Some people just dont know when to shut their mouths, some know when, but just cant keep from talking even when they know they shouldnt. I dont know which Nick Fatis is, but clearly any player thinking about playing for the Rochester Ice Hawks in the MNJHL better think twice.
When speaking to the local press about the season ending loss, Fatis had this to say;
“We’ve relied on our goalies all season, but unfortunately they just didn’t get it done this weekend,” Ice Hawks coach Nick Fatis said. “It’s not all on them, obviously. They got us to this point, but we needed a little more out of them this weekend. … The bottom line is our top-end guys once again weren’t our top-end guys when we needed them to step up. We didn’t want it to end like this.”
Any coach who throws his players under the bus like this after posting a 44-7-0-1-2 record for the season, needs to get some professional help.
Fatis went on to say;
“We dealt with more lost games due to suspensions than we ever have in a single season,” Fatis said. “Last year it was injuries, this year it was suspensions. So I think there will be some changes.”
If Fatis is complaining about suspensions, perhaps it is he that needs to clean up his program. When player alcohol use is part of the problem then, the coaches are to blame for not watching the players more closely. The Rochester Ice Hawks stories are fairly popular in hockey circles.
From players trying to get under age girls to come to their hotels while on the road, to getting blinded drunk, the Ice Hawks made a name for themselves throughout other league cities.
What did Ownership and Coaches do to correct the problem in season? Nothing,
Players were not released or traded when they were caught, they simply served their suspensions and were back in the lineup. Caught dinking? Here is a game for you to sit Johnny then youre back on the power play. Out past curfew? Your going to sit one game, but not tonight because we need you.
So now youre out of the playoffs. All the headaches dealt with for nothing. Worse yet, you have to host the National Tournament in a few weeks and you will not be in it.
Maybe you should have sacrificed some wins earlier in the year when players continued to embarass themselves and the organization? Maybe then you would have made young men look in the mirror and do a self examination? Maybe then those young men would have learned life lessons.
Whats going to happen to these young men now? Some of them will be moved on to colleges who will have no idea what they are really getting. Who’s fault is that going to be?
The Ice Hawks are about winning. Nothing wrong with that. But when winning gets in the way of developing young men then you no longer belong in the game. Leadership failed, not the teenage boys playing the game. Take responsibility for not leading young men as people Rochester. Had you lead them as people first, the players would have followed and you would not be blaming them for losses later.
Joseph Kolodziej – Publisher
