to be at their best… they care about winning, I have so much respect for them as people first and foremost and I was grateful that our message to them certainly resonated. The are a fun group to coach. It was a privilege to coach this group.
…I have had experiences that have shaped my convictions and my philosophy, whether it be styles of play and
how I would envision my teams to play, to how you interact with these players and get the most out of them.
That’s probably one of the biggest challenges of coaching at the NHL level is just that – the interactions with the players and managing the players in such a way that you maximize their potential and everybody is different.
You can’t read a book and try to apply it… the experiences that I have gone through over the years as far as that is concerned and really believe that the relationships that I was able to establish with our players o this team, really helped us down the stretch when we were trying to push them to get to the next level.”
NHL Live
June 14, 2016
Mike Sullivan
“We had a pretty good comfort level on the bench that we were playing the game the right way. I was trying to make sure that we kept the shifts short enough so that our players had enough energy to play the way that we wanted to play, so that we didn’t get caught out there defending when they were tired and that’s usually when mistakes are made or penalties occur and so I was trying to keep the shifts short and get everybody involved.
“When I was watching the players carry the Stanley Cup around the rink – I could not have been more proud of how hard they worked, how they came together as a team…it’s the hardest trophy to win in pro sports. I love the way our team did it.
It took every one of our guys. Everyone contributed in some way shape or form to get there… I could not be more proud of them.
Every experience you go through in hockey – we all take something from it…(On Blackhawks) their clear vision of what they are. They have an identity as an organization. It starts from the top with Stan Bowman and it filters down right to the team, as far as what that identity is and they have really defined that extremely well… its something I tried to do with this group when I first took this team over was to create an identity for this team and what we were going to represent or how we are going to play and down to a man – what’s your contribution, what’s your role and how you contribute to this identity so that we can give ourselves the best chance to win…
They are tremendous athletes and I told them(Malkin & Crosby) that, but it was my responsibility to challenge them to push their games to another level… if I did not try to do that it would be irresponsible of me as the head coach.
We certainly try to do it the right way and we tried to challenge this group, we try to challenge them everyday to be at their best… they care about winning, I have so much respect for them as people first and foremost and I was grateful that our message to them certainly resonated. The are a fun group to coach. It was a privilege to coach this group.
…I have had experiences that have shaped my convictions and my philosophy, whether it be styles of play and
how I would envision my teams to play, to how you interact with these players and get the most out of them.
That’s probably one of the biggest challenges of coaching at the NHL level is just that – the interactions with the players and managing the players in such a way that you maximize their potential and everybody is different.
You can’t read a book and try to apply it… the experiences that I have gone through over the years as far as that is concerned and really believe that the relationships that I was able to establish with our players o this team, really helped us down the stretch when we were trying to push them to get to the next level.”
