Nathan MacKinnon, Canada’s assistant captain on the men’s Olympic’s hockey team, looked befuddled as he received his plushie during the silver medal ceremony at the close of the Milan Olympics Sunday.
It is understandable to be frustrated and upset after losing to Team USA in the gold medal game, but the Canadian Center appeared to believe the result of the overtime loss was not justified.
“You be the judge of who was the better team today,” MacKinnon told the press after the game.
An argument could easily be made that Canada was, in fact, the better team in the match. The Canadians dominated possession of the puck and outshot the U.S. 42-28.
But MacKinnon’s sour grapes ignores the fact that while they may have been the better team, Connor Hellebuyck was the best player on the ice that day. The American goalie held Canada to just one goal while making 41 saves.
Sometimes being the better team is not enough. Sometimes, one player can step up and change the course of a game and carry his team to a championship.
Texas football head coach Steve Sarkisian believes he has a good team.
“We’re a very good football team, and I’m okay saying that,” Sarkisian admitted while talking with the press this week. “We’ve got really talented players in that in that locker room, that are competitive, that are tough, that are hungry, that work at their craft.”
Sark famously likes to focus on the team culture in order to bring all of these players together. It’s a method that is tried and true.
“People on the outside probably don’t realize how important culture is,” Trey Moore told reporters, including our very own Alex Dunlap, at the NFL Combine this week. “When you care about the guy next to you, when you love him, it makes a difference. You play better when you’re having fun and playing for each other.”
Sarkisian says that with 22 freshman and 19 transfer portal guys on the team, he has moved up his timeline for culture building.
“A lot of that culture work we would wait until June and July, because that was the old model. That was when the majority of your players arrived, was after school,” said Sarkisian. “We started that the first week of February. And I think it’s been very helpful, not only for the new players, the high school kids, the transfers that had come in, but I think our own current players, because we’ve got now players on a roster that are ascending into leadership roles. And so that’s been really good.”
Sarkisian said he learned his lesson from last year when he waited until the summer and he says that in the void, the team developed its own culture.
“I felt like I was breaking bad habits of our culture all the way up until the season, even the start of the season,” said Sarkisian. “To me, that played a part of us maybe not playing as good a football early in the season.”
For Sark – the TEAM is everything. If the players buy into the team then they will play well.
But if Connor Hellebuyck has taught us anything, it’s that sometimes you need a bad mofo player to put the team on his back and make things happen if you want to win championships.
So the question is, does Texas have any playmakers capable of taking over a game and taking a title away from the opponent?
Let’s take a look.
