Reply to thread

Message: [QUOTE="nocohalo, post: 5494838, member: 9709"] I get the 1980 Olympic team comparison, but that's not really the best the reference. They didn't do all those Herbies purely out of punishment for playing poorly. It was an exercise for the assistant coach Craig Patrick. You have to put it all into context which gets lost when the mythology gets built up over the decades. The game in question didn't even have the whole team available, several players including Jim Craig were resting. They had played even worse a week before against a team from Finland where they got blown out. Yes, it was partly a result of Brooks being upset with their effort but it was mainly to throw Craig Patrick into the fire and make him switch from being the good cop to Brooks' bad cop and solidify his standing as Brooks equal. Craig wasn't that far removed from being a player, it was essentially his rite of passage to become a full coach. [/QUOTE]