He used the word "embarrassing" more than once. The fact that he didn't throw a temper tantrum after that speaks to his maturity.
I don't know if you ever played sports, but a large part of being on a team is learning how to deal with losses. Even bad ones. You HAVE to move on after a bad game. No sports team wins every game, so in order to be a professional athlete, you have to learn to take it one game at a time and when you lose, approach the next game like it's a fresh slate. If you start letting losses get to you, you are DOOMED. He's trying to tell himself and his teammates that everything will be OK. That's a significant part of having a winning attitude.
You find me an interview with a professional hockey player from a basement team where they say "Yeah, we sucked tonight, we're just a bad team and the season is over already" and I'll eat my words. I don't know what the hell you expected Landeskog to say after that, but I doubt it was anything that any professional would ever say in a media interview.
Didn't Jiggy do that with our very own team? He called it what, "Vegas culture", because he said the players had mailed it in, and were planning their post season trip to Las Vegas.
He said the team played terribly, and needed more heart (or along those lines).
That's just a thought on OUR team before I think about anyone else.
http://blogs.denverpost.com/avs/201...nche-tirade-against-teammates-practice/12915/
First off, Jean-Sebastien Giguere has the absolute right to say what he did tonight. On a night where he moved into 47th placed on the all-time NHL list for games played by a goalie, Jiggy blew his top after the Avs’ 3-1 loss to the 29th-place Calgary Flames at home.
Jean-Sebastien Giguere is pictured with former Colorado Avalanche goalie Patrick Roy.
Jean-Sebastien Giguere is pictured with former Colorado Avalanche goalie Patrick Roy.
Jiggy has shown himself to speak his mind before during this season, but there was nothing to compare to his words tonight. After talking with Matt Duchene for a couple minutes after the game, I wound my way over to Jiggy’s locker to get his thoughts. One look at his fuming face, and I knew I needed to double-check whether my recorder was all set to go.
Here, in transcript form, is what Jiggy had to say. But first, as I said, this is a player who has earned the right to say something like this. He’s a passionate guy who has won a Stanley Cup and won a Conn Smythe Trophy for a losing Cup finalist. He’s a pro’s pro. But, as we’ll see here, he does not believe enough guys in his own dressing room are playing, or acting, like pros right now.
Jiggy started off by talking about the Avs’ on-ice problems from tonight and in general:
“As long as we don’t understand that we have to play better in our zone, we’ll never win any games. We have to do a better job in our own zone. That’s where it starts. We have to learn this at some point.”
OK, pretty strong comment there, about never winning any games if they don’t play better in their own zone. That in itself would have been a lead quote in any hack beat writer’s story, so I was ready to run with that in my mind as Jiggy kept talking. But, oh, that was tame compared to what was coming…
“The (allowing) the first goal is one part of it (problems), but I think it comes down to us not playing very well defensively. We spend too much time in our own zone, and that’s hard. That’s where it’s hard. We know we can score some goals, we have some offensive tools. But when you spend part of the second period in your zone and give up too many scoring chances, you’re not going to win games like that.
“We talk about it every day. At some point, we have to understand. There’s no more excuses. It’s not about being young, it’s not about … we have to put our head into the game.”
OK, still fairly strong stuff there. But after saying that, you could see Jiggy just sort of say to himself, “Screw this, I’m gonna go rogue here and really tell it like it is.” Which led to this:
“Some guys are more worried about their Vegas trip at the end of the season than playing the games, than playing every minute of the games. Quite frankly, I don’t care about your Vegas trip right now.”
Whoa. I gotta say, that is the strongest quote I’ve ever gotten from an Avs player in my 18 years covering the team. Patrick Roy came pretty close to that with a few statements. I remember one game, from the 1997-98 season I think, where Roy blew up at his teammates’ effort in a lopsided home loss to Dallas, saying something like, “All we do is make excuses around here.”
But that quote about Vegas? That will go down in history I have a feeling. But wait, there’s more:
“It’s not constructive. We have to find a way to get out of this losing mentality, you know? It starts with me and the guy beside me and everyone has to do their part.”
Then this, as Jiggy got even more red in the face with anger:
“It’s embarrassing. I’m embarrassed to be here right now. It’s not even funny.”
I then asked Jiggy if the true problem with this team is just its lack of focus or preparation or pride or whatever, and he said:
“I don’t know what it is. I’ve been around for 15 years in this league and I don’t know what it is. I don’t know why we seem like we don’t care at points. I don’t know, I don’t know we seem like, you know — some guys are fighting to show that they belong in the NHL, some guys are fighting for contracts. And it’s just embarrassing, the way we, you know, the energy we have in the room and the way we approach practices and the way we approach this game. It’s not how you’re going to win any games in this league. I mean, this is a team (Calgary) that we can beat if we set our minds to it, and every day is the same story. I don’t know what to say. I’m beyond words right now.”
I then something to the effect of, “Hey, things are pretty good around here too about five weeks ago. You beat the Chicago Blackhawks and were at .500 and…” and then Jiggy cut me off to say:
“But that was just one game. It’s easy to get going when you play a team that is going to embarrass you if you don’t play well. You’ve got to play like this against every team in this league. There’s not one easy game in this league, so you’ve got to play hard and you’ve got to play well every night. You’ve got to find a way to get yourself motivated and focused. It has nothing to do with who you’re playing. It’s about how you prepare yourself and how you approach the game. It’s not about which team you’re playing. Yeah, everybody’s going to get motivated when you play the Hawks. I mean, the building is full and that’s easy to do. But can you get yourself going when you play the Calgary Flames? Can you do that right now? And obviously, we’re too immature to do that.”
And that was pretty much that. I probably could have hung around a little longer and gotten into it more with Jiggy, but you got the sense that this was the end anyway and, well, I have deadlines.
A couple quick thoughts on this, but more tomorrow:
Jiggy has mentioned a couple of times how poorly he believes his team practices. That seems to fall under the heading of “maybe the team isn’t coached well enough”, as practice is truly the time for coaching in this league. Yet, Jiggy has not criticized Joe Sacco to me, even privately. I think Jiggy is just truly fed up with some of his teammates’ work ethic — or lack thereof.
I’m not going to speculate here on who the guys he might have been talking about who only care right now about their Vegas trips soon. He didn’t single anybody out, so I won’t get reckless and do that either.
If the Avs end up getting rid of Jiggy at all because of this sudden burst of honest, shame on them. He has another year left on his contract, with a no-trade clause. But I doubt the Avs would do that. If they’re smart — no jokes, please — they will admit: Giguere is right, and he’s exactly the kind of guy they need more of around here.
– Another good take on the postgame atmosphere, from a reporter who was there with me.
OK, time to go. I suspect Jiggy gave everyone a lot to talk about tonight.
Mcmetal - eating your words mate ? Hehehehe. It does happen.
