Culture. Its a word often used by coaches to describe a team mindset they are trying to create or have created that contributes to the team success. Championship teams at every level have an internal culture that lifts every player up no matter what role they play on the team.
Culture can also be a very negative thing. A negative culture is usually found on every team with a bad record at every level. It only takes a few players to absolutely destroy a positive environment and turn it into a negative environment for all players.
Such is the case with the Almaguin Spartans in the GMHL. Once a team that regularly played for championships, is now simply gone.
Gone not because they didnt have a full roster, in their last game they had a full bench. Gone because the owners became tired of the majority of self entitled players who did nothing but complain and cause problems off the ice.
The owners of the team were so tired of bad attitudes on and off the ice that they pulled the plug on a team with a full roster. What does that say?
Most of the time on The Death Pool, we poke fun at coaches who cant recruit, and owners who try to play a season with ten skaters and ten goalies to make a budget. And they deserve all the bad results they get for operating a shit show.
Almaguin though is the other side of things. And Almaguin is not alone in the junior hockey world when dealing with self entitled players and those with bad attitudes. There are silver spoon babies that call themselves players, who in many cases are poisoning teams and their culture.
The owners of Almaguin had a lot of balls to come out and publicly say they were just tired of dealing with players attitudes. To walk away from a business that they had operated for more than a decade!
David Forde, co-owner and president of the Almaguin Spartans, said while it was “a very difficult decision” to make, the decision is “in the best interests of our players, staff and ownership.”
Sources around Almaguin have indicated that ownership was so tired of all but eight players being problems that they would rather fold than continue.
The owners of Almaguin were not short of cash, and had no problems with operations. They are refunded season ticket holders and all others that had a refund coming. Usually teams that fold just go away and do nothing, but not these owners.
Just how bad can a culture become to make owners want to walk away? I am sure there are some other owners across North America who are asking themselves this same question right about now.
