I watched Miracle again this weekend - what a great movie.  I have been a hockey player and fan since college when - it could be argued - I spent more time playing ice and roller hockey than studying.  Every time Bill Bishop comes to the NY office - that's my chance to talk hockey - he is a walking encyclopedia of anything hockey.

The irony of this movie is that the instinct of someone seeking to dissect the characteristics of a highly functional team and what it takes to become one, is naturally to focus on the Americans - our home team.  Why wouldn't you?  I love this story and this team - always have.  But in the spirit of intellectual honesty, the more a propos example of a highly functional team was probably the Soviet team.

Despite having some legendary players, the Soviets themselves started out as a hodgepodge collection of "club" players, many of whom worked day jobs in factories or were in the military and played hockey at night and on the weekends, then periodically took time off from work to train for international play.  If you look at the entire Soviet team from that Olympics, only Fetisov became a bona fide star in the NHL.  By contrast, there were multiple NHL all-stars and NHL team captains who played on the US Olympic Miracle on Ice team.  It is the Soviets who after years and years of playing together, were able to dominate teams, not just in one Olympics or one big game or because they had insurmountable talent, but did so over multiple decades because of tens of thousands of hours of ice time together which conditioned their instincts and teamwork.  On top of that, the fact that Olympic hockey is played with different rules and on a rink that is much larger than North American rinks changes everything fundamentally.  Playing and practicing on Olympic ice 100% of the time was a huge advantage for the Soviets, which helped elevate an already great team to legendary status.

The movies, patriotism and legend would like us to believe that we had a bunch of free-spirited, amateur kids playing against seasoned, communist pros, and to a certain extent, that's absolutely true.  It was definitely the triumph of David over Goliath.   That team was indeed the youngest of any Olympic US hockey team ever fielded.  And that game was indeed one of the biggest upsets in sports history, ranking in my mind just ahead of Rulon Gardner's triumph over Alexander Karelin.  But when I think about highly functional teams - yes there were great things about the camaraderie and unbelievable hard work the team put in - and Brooks was a master challenger of each individual on his team.  But he was not very adept at avoiding the drama triangle and seemed more comfortable preaching from inside the triangle than outside of it.  I think he used just as much Red leadership as he did Orange.

So how did we win?  The Soviet players were interviewed in a documentary produced by ESPN, and the hands-down number one reason for the loss was coaching error - meaning the coach changed the game and mindset of the Soviet players irrevocably when he took quite arguably the single most talented player on his team out of the game and sat him on the bench starting in the second period.  Brooks, our players, lots of other people - they all deserve a ton of credit for training/selecting the team with a playing style that was more suited to wide-open European play and the larger Olympic rink which was a major departure from the past, and conditioning the team mercilessly and selecting a team young enough to actually believe the impossible, so that when fortune struck and Tretiak was removed, they pounced and never looked back until it was over.  When I think of what I consider the paragon of a highly functional team, I would select a team that demonstrated consistent athletic dominance over multiple decades, as opposed to a team that did so in miraculous manner over two weeks and was never able to repeat this level of achievement again as a team.  On the other hand, a real miracle makes for a much more entertaining and commercial storyline.

I think Hoosiers would also speak loudly for purposes of this assignment.

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-----Original Message-----
From: ironlady@stagen.simplelists.com [mailto:ironlady@stagen.simplelists.com] On Behalf Of Gunnerson, Erik
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 12:31 PM
To: ironlady@stagen.simplelists.com
Subject: RE: Miracle

I too had the opportunity to watch Miracle.  I saw it with my 8 year old son who enjoyed it as much as I did.  It was a great opportunity to talk about high performing teams and what makes a team successful.  He has a strong interest in football so I used it as an opportunity to talk about how the coach kept the players away from the media to focus on the team.  Seems like we could use some more of that in professional sports these days.

Erik Gunnerson
Managing Director
Mariner Investment Group, LLC
1717 Main Street, Suite 900
Dallas, TX  75201
O: 214 237 2344
C: 646 704 4224

-----Original Message-----
From: ironlady@stagen.simplelists.com [mailto:ironlady@stagen.simplelists.com] On Behalf Of Jha, Christine
Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2018 12:34 PM
To: ironlady@stagen.simplelists.com
Subject: Miracle

Just finished (re)watching Miracle.  I saw the movie many years ago however watching in light of HPT principles is different. It is a great movie and story.

The coach needed to get each player to  commit to the team.  There were a few times this was developing - the players not wanting to accept an outside player as they were already family, the player saying he played for Team USA (versus his university). The former is also an example of productive conflict given the players had to confront their coach on that matter.

Regards,
Christine

Deputy Chief Financial Officer
ORIX USA Corporation
214 237 2308 office
972 322 0966 mobile

Sent from my iPhone

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