Life Is... a Contact Sport.

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Superior up on Wausau West, 5-0 in the third period of the state championship game in Madison today.

Character Check
02/16/2015, 6:00pm CST
By Dan Bauer
Character is what you do when everyone is looking

There is a popular saying, “Character is what you do when nobody is looking”. I think character in athletics is what you do when everybody is looking.

The sports arena is linked with a captive, sometimes emotional and always biased audience. There is virtually no place to hide when you step onto the field of battle. Your ability, your emotions and every gesture of your body language is under the microscope. The pressure to perform and win is a constant companion and your character is always on display.

Hockey perhaps more than any other sports demands you possess the character to fail. The candid scoring celebrations don’t come easy in hockey, and to enjoy one you will need to fail at a rate that would a send baseball hitter to the minors, a quarterback to the practice squad and a basketball player to the end of the bench. In hockey failure is a continuous obstacle you face and persistence your constant companion. It is a training ground for life.

Is there any celebration in sports that links the scorer and the team together better than hockey? The orchestrated raising of the sticks and the unbridled clash of bodies transforming five individual players into one unified huddle is the perfect symbolism of the team concept. As they absorb one another in celebration the scorer disappears and becomes just one piece of the puzzle that together achieved the goal.

Somebody once said, when you score, act like you have been there before. Seems players now spend more time working on their “cellys” than the skills they need to actually score a goal.

As a graduate of the “College of Old School” it disturbs me to see young players so intent on calling attention to themselves and away from the team. It disappoints me to see players tugging on the front of their jerseys and skating away from teammates to parade past the hometowns fans while gyrating their bodies like a rap singer. They have learned well from the choreographed pro athletes who thirst for that attention. This “me-first” mentality is the cancer that destroys teams, yet it seems to be tolerated by many coaches. It pains me to see sportsmanship in hockey eroding away like the skills of an aging player.

A solo celebration in a team sport never made any sense to me. Whether it is eleven players, six or five it is a team effort and the successes achieved should be shared by all. The NFL and NBA violate the team first mentality more than any others and if soccer counts you can add them to the list. I had hoped that Pat Riley’s “disease of me” would miss hockey as it spread throughout the sports world.

All of those self-centered acts demonstrate a lack of respect for opponents and the game itself. I am not of the school of thought that this is just kids having fun with the game. To cut out your teammates and demonstrate a lack of respect for your opponents is a selfish agenda that contradicts everything team sports should represent. And providing your opponent with added incentive to beat you is irresponsible.

Winning or losing, character is always on stage for players, coaches and fans alike. Respect for opponents is a hallmark that should not be compromised. Today we need face-masks, neck guards and stop signs on our jerseys as we attempt to legislate respect.

Watching the emotions in the handshake line of a Stanley Cup playoff series is one of the greatest moments in sports. One team at the peak of elation and the other the depths of despair reveals the true meaning of sportsmanship in one of hockey’s finest traditions. It is a display of character that sets hockey apart from its more popular counterparts.

Controlling emotions following a game can be a difficult task. The handshake comes before any of us have time to really process the result. The emotional immaturity of young high school players often gets the best of them and can turn this tradition into tragedy.

Having stood across a poorly constructed wall from my opponents I have heard head coaches deliver profanity filled tirades designed to tear down and humiliate my team. An underdog most of my coaching career I am all too familiar with the arrogance and disrespect displayed by some favorites. Their ill-mannered handshakes and ill-advised comments rub salt into a fresh open wound.

This time honored tradition is meant to be an act of sportsmanship. Hobey Baker and Bill Masterton never intended it to be so abused.

Coaches set the tone for the character of their teams and it is displayed by their athletes. Controlling the emotions of players is a challenging and risky venture for all coaches. Ultimately players must be held accountable for their digressions. And while teaching players the skills of the game will serve them well during their playing days, it is the character that you develop that will follow them for a lifetime.

We spend a lot of money on expensive jerseys, brand name warm-ups and other superficial attempts to display class. They are simply window dressing when we then allow our actions on the athletic stage to draw attention to ourselves, disrespect our opponents or contradict the core values of sportsmanship.

Save the money and spend the time to bring the team concept and the respect for the game and opponents back into clear focus. Hockey has always been the black sheep of the sports world for different reasons. Coaches please don’t allow the narcissistic culture of other sports to find its way into our great team game.

Some traditions should never go out of style.

There has been a concentrated emphasis on the new standard of play to clean up and enforce the traditional rules of hockey. Maybe that standard should focus more on checking character than checking-from-behind. You can’t mandate character—it is developed from the inside—but displayed on the outside.

And when everyone is watching your actions speak volumes about your character.