Well I'm glad you all think you are so smart.
You just go right on believing that that advances in training are meaningless.
You just go right on believing that that advances in training are meaningless.
199 points on 347 goals= 57%...untouchable
- Thread starter fortier
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Nobody thinks they are meaningless.
Your average middle of the road old timer would probably struggle in the NHL now.
We are talking about the greatest players of all-time though and you are discarding them as just regular.
Why did you have to wait this long to be reasonable?
I never said they would be regular. Someone said Orr or Hull I forget which, would be in the AHL but it wasn't me.
I will try, again to explain this.
But how?
Let's start with your comment "middle of the road old timer would probably struggle in the NHL now", because that is basically on the same line as I have been for this entire fruitless....I don't want to call it a debate....discussion.
From that comment, is it safe to say you believe that the "middle of the road players" are better today than in era's past?
I will wait for your response.
Sens Rule
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- Sep 22, 2005
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Good God, people. I've seen this argument about a thousand times, and it's always the same ****. The problem is that you people don't realize that you're arguing different points. That's why you're all so frustrated.
So for the last time:
A player brought from the 60's into todays game would most certainly not be as effective because of all the things listed above. Training, nutrition, apparently "evolution", etc.
HOWEVER,
If Bobby Orr was head and shoulders above everyone in his era, it would be safe to assume that he would be head and shoulders above the current NHL had he been born in 1980.
Just because players are more advanced now, does not mean that they're better. My cousin can play All Along The Watchtower perfectly, and he does it through a newer amp and with better drugs. But he's no Jimi Hendrix.
You dig?
Orr born in 1948 or Gretzky born in 1961 would be the best players in any era put in a time machine at age 18, 20 or 25. The reason is that regardless of the "training" current players have or the Rod Brind'AMour bodies that a few have the "training" Wayne Gretzky undertook from ages 2-15 years old conducted by himself and Walter was the best training any player ever undertook. The same with Bobby Orr and Doug Orr training Bobby from a toddler to a young teen. That training prepared both mentally to play hockey that few others could ever approach. With the mess of their natural skills with the "mental preparation" made them the greatest players.
Stories about Wayne Gretzky as a 4 or 5 year old with a piece of paper drawing the path of the puck on it throughout a game to see where the puck was most often is the kind of thing that you can't even imagine a kindergarden aged person doing while watching hockey night in Canada. The fact he would decide to do it himself is beyond belief or coaching. Wayne Gretzky trained Wayne Gretzky to be the best player in the world. Walter helped him but it was really all about Wayne and his mental approach and love of hockey and his desire to be the best. Same with Bobby Orr.
You can lift weights until the cows come home or take suppliments or have coaches break down plays and situations on a grand scale with video editing. But you can't teach the desire that caused Bobby Orr and Wayne Gretzky to study hockey and develop the mental skills and anticpation and intuition in the game that they developed. If the players they played against were faster or stronger or smarter they would just adapt and figure out a better strategy. Both Orr and Gretzky spent most of their hockey careers from age 5 to age 16 playing agianst far older and far stronger players.
These same things apply to most NHL superstars of all eras but not as much as they did to Gretzky and Orr.
You can't teach the fire in a player to be the best and the highest mental parts of the game. You can tune it some as a coach but it is something that comes from inside. Gretzky was hockey. He was like a top Chess grandmaster.
Why did you have to wait this long to be reasonable?
I never said they would be regular. Someone said Orr or Hull I forget which, would be in the AHL but it wasn't me.
I will try, again to explain this.
But how?
Let's start with your comment "middle of the road old timer would probably struggle in the NHL now", because that is basically on the same line as I have been for this entire fruitless....I don't want to call it a debate....discussion.
From that comment, is it safe to say you believe that the "middle of the road players" are better today than in era's past?
I will wait for your response.
Yes, but the problem I have is you saying that gretzky, or Orr, or Lemieux, or Howe, or Richard would have trouble in the NHL today. These are not middle of the road players...
Know Your Enemy
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Think of what truly makes a great hockey player and then think what weight training does for you and you should see that they don't go together.
Are you sure?
If you are, you had better apply for a job as an NHL trainer because you know more about weight lifting and hockey training than they do. You could be missing out on some big bucks here.
Know Your Enemy
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Are you sure you want to argue that working out is what got great hockey players where they are today?
Are you sure you want to argue that working out is what got great hockey players where they are today?
LMAO where'd you get that? It's not what I said. You are lost ES.
You still want to stand behind the notion that Great Hockey players and Weight lifting don't go together?
That is rich.
If the weight training is as important as you seem to be making it out to be, how come Rod Brind'Amour isn't far and away the best player in the league?
When has anybody ever quantified just how important weight lifting is to a hockey player, on this thread?
Everyone is just assuming I'm saying it means turning Steve Thomas into Maurice Richard. I've never said anything like that. But everyone jumps to conclusions.
I'm going to wear out this smiley.
Not Trouble as in struggling to make a team, but definitely not as dominant.
I'm not saying Gretzky and Lemieux are only going to score 90pts a piece.
More like their 2.5 PPG from thier primes may dip to somewhere around 2.2-2.0.
But this is due in part to, as you mentioned, the middle of the road players.
The strength and speed of the bottom 3/4 of the league has improved the most thanks to modern training.
If a player was taken from his time, and placed into a league where 3/4 of the people he had to face where stronger, faster, and had better systems and positioning training than where and when he came from, Would you expect him to be as dominant as he was against weaker, slower, less informed opponents?
Yes I would. Why wouldn't that player take advantage and use those advantages also?
BM67
Registered User
How can you say laugh at people that say gretzky will still dominate, throw up a
or three, and then say Gretzky will get 2.2 points a game? That is domination. That would win him the scoring title by 40% over Thornton.Gretzky scored 2.5 points a game on a team that had 400 goals a season. Even throwing him on Ottawa, I'm not sure they'd get all that close to that.
Sens Rule
Registered User
- Sep 22, 2005
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How can you say laugh at people that say gretzky will still dominate, throw up a
Gretzky scored 2.5 points a game on a team that had 400 goals a season. Even throwing him on Ottawa, I'm not sure they'd get all that close to that.
What he is doing is backtracking and agreeing with the consensus that the great players would be great in any era. Thanks for coming on board.
I am sure the player would take adavntage of the modern traing programs etc. But that is another point. Someone suggested two weeks as how long it would take Bobby Orr, I believe it was, to get to a level where he would again have the same stregnth and speed advantages as he enjoyed in his own era.
Now how is that possible when there are players in the league who have been strength training for 15-20 years?
Really? Please find where I said Gretzky, Orr, Lemieux, Howe, Richard, or any of the recognized great players of the game, would suck.
Why don't you show me where I ever said a great player still wouldn't be great.
"Not as great"
"Not as good"
"Not as dominant"
"Less productive"
Are all statements I will accept credit for.
Oh wait I think I made some kind of comparision of Bobby Orr to Scott Niedermayer and Nik Lidstrom.
Oh I really gave Orr no credit at all.
I only compared him with the two purest most dominating offensive defensemen in the game today. I appoligise for any insult.
I will not respond to you if you are going to put words into my mouth.
I am, having a hard enough time trying to get through to the other posters as it is, without some aggitator trying to create more crap, with something I never said.
At 2.2 it would still be a 35 pt drop in production from his best year.
At 2.0, he would have only won the scoring title by 35 pts or only 28%. A far cry from the 60+% he used to win the title by.
Know Your Enemy
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That's what you said about Martin St. Louis.
And yes I will stand behind that notion because i'm proven right by simply watching the game. Like I said before the best players are the most skilled, smart and mature players which does not come from weight lifting. All players in the NHL are fit and in shape, but not all of them are great and the top tier players are not stronger and more fit than others. Therefore weight lifting does not go togther with what makes a great hockey player.
Weight training most definitely took St. Louis from a good skilled player to a very good player, but I would never consider him great by any stretch of the imagination.
IF St. Louis was already smart and fast and skilled, the only assests you think a player seems to need to have success, why didn't he begin to excell before his 4th full season at the age of 27?
So are you saying that Martin St. Louis is in the same calibre of player as Howe, Hull, Orr, Gretzky and Lemieux?
Because it sounds like it.
And yet Forsberg works out 2 hrs a day. Go figure????
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Know Your Enemy
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St. Louis is one of the better players in the league today. I have no clue how you came up with the conclusion that I think St. Louis is in the same calibre as Orr, Gretz etc. It just goes to show how you don't listen at all, especially sinse i've allready explained to you how St. Louis became what he is today about 3 times in another thread. http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?t=277084
Forsberg works out 2 hours a day? ok...what does that mean!? Every player in the NHL works out but they are not all all-stars with the skill of Forsberg... go figure eh? It sounds like you think Forsberg gets all his skill from working out, I dont know what els that comment could possibly mean.
Well if your posts made more sense, perhaps these misunderstandings wouldn't occur.
So you just think St Louis would have still won the Art Ross had he never touched a weight in his life?
What is it?
What do you think?
It would seem Mr. Forsberg, a man who should know, puts more value on training than you do. I'll go with him on this one, thanks.
If working out is so useless then why did you just say every player does it?
Doesn't really make sense for all these professional atheltes to be wasting their time working out, when they could actually be doing something to improve their game.
I think you need to re-read some previous posts.
Know Your Enemy
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Again like I said before, I think it's important that athelets keep their body in shape so it can work at it's best, but it's not what give players what matters in most in most professional sports and especially hockey which is talent, intelligence, drive, insticts, maturity etc. these things obviously do not come from lifting weights. That's why their is dicrepancy between players in the NHL or any sports, they are all fit and in shape but some posses more talent than others, which allows them to play better than the rest.
If you asked Forsberg why he is such a succesfull NHL player do you actually think he would say it's because he does alot of weight training? If you asked Martin St.Louis, Brian Gionta, Eric Staal and their coaches and teamates why they became succesfull players would they say "it's because over the years their muscles became progressivly stronger? Well, i'll answer that for you... No they wouldn't. If you watched stars like Forsberg you'd know that they are special players because his intelligence and offensive insitcts are hard to find something that cannot be taught or developed by getting stronger muscles.
