“The art of creativity means you sometimes surprise yourself.”
— Michael Jordan

“…and surprise the coach.”
— Cardiac Jack

Henrik Zetterberg was not only the best offensive player in the recent Stanley Cup final series, but he was also the best defensive player — and the most creative — at both ends of the ice.   That’s right – just as creative on defense as he was in making brilliant offensive plays out of nowhere.

Do you ever wonder if there’s something about the genetic makeup of Europeans and Russians that allows them to turn out so many creative hockey players?   Or — lest we sink into a debate about whether European genes are the product of evolutionary chance or intelligent design — perhaps it would be more productive to consider the difference between their development programs for young players and ours.

Do our manuals and seminars — the ones that prepare us for certification as coaches — do these educational vehicles help us develop the next Henrik Zetterberg?

Honestly, I don’t know if they do or not.  When I began this coaching adventure, certification hadn’t been invented yet.   No one paid fees to governing bodies — perhaps we were naïve, and hadn’t considered the benefits of being governed on the hockey rink by people living a thousand miles away.

We hadn’t thought of insurance in case we slipped through a deep crack in the ice, and we wore stocking caps on cold days, not helmets.   Players learned to make creative plays on the outside pond, and coaches needed on-the-job education for building and maintaining those rinks. 

So how far have we come in 50 years? 

Sports science has produced money-hungry fitness gurus who speak Latin instead of English.  A leg is not a leg;  it’s a femur.  Being in “hockey shape” isn’t technical enough; it’s about aerobic and anaerobic endurance, as if for one period of the game you play at a jogging pace and another where you sprint.   But any player knows what “hockey shape” means: you can play just as fast and just as skillfully at the end of the game as at the beginning.

No one thought balancing on a physio-ball was more important than stick-handling and shooting — or that you couldn’t attempt either one before training the Transverse Abdominus and other core muscles.   We weren’t aware there was any other way to skate but on the edges of the blades.   “Exposure” meant playing outside in the elements, not playing in front of scouts and agents who might determine the future for a 14 year old.

It was likely that a game of hockey would be a contest to see who could get to 20 goals before the snow piled up too high.   Today a youth hockey game can’t be played without three refs, two timekeepers, an arena full of cheerleaders and a trophy for each team.

Today, a “smart player” is one who does exactly what the coach diagrams on the board — “sticks to the system.”    A “smart player” used to be one who made brilliant, creative plays — things the coach had never seen before.

That’s Henrik Zetterberg, 2008.   He was raised in a Swedish program that taught everyone to play defense as passionately as offense.   It taught them to respect the importance of a team system, but encouraged creativity within that framework.

For example, when the Red Wings were down 3-on-5 for an extended time, they had Zetterberg on the ice as much as possible.  The coach knew that in desperate situations — ones where it is not possible to draw up a system for three X’s to stop five O’s — the players would simply have to come up with a way to overachieve.   Zetterberg found those un-diagrammed solutions for desperate moments, and Detroit now owns the Cup.

This was a lot like the last Super bowl, where the winning play was actually a broken play, and the QB and receiver just did what needed to be done.   If they hadn’t come up with something out of the ordinary the game would have had a different outcome.

Winston Churchill hated to have his quotes changed in any way, but I’ll take the liberty.   His thoughts about winning a war might be a good lesson for coaches who think their “system” is the answer to all situations.   Churchill might have advised coaches, “Sometimes in war (or a hockey game) it may not be good enough to do your job.    You simply have to do whatever it takes.”

Bud Grant coached the Vikings to a position of dominance in the NFL with a philosophy that the “system” is not enough.   Sometimes players must come up with creative plays outside the norm.  So the Vikings practiced picking up fumbles and running for touchdowns, rather than simply falling on them as most teams would.   He encouraged Fran Tarkenton to accentuate his personal best style — the greatest scrambling quarterback in history — rather than making him throw from the pocket, the way it was outlined on the blackboard.

Those are two valuable lessons for youth coaches who want to allow a little Zetterberg to grow in each player.   Practice creativity. Incorporate scrimmages — big and small games without scoreboards, not high-stakes contests where parents and friends might criticize mistakes.  Without the scoreboard, players will try creative new tricks. Some work.   Some don’t, but no one learns creativity if they’re intimidated by the scoreboard into playing it safe — by the book — all the time.

Herb Brooks often said, “If we want creative hockey players in the United States, we must give the game back to the kids.”   He played and coached against the Europeans on four Olympic teams and knew the importance of their creative, skillful development programs.  “Encourage mistakes of commission,” he’d advise.   “Discourage mistakes of omission.   Don’t leave it untried.”