Battle of the Bench Bosses: NHL Fight Club

For the entirety of the season there has been an argument raging over who deserves the Jack Adams award for best coach. Some have argued that New Jersey's Jacques Lemaire, despite not making the playoffs, deserves the award for his Devils' remarkable second half comeback. Others argue that Guy Boucher in Tampa Bay deserves it for turning a lottery team into a solid playoff competitor. In my opinion, it should be either Dan Bylsma of Pittsburgh, who has fought through injuries to keep his team fighting for a top 4 seed all season, or Bruce Boudreau of the Washington Capitals, who changed his team's entire system and philosophy over the course of the season. In the process, he sent them from losing seven straight, to fighting for the conference lead. Add in the fact that his team is top 3 in GAA in the league with 2 goalies aged 23 and younger, and that the team's PK has jumped from 25th to 3rd, and Boudreau should be the best choice for the award. Nevertheless, there are still perennial contenders like Phoenix's David Tippet, and Nashville's Barry Trotz. Fortunately for us, we're not the ones who have to make that decision. However, it does raise the question of how exactly the awards winner is decided.

"It's decided by the National Hockey League Broadcaster's Association," said every single person I raised this question too. Red blooded American that I am, I became immediately skeptical of what seemed to me to be some sort of union designed to improve the working conditions of a labor force in which there are more workers than jobs. The notion that something could be decided by vote by a group of scoundrels like union members both frightened and confounded me. Thus, I went to look further into the matter.

As it turns out, the process reeks much less of socialistic drivel than I thought. The GM's pick their eight favorite coaches, and then send them to the most hellish arena of combat they can find- Nassau Colliseum. Once there, each coach gets to pick a personal array of weapons before engaging the other seven in a horrid melee. Sure enough, like I said, Bruce Boudreau will still win this year's fight, as he will be a fat man with a pitchfork. And no one has ever defeated a fat man with a pitchfork. Then again, Guy Boucher sure does seem like has some sort of experience with armed combat.