Nicklas Lidstrom was one of the NHL’s all-time great all-around players.
Last Updated on Wednesday, 27 November 2013 09:53
By Kevin Hartzell
Let’s Play Hockey Columnist
I watch virtually every NFL Football game from here in Norway. I admit to being an NFL fan. It is a great game with many great athletes. The level of team-coordinated play is amazing and I think coaching matters as much or more in football than it does in any other game. Coaches need to teach and refine many individual skills as well as develop and implement the various strategies it takes to be successful as a team.
All that said, when I look at the many various team sports out there, I don’t think there is a tougher/harder game to play than hockey. I am not making the argument that hockey has the best athletes. I am making the argument that there is no tougher game that requires more of its players than hockey.
To begin with, one has to learn how to skate. A person that cannot skate, balancing on a very small piece of steel, has no chance to compete at all. Besides the ability to skate, there remains a lot of substance required by each of the game’s participants.
Let’s begin with the notion that many would argue that the quarterback position in football is the hardest position in team sports. Maybe this is true. The quarterback has to possess a lot of skills, for sure, and has to execute them at a high level for his team to be successful. The quarterback has to read the defense (vision), has to have poise under pressure and deliver the ball to any one of a given number of teammates who are running different routes at different speeds with an always-changing pattern of defensive players. Windows of opportunity to deliver the ball to an open receiver come about for only limited amounts of time. Delivering the ball to the right window and to the right receiver on time is not easy, especially when under pressure.
In hockey, each and every hockey player on the ice has to play quarterback. All of them! When a player has the puck, s/he has to make decisions quickly, just like the quarterback. Receivers are running (skating) patterns to get open and defenders are trying to get in the way. In many fundamental ways, the mission of the puck carrier and the football quarterback are the same. If the quarterback position in football is the toughest position in team sports, well then we know how tough hockey is as everyone has to play quarterback in hockey.
In hockey, the skills needed to play the game well do not end with the difficult skill sets encountered as a quarterback. Unlike hockey, football quarterbacks do not have to “catch it,” too. Most football quarterbacks of course just throw it. In hockey, all the players have to be able to not just throw it, but catch it, too.
Great pass-catching is one of the skills that separate the good from the great players in hockey. It is a great asset to be a great quarterback, but to be so, one also must be a great receiver. Receivers work to get open. Great receivers get to the open areas with great timing. Upon receipt of the “rock,” the hockey player again turns into a quarterback. Not easy to do and I think it goes without saying that in football, receivers catch it, but they don’t have to revert to the quarterback position and throw it. You can see where I am going with this.
In basketball, one or two players can bring the ball up the court – quarterbacking so to speak. Some play at or under the basket, some are shooting forwards. Hockey has no equal in the number of skills a player has to possess to play the game well. On top of it all, they don’t get to leave the field when the other team gains possession; they have to defend like a linebacker and defensive back, too!
When scouts come out to watch an elite hockey prospect, they have much to judge and consider. Work ethic is one of those traits. Quarterback play and the vision it takes to be a great puck mover is considered. Shooting ability is considered. Skating, basic mobility, agility and speed all factor in. Defensive play and the desire to play great defense and maybe even be a physical force can and do factor into a player’s bio.
It is rare to find a player that is an all-around great player. Some believe my best player in Sioux Falls was Hobey Baker winner Jack Connolly. I love Jack; he is a great offensive player. Jack was a good defender, but not a great defender. He certainly wasn’t big and physical but his great offensive skill sets helped him lead UMD to a national championship and the Hobey Baker Award.
Maybe our best all-around player in Sioux Falls was Chicago native Matt Lindblad. Matt signed with the Boston Bruins last year at the end of his junior season at Dartmouth. Matt could do it all. He was a great center-ice man with great vision to move the puck to the right player at the right time. He could really shoot it and like Connolly, he was an elusive skater. Matt had good size and could defend as well as most defensemen. His skating, work habits and understanding of the game were second to none. When you think over time which NHL players fit the mold of great all-around player, one comes up with names like Mark Messier, Pavel Datsyuk, Nicklas Lidstrom, Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe, Bryan Trottier and Raymond Bourque, to name just a few.
I will argue that there are more great quarterbacks in hockey than there are in football. Some of these great quarterbacks in hockey are not great defenders by any stretch, but what they do night after night is what many NFL teams are looking for out of their quarterbacks. If quarterbacking is indeed the toughest position in team sport, I say let them try it with only an inch of steel to balance on while being chased around by defenders who want to slam them into a wall and still find the right receiver and put a perfect pass on the tape! Then after completing a great pass, there is no huddle, only the immediate need to turn into back into a pass receiver! Then defend the others team’s best player ...
Kevin Hartzell is the head coach of Lillehammer in Norway’s GET-Ligaen. A St. Paul native and forward for the University of Minnesota from 1978-82, Hartzell coached in the USHL from 1983-84 with the St. Paul Vulcans and from 2005-12 with the Sioux Falls Stampede. His columns have appeared in Let’s Play Hockey since the late 1980s.
