Interesting piece about Terry Ryan

[Garry Valk]

No questions uh ? No other possibilities ? It's not the booze, drugs, hoes, lack of respect to his coach, lack of brains ? The habs ruined him...

Gotta agree on this one re: Ryan. Habs did ruin him. His development was a joke. They never gave the guy a chance. Just like many of their other picks from that era. Terrible player management.

 

[Cole Caulifield]

Gotta agree on this one re: Ryan. Habs did ruin him. His development was a joke. They never gave the guy a chance. Just like many of their other picks from that era. Terrible player management.

NHL teams aren't in the business of giving chances to players who aren't serious about being pros.

If Ryan had wanted to be a NHLer, truly wanted it, and had a brain, he would have played in the NHL, with the habs or another team.

Hell, Ryan himself in his book admits he screwed himself out of a chance at being a NHLer.

 

[Garry Valk]

NHL teams aren't in the business of giving chances to players who aren't serious about being pros.

If Ryan had wanted to be a NHLer, truly wanted it, and had a brain, he would have played in the NHL, with the habs or another team.

Hell, Ryan himself in his book admits he screwed himself out of a chance at being a NHLer.

Really? Do you listen to the interviews with some of these guys currently in the NHL? You can't possibly think Ryan is somehow less intelligent or serious than many of them.

As an aside, that would suggest that every player the Habs drafted for a 7 or 8 year period weren't serious about being pros. Not true at all. Many became pros elsewhere, after the Habs had screwed with their development. Until 10 or 12 years ago, this org was very sick. Happily, it is much better today.

 

[Blind Gardien]

NHL teams aren't in the business of giving chances to players who aren't serious about being pros.

If Ryan had wanted to be a NHLer, truly wanted it, and had a brain, he would have played in the NHL, with the habs or another team.

Though once a team has invested a 1st round pick in a player, it is in the team's best interests to help the player truly want to be an NHLer, and equip him with the knowledge and tools to do so. That still doesn't guarantee a successful result, of course.

But it seems like a lot of the old-school approach like Ryan faced was more along the lines of putting up as many barriers as possible and seeing if the player was going to be able to pull them down on his own. Throw them into the deep end and see if they could learn to swim before they drowned. Basically, just propagating what old-school players went through themselves. For some players, they just breeze through that stuff. Others fought through it and emerged successfully. Others couldn't make it. But I have to wonder how many of those who didn't make it might have found a way if a more constructive and supportive framework had been in place.

 

[Cole Caulifield]

Though once a team has invested a 1st round pick in a player, it is in the team's best interests to help the player truly want to be an NHLer, and equip him with the knowledge and tools to do so. That still doesn't guarantee a successful result, of course.

But it seems like a lot of the old-school approach like Ryan faced was more along the lines of putting up as many barriers as possible and seeing if the player was going to be able to pull them down on his own. Throw them into the deep end and see if they could learn to swim before they drowned. Basically, just propagating what old-school players went through themselves. For some players, they just breeze through that stuff. Others fought through it and emerged successfully. Others couldn't make it. But I have to wonder how many of those who didn't make it might have found a way if a more constructive and supportive framework had been in place.

The guys who can't fight through that stuff usually lack the motivation, character or confidence to do it. These 3 traits are pretty important if you want to build a winning team that doesn't fold at the first sign of adversity.

In Ryan's case... he says it himself :

I've said it before: I don't want to blame any underachievement on anyone else. And I don't. I mean, ask any hockey player, they have lots of stories about this coach or that coach that may have given them the shaft. Most guys are ************, but some guys have some truth to what they say. I take full responsibility for my career. I made some bad decisions and I deal with it.

Then he proceeds by disparaging Therrien some more..

 

[Lafleurs Guy]

Though once a team has invested a 1st round pick in a player, it is in the team's best interests to help the player truly want to be an NHLer, and equip him with the knowledge and tools to do so. That still doesn't guarantee a successful result, of course.

But it seems like a lot of the old-school approach like Ryan faced was more along the lines of putting up as many barriers as possible and seeing if the player was going to be able to pull them down on his own. Throw them into the deep end and see if they could learn to swim before they drowned. Basically, just propagating what old-school players went through themselves. For some players, they just breeze through that stuff. Others fought through it and emerged successfully. Others couldn't make it. But I have to wonder how many of those who didn't make it might have found a way if a more constructive and supportive framework had been in place.

Good post.

 

[Stoneburg]

I have no insight into what happened, sounds to me he did not do himself any favours, however, I remember they tried to make him into a goon at the NHL level, so they didn't do him any favours either.

 

[Blind Gardien]

The guys who can't fight through that stuff usually lack the motivation, character or confidence to do it. These 3 traits are pretty important if you want to build a winning team that doesn't fold at the first sign of adversity.

I don't know about "usually". Or at least, if they lack those traits in some degree at 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 years old, it isn't necessarily the case that they can't develop a sufficiency of those traits as they mature. People don't have those traits in binary. Few people are the Perfect Soldier at every stage of their career. You can help players develop along the spectrum with respect to those traits without turning it into a sink-or-swim test prematurely.

Some will say, but hey, Terry Ryan had x years to figure it out and turn things around. Maybe he did, but it's still pretty hard to discern where any tangible amount of support and education came in along the way. He may have spurned any such interventions anyway. He seems like he was maybe as close to a lost cause as it gets. But it doesn't seem like much of an effort was ever made, when maybe it ought to have been. Anyway, it's an evolutionary process. The Habs were just part of the general pack in treating prospects that way in those days, nothing novel in their approach. Nowadays things have evolved, so you have the developmental camps and more oversight, more recognition of the investment made.

 

[calder candidate]

Drafting a player that you never interviwed... heck they didn't even know what he or shane Doan look like since did mistook Terry for Shane in the elevator before the draft.

Montreal Screwed up like they srewed up a lot of player, on the other hand it almost if Terry was trying to fail, he got injury which didn't help... but knowing what we know now about concussion and brain injury it won't surprise if part his behavior could be explain by is style of play.

He had decent stats, just too much fighting...

 

[Scintillating10]

Though once a team has invested a 1st round pick in a player, it is in the team's best interests to help the player truly want to be an NHLer, and equip him with the knowledge and tools to do so. That still doesn't guarantee a successful result, of course.

But it seems like a lot of the old-school approach like Ryan faced was more along the lines of putting up as many barriers as possible and seeing if the player was going to be able to pull them down on his own. Throw them into the deep end and see if they could learn to swim before they drowned. Basically, just propagating what old-school players went through themselves. For some players, they just breeze through that stuff. Others fought through it and emerged successfully. Others couldn't make it. But I have to wonder how many of those who didn't make it might have found a way if a more constructive and supportive framework had been in place.

You are thinking too much into it. Ryan just never took care of himself until it was too late, his body was beat up. By heavy boozing, Pejorative Slured partying life and fighting everything and anything in a reckless abandon on ice style. By 22 injuries had curtailed his career. He suffered concussion right after he was drafted. Then he had chronic bad ankle, terrible daily pain from his right knuckles, fore-arm into his shoulder. By 24, the high ankle sprain decimated what chance he had at NHL career.

 

[Stoneburg]

I heard that given his fighting skills, he was given a little more space in the WHL, and he used that to score. But his his was not big/good enough to generate that extra space at the higher levels, and hence, the lower performance.

 

[TheCanasianfrasian]

Drafting a player that you never interviwed... heck they didn't even know what he or shane Doan look like since did mistook Terry for Shane in the elevator before the draft.

Montreal Screwed up like they srewed up a lot of player, on the other hand it almost if Terry was trying to fail, he got injury which didn't help... but knowing what we know now about concussion and brain injury it won't surprise if part his behavior could be explain by is style of play.

He had decent stats, just too much fighting...

Thats the most mind boggling thing in my mind. They draft him and 15 minutes prior they think based on his physical person that he's Shane Doan. This is twice the mind**** because 1)they draft him anyway not knowing who he is BUT ALSO 2)They really really wanted Shane Doan and they thought he was Terry Ryan.

 

[yianik]

Thats the most mind boggling thing in my mind. They draft him and 15 minutes prior they think based on his physical person that he's Shane Doan. This is twice the mind**** because 1)they draft him anyway not knowing who he is BUT ALSO 2)They really really wanted Shane Doan and they thought he was Terry Ryan.

Yeah, not knowing what the guy looks like is just bad, real bad.

In terms of developing him all I know is he was a weak skater and the Habs said he would improve on it, which he didn't. Again, skating issues was a recurring problem for many of our 1st round picks back then ,but the Habs kept picking players with that deficiency because of other attributes like size, skill, physical play, character etc. While there are always exceptions, a good general rule is if the guy cant skate you don't take him in the 1st round, or 2nd for that matter, unless hes a goalie.

 

[Brainiac]

Yeah, not knowing what the guy looks like is just bad, real bad.

In terms of developing him all I know is he was a weak skater and the Habs said he would improve on it, which he didn't. Again, skating issues was a recurring problem for many of our 1st round picks back then ,but the Habs kept picking players with that deficiency because of other attributes like size, skill, physical play, character etc. While there are always exceptions, a good general rule is if the guy cant skate you don't take him in the 1st round, or 2nd for that matter, unless hes a goalie.

The fact they didn't knew him is mind boggling indeed!

However, to be fair, a lot of teams were drafting for size in these days, with the idea that anything else, especially skating, could be fixed. But then again, it seems the Habs were not really commited to helping players fix anything.

It was quite an embarassement to see the team going nowhere back in the days.

 

[yianik]

The fact they didn't knew him is mind boggling indeed!

However, to be fair, a lot of teams were drafting for size in these days, with the idea that anything else, especially skating, could be fixed. But then again, it seems the Habs were not really commited to helping players fix anything.

It was quite an embarassement to see the team going nowhere back in the days.

While we didn't draft well back then we so often traded away guys who did turn into NHLers, some good ones , usually as throw ins. After time, I got the impression back then that we just didn't know the players we had. Turns out in light of what Ryan said about being mixed up with Doan, that I was right.

I was relieved when MB came in and put people in to help youngsters as mentors and such. We have also given up on guys who made bad choices or mistakes in off-ice things that would have been helped by a mentor. People today are less mature at any given age than 40 years ago so the young guys need as much help as possible going to the big city with crazy wads of cash in their pockets.

 

[TheCanasianfrasian]

Yeah exactly, Ryan was drafted when the organisation was arguably at its lowest point in existence, on all levels of the infrastructure.

Its still crazy when you read about how you can occupy a prestigious post and yet be so damn incompetent lol.

He was drafted under Houle and Pierre Mondou you know...