Interesting insight from Andrew Ference (31 Thoughts: The Podcast)

[smokersarejokers]

That is certainly interesting. I'm surprised he was so honest.

Love him or hate him, Ference is actually a pretty bright dude and I'm not surprised to hear him say these things. Management should have definitely recognized and dealt with every single one of those issues.

We as fans need to stop having whipping boys. It's kinda sick, actually.

 

[Barrsy]

Yeah I'm sure those teams were bad because of the partying and not because players like Ference were playing 20+ minutes a night.

Guy is the worst captain in Oilers history and I've yet to see him acknowledge that his **** play was a big factor in those teams being godawful.

He speaks the truth. And yeah, the 4/5 dman, who gave everything he had , and had too to be in the NHL, is the reason why the teams were shit.
Give your head a shake

 

[KarmaPolice]

Agreed. I know the Hall-Larsson swap is lauded now. But when the Oilers made noise in the playoffs in 16-17 everyone thought it was a genius move and a requirement to finally break the history setting playoff drought. The next year, Hall plays out of his mind and the Oilers miss the playoffs and the narrative gets flipped. Now the Devils are once again bottom dwelling and the Oilers are trending very similarly to 16-17. It'll be interesting to see how the narrative evolves from here.

What people sometimes don't tend to realize because they're too deep in idolization, is that players are human. People and circumstances change. Direct changes in your life and who you work for will often change who you are and how you look at and live your life.

It was probably in everyone's best interest for the Hall trade to take place, including him. I get the sense he's much more healthy now, physically and mentally/habitually. And good for him. Maybe that would've happened if he stayed, but how long do you give someone a chance to change? When do you finally say enough is enough? When do you finally make the move that you realize is probably in everyone's best interests? You have to draw the line eventually.

Hall always had the talent to be an MVP. I'm glad he was able to achieve it. We'll never know if he could've achieved that here. What we do know is, by his own words, the trade made him reassess a lot of things and it changed him for the better.

Assessing the trade itself is a different can of worms, but it is what it is. I like Larsson a lot, we had a great season before last which Larsson was a big part of, and the team is again moving towards a good direction. Could we and should we have done better? Sure. But what's done is done, it's on Chia, and Larsson shouldn't have to hear any of this crap.

 

[TheNumber4]

Plus you don't want a divide among players. You had McDavid, who you just know gives it his all at practice and anywhere, and then (perhaps) Hall and his gang who just wanted a leisurely skate during the drills. That's catastrophic for the health of a team in every way. So obviously you keep the guy who works his ass off, day in and day out, in every context, to lead the team and set the example, and ship out the guy who thinks he's 'too cool for school.' It's conjecture, but I've heard enough of this from people that it's reasonably plausible to me.

Hell, Hall basically admitted it. Not in those words, but it's not hard to read between the lines.

Yup. I always had my thoughts about Hall just from seeing the little things on the ice. Not looking at or acknowledging Nuge in his rookie season like a little jealous baby. Doing the same towards Yak. The slamming the door and slamming the water bottle type tantrums. The multiple reports in the Edmonton rumor mill about his character at the club scene. Even interacting with him in person one night at Hudsons' I was thinking "kind of a douche".... There's that and all the stuff you mention.

And I agree, you can't have one leader going one way and another doing the exact opposite. Don't know how you build a culture that way.

That being said, Chia still failed to properly shop Hall during the trade. So it's still a Chia fail in that regard even if he was truly getting rid of a lockerroom cancer.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Andrew Ference on the Bruins, Oilers and Flames – Sportsnet

Didn't know where to post this so I made it's own thread. Ference talks about his time with the Oilers. Basically not a lot of good (starts around the 00:33:00 mark):

• Said players don't do well here because they're too afraid to make mistakes (and thus grow their game) because the media and fans will attack them and drive them out. Brought up Schultz and Petry as examples.
• He was not too happy with the Oilers due to the drastic difference in work ethic and commitment
• Other players who came from contenders/Stanley Cup teams were also frustrated by the lack of effort from the team
• Says Eakins was a good coach ("unfairly treated", "was he perfect? no") that demanded good work ethic but there was a group of players who refused to put any effort into practices. They were "too cool" to practice and were all talk when it came to winning. These players also had derogatory terms for teammates who tried too hard during practice.
• This group of players were all talk (in front of the media about wanting to win) and were more interested in living the partying lifestyle.
• Respect was given out based on "how well your toedrag was" and so it was hard getting much respect as a #4-5 defencemen.

Anyways, it's a good listen. Even if you agree or disagree, it's good to hear a different perspective (which was another theme of the podcast)

I could name 3 names that jump to mind for the "to cool to practice comment" but it would start a war

 

[TheNumber4]

It's still a terrible trade. You can find Adam Larsson tier defenders for a lot cheaper than that and we still have a huge problem of no other line scoring other than McDavid's.

Chia didn't properly shop Hall. Which means he didn't maximize his value. So no matter what the trade is bad in that regard. But Larsson wasn't as bad of a get as everyone seems to think... we lost on value for sure... but it's good from hockey trade (kind of a Win-Win with NJ winning more) when you look at team needs at the time.

 

[Soundwave]

So was the team partying last year? Is that also gonna be the narrative now, lol. They suddenly started partying for a year randomly. Any time they're losing = blame partying, any time they're winning must mean partying has stopped.

The truth is every team has players that go out and party, these guys are in their 20s, making millions of dollars, they're not going to like the life of a monk.

All I care about is during the game you outscore or hold even the competition when you're on the ice. Do that, and you're helping the team win. Don't do that, and I don't care how hard you try in practice, you are helping the team lose.

 

[StevenF1919]

He speaks the truth. And yeah, the 4/5 dman, who gave everything he had , and had too to be in the NHL, is the reason why the teams were ****.
Give your head a shake

Yeah, bad players are why bad teams are bad.

The guy was absolute dogshit here. He was so bad that he couldn't even crack the lineup at the end of his tenure here, and we had by far the worst d-core in the league.

Guys like Nikitin, Pardy, Clendening, Gryba, and Reinhart had passed him on the depth chart lmao.

 

[Soundwave]

Lucic must be partying every night until 5 AM to explain his play.

 

[StupidGenius]

I could name 3 names that jump to mind for the "to cool to practice comment" but it would start a war

Four, fourteen and nineteen?

 

[StevenF1919]

So was the team partying last year? Is that also gonna be the narrative now, lol. They suddenly started partying for a year randomly. Any time they're losing = blame partying, any time they're winning must mean partying has stopped.

The truth is every team has players that go out and party, these guys are in their 20s, making millions of dollars, they're not going to like the life of a monk.

All I care about is during the game you outscore or hold even the competition when you're on the ice. Do that, and you're helping the team win. Don't do that, and I don't care how hard you try in practice, you are helping the team lose.

Winners don't party.

 

[FanOfSadTeam]

I could name 3 names that jump to mind for the "to cool to practice comment" but it would start a war

I was going to add 3 players that came to mind. 2 are obvious. One runs a podcast.

 

[Barrsy]

Yeah, bad players are why bad teams are bad.

The guy was absolute dog**** here. He was so bad that he couldn't even crack the lineup at the end of his tenure here, and we had by far the worst d-core in the league.

Guys like Nikitin, Pardy, Clendening, Gryba, and Reinhart had passed him on the depth chart lmao.

What does that have to do with him been the reason why the teams were shit? Or whether he speaks the truth.
My god

 

[TheNumber4]

So was the team partying last year? Is that also gonna be the narrative now, lol. They suddenly started partying for a year randomly. Any time they're losing = blame partying, any time they're winning must mean partying has stopped.

The truth is every team has players that go out and party, these guys are in their 20s, making millions of dollars, they're not going to like the life of a monk.

All I care about is during the game you outscore or hold even the competition when you're on the ice. Do that, and you're helping the team win. Don't do that, and I don't care how hard you try in practice, you are helping the team lose.

No one is saying partying is the one and only reason for a teams success and failures. But it is one contributing factor to the type of Culture a team has, which affects a teams chances of success. If I had to peg the Oilers successes and failures in these recent years and the Hall era I'd blame a lack of good defence. But culture also plays a part. You always here hockey guys and coaches talk about culture and/or changing the culture... it's a thing. And it's definitely affected by the leaders in the room like Hall was.

 

[Barrsy]

Winners don't party.

Yeah. Very insightful. From post Stanley Cup, which is slightly different from post 6-1 loss

 

[StupidGenius]

But I think the most frustrating part for me as a player when I went in there straight from Boston was talk is cheap. I went in, Dallas Eakins is a fantastic coach, there’s another whipping boy who got dragged over the coals, he’s a fantastic coach that was dealt just a pure crap hand in a team that would actually listen. You got a group of players that talked about how they wanted to make the playoffs and talked about how sick they were of losing and then by game 3 after losing 6-1 they’re straight out to the bar till 3 in the morning lighting up the night life scene in Edmonton.

This would be the 2014-15 season he's referring to, if anyone else was curious like I was.

2014-15 Edmonton Oilers Schedule and Results | Hockey-Reference.com

Notice they had a game the following night.

 

[Soundwave]

Winners don't party.

Patrick Kane looks like a riot too.

 

[Digger12]

IMO the narrative of "it doesn't work in Edmonton because of how quickly the fans and media jump on your every mistake" is somewhat disingenuous because the same could be said for EVERY Canadian city where hockey is top of mind 24/7/365 and the team's lost a few games in a row. To frame it as an Edmonton-only phenomena is crap, frankly.

The rest of the article is a good read/listen, though in these kind of hatchet jobs it's always good to remember that:

1 - There's two sides in every story, and sometimes more than that.
2 - The person telling the story is almost never the villain from his/her perspective.

It does paint an interesting picture of what that locker room must've been like though. When Yakupov was here I always had this feeling that the Hall crowd weren't the most welcoming towards him, and when you throw in the fact that Yak was NOT the partying type due to his religious beliefs, it's not hard to believe that Hall and his other frat brothers probably henpecked him about it. That's how immature frat boys are, especially when they run with a pack.

It also makes me wonder how differently things would've turned out if they'd had a respected high end coach like Hitchcock back then (who would've stamped this kind of crap out brutally I bet), rather than tying their can to a rookie coach like Eakins who could barely keep his own house in order, never mind deal with an obviously dysfunctional cast of misfits.

 

[StevenF1919]

What does that have to do with him been the reason why the teams were ****? Or whether he speaks the truth.
My god

Do you think this current roster is bad because of "culture" or are they bad because all their wingers belong in the AHL?

If you have a team full of bad players, your team is going to be bad. Ference was shit at hockey.

Yeah. Very insightful. From post Stanley Cup, which is slightly different from post 6-1 loss

Ovechkin literally parties all season. Malkin (an Art Ross and Conn Smythe winner) would show up hungover to practice and there's even rumours of him missing games because of his partying (go look at his history of missing single games due to undisclosed illnesses).

If you think that our players were the only ones who partied during the season, you're delusional.

 

[Soundwave]

IMO the narrative of "it doesn't work in Edmonton because of how quickly the fans and media jump on your every mistake" is somewhat disingenuous because the same could be said for EVERY Canadian city where hockey is top of mind 24/7/365 and the team's lost a few games in a row. To frame it as an Edmonton-only phenomena is crap, frankly.

The rest of the article is a good read/listen, though in these kind of hatchet jobs it's always good to remember that:

1 - There's two sides in every story, and sometimes more than that.
2 - The person telling the story is almost never the villain from his/her perspective.

It does paint an interesting picture of what that locker room must've been like though. When Yakupov was here I always had this feeling that the Hall crowd weren't the most welcoming towards him, and when you throw in the fact that Yak was NOT the partying type due to his religious beliefs, it's not hard to believe that Hall and his other frat brothers probably henpecked him about it. That's how immature frat boys are, especially when they run with a pack.

It also makes me wonder how differently things would've turned out if they'd had a respected high end coach like Hitchcock back then (who would've stamped this kind of crap out brutally I bet), rather than tying their can to a rookie coach like Eakins who could barely keep his own house in order, never mind deal with an obviously dysfunctional cast of misfits.

Yakupov was stubborn in his own right, refused to work on weaknesses in his game even after being told repeatedly by coaches, and would only work on his strengths.

 

[TopShelfGloveSide]

Lucic must be partying every night until 5 AM to explain his play.

He was one our best forwards against Calgary... if not the best. Great joke though.

 

[Babe Ruth]

I was going to add 3 players that came to mind. 2 are obvious. One runs a podcast.

Fan, I like your Oiler avatar..
I started watching Young Sheldon recently.. To set the mood of late 80s East Texas, they decorate one of the kid's rooms in run & shoot-era Oiler gear & posters.

 

[HockeyGuy1964]

I was going to add 3 players that came to mind. 2 are obvious. One runs a podcast.

Ryan Whitney never played with Ference so not him.

 

[Soundwave]

This would be the 2014-15 season he's referring to, if anyone else was curious like I was.

2014-15 Edmonton Oilers Schedule and Results | Hockey-Reference.com

Notice they had a game the following night.

That doesn't really line up with what he's saying though curiously enough. He said they were "lighting up the Edmonton party scene", but they weren't even in Edmonton according to that schedule.

 

[StevenF1919]

He was one our best forwards against Calgary... if not the best. Great joke though.

Wow, he's on pace for 16 points and 3 goals this season but he hit a guy so all is forgiven.