Friend of the blog Bettie Walker writes on Matt Suderman's comments over the weekend about his time at the Hull Stingrays.
As I’m sure everyone has seen by now, Matt Suderman has had some interesting things to say
about his short time at Stingrays, and in particular, owner Bobby McEwan.
Starting with the statement that McEwan has chosen to part ways with player/coach Sylvain Cloutier saying “I'm confident Bobby's own ego and jealousy have pushed a potential coach of the year out the door.”
Last Thursday brought the announcement that Cloutier would be going after 5 years at the club. This was by “mutual consent”, according to Stingrays, with Cloutier quoted as saying “After speaking to Bobby we have decided to go our separate ways and I will be moving on.” A big loss for Stingrays, not to mention a big loss for the remaining players who always seemed to hold Cloutier in high esteem.
Some of the accusations are fairly shocking, some we’ve heard before which seem, if true, to be becoming a culture of the EIHL, and indeed other leagues. Of course, they are just that, accusations. No truths have come out as yet.
Suderman says the only reason he left the club was the unprofessionalism of McEwan, and that he now feels responsible to speak out. Fair play to him for that, and also for waiting until the end of the season before doing so. Accusations of this level could take quite a while to get over. It’s clear Suderman doesn’t want his ex-teammates to be unnecessarily involved, and personally I feel leaving it until off-season was his way of protecting them.
I don’t want to go too much into the accusations themselves. Ashley has already done an excellent job of that over at March Hockey and you can take from the original statement what you will. My concern is with the main question that a lot of folks on twitter are asking.
If things were that bad, who would stay?
I feel like there are a million reasons why someone would stay in those circumstances and conditions. First and foremost though, loyalty. Loyalty is a strong emotion. Teams can be like family, especially when many of the players don’t have their own families close by, and that pull to ‘stay together for the kids’ as it were, can be very strong. Cloutier was respected, and we don’t know what he, or others, may have been doing behind the scenes to try to improve things.
Yes, certain players, Tendler for example, would have no problem walking into another team. However, who wants to be the first to jump? Change can happen, and maybe, just maybe, the likes of Tendler didn’t want to abandon a team when times get tough?
There is also the fact that McEwan has only been in place as owner for two seasons. Perhaps he was finding his feet in the first year, given the benefit of the doubt. Now there is some realisation after two years that actually, there hasn’t really been an improvement. And maybe now we’ll see good players leaving. Starting with Cloutier.
Whatever has happened, something must’ve gone down to prompt Suderman’s statement. A lot of folks seem to be saying none of those things could possibly be true, but whether true, made up, or embellished, it has triggered dialogue about the treatment of players and the potential behaviour of owners, and that can only be a good thing.
Of course, a lot of this is speculation, but what else can you do given the original accusations and no hard facts? Also, a disclaimer. I know this is a bunch of psychology and feelings, I’m a mental health nurse, that’s just what I do.
Big thanks to Bettie for writing this piece. You can discuss it with her and us on Twitter (@bettieriot, @frozensteelblog) or come over the Frozen Steel Forum and talk it over there.
No comments:
Post a Comment