Over the holidays we’ll be re-visiting Sportsnet staff writers’ favourite pieces from 2015. Today: Mark Spector explains why two bold predictions were his favourite columns of the year, even if they were wrong.
It was a toss-up for me in 2015.
Was my favourite byline the March piece (initially) entitled, “Why I Was Wrong on the Calgary Flames?” Or was it the “Why Mike Babcock Won’t End Up With the Maple Leafs?” column I penned between Flames playoff games in May?
Hey, there are lots of sports writers who never take a stand. They walk down the middle, never having the courage to make a hard prediction. So they can say they’ve never been as wrong as I was when I predicted that Babcock would not choose Toronto.
You never try, you never fail, right? Well, I tried hard in 2015.
But I never saw the Flames’ success coming when their season began, and buried them again in late February when captain Mark Giordano went down. I had Babcock choosing the Penguins or Blues, in that order, a few days before the Maple Leafs trotted him out as their new head coach.
Hey, even Jose Bautista strikes out once in a while, right?
So, why would a guy call a couple of whiffs his favourite columns of the year?
Because as long as sports remains as unpredictable as the 2014-15 Flames, or the top coach in hockey choosing to climb the biggest mountain, this columnist is happy to be wrong once in a while.
For me, columns are like hockey games: I like watching the odd shutout, or 2-1 defensive struggle. But as soon as it becomes a certainty that the game I’m going to that evening will feature three goals or less — like, say, the Los Angeles Kings Cup run in 2012 — the fun comes out of it for me.
Unpredictability makes the sports writing — and sports watching — business go round. And if that means being wrong once in a while, that’s just fine. I’ll avoid the comments section for another year.
As it turns out, the Flames were fun, and a Toronto club led by Babcock has a compelling story all season long. And this sports writer survived a couple of whiffs.
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Excerpt: Flames’ road trip success proves doubters wrong
I will admit to being one of those who thought the Flames wouldn’t be able to survive the loss of their captain and best player. Frankly, the argument wasn’t whether or not the Flames would wilt without Giordano, it was how they would wilt. Would the on-ice deficit hurt more than the mental kick in the teeth that losing your best player down the stretch can produce?
It was all up for discussion, but either way the Flames were dead, right?
Full disclosure: if I told you I lost faith in the Flames only last week, I’d be lying. There was that seven-game trip when The Brier invaded the Saddledome; the one that general manage Brad Treliving assured us “the GM ought to be bald” upon its completion. Calgary was supposed to get crushed on that trip. I thought they’d be lucky to go .500.
They ended up grabbing nine out of 14 points, the final point coming when Calgary erased a 4-0 deficit after 40 minutes in Ottawa, only to lose in a shootout. It was sheer larceny. “Let’s leave the building,” Hartley advised reporters after the game, “before the O.P.P. shows up.”
There was that point early in the season when three of their top four centres were on the shelf. Who survives that? Certainly not Calgary, we opined.
Excerpt: Why Mike Babcock won’t end up with Maple Leafs
So, where does the top free agent coach in recent hockey history land? Well, not in Toronto, which already has too many cooks in the kitchen. And not with low-budget teams that can’t afford the mega-salary he will command: St. Louis, San Jose, and New Jersey. Each of Buffalo, Edmonton and Philadelphia would be able to afford him, but they all require some losing before the winning begins, and everyone who knows Babcock will tell you he isn’t big on the ‘L’ word.
I still like Babcock with a team that’s close, such as St. Louis or Pittsburgh, where Ken Hitchcock and Mike Johnston currently reside, despite the financial issue.
Full stories: Flames’ road trip success proves doubters wrong
Why Mike Babcock won’t end up with the Maple Leafs
More of Spector’s most-read stories from 2015:
Flames seeking a big trade to clean up a big mess
The tough call the Bruins face with Zdeno Chara
Why it’s time to call NHL goaltenders’ bluff
The NHL is a better, safer place without Raffi Torres
