Funny with these clown fans in Vancouver at the world Jr. Championships booing the U.S. team … you should be booing your own Hockey Canada and its predecessor which gave birth to the Russian hockey powerhouse of the 60, 70s, 80s.

Not too many folks in Canada know or admit it, but coaches like Dick Irwin shunned a man and author name Lloyd Percival in the 1940s/1950s after he came out with The Hockey Handbook, which stressed off-ice conditioning and different coaching applications to hockey. Percival was attacked by Irwin (who coached a whole 2 seasons … WOW, what an authority ….) and all of Canada’s hockey hierarchy as a kook even though he was a fellow Canuck. He was shunned.

While he was laughed out of Canada, Percival’s book and teachings served as the cornerstone to the Russian Central Red Army Hockey program and gave birth to the dominant CCCP programs when it fell into the hands of top Russians developing their program.

The rest is history. Today the book is still used and seen by many coaches as the best book on hockey ever written … worldwide. A few years ago hockey experts gathered to update the book some 50 years after its original publishing. They largely decided it needed no updating.

Remember that next time you Canadians boo the Russians or the U.S. or anyone else. Think of how great your hockey programs would have been if you listened to Percival instead of ignoring his ideas for 30 years?

Morons.

So if and when the Russians kick your ass in the upcoming World Jr. Gold Game, you’ll have yourselves to thank … with another one of your well-thought-out boos.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 4th, 2006 at 1:51 am and is filed under Bully's Perspective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.