Mind Over Puck

Okay, we're right into the heart of the dog-days of summer and the current NHL off-season is no different (looong days filled with meaningless blather and beer). So, to turn the tide and beat the heat this post is about the dog-days of winter that are upcoming and how the Flint Generals have mounted a full-on frontal-lobe assault on these so called dog-days. Actually, are there "dog-days" in winter? Shouldn't it be the "cat-days" of winter or do dogs suffer both summer and winter equally? The answer is: who cares, let's move on.

The Generals have apparently acquired the services of a "hypnotherapist", John Tomlinson, to help out their men with the mid-season blues that happen in mid-February. Yes, that's a great idea because who wouldn't be more accepting of a pseudoscience that fucks with your mind's-eye than a bunch of semi-shitty IHL* hockey players who can't even tell their girlfriends that they kinda like that old Enya song.

"This is an opportunity to have a guy in here to talk about their minds."(Smith, coach of the Generals).

Look, I'm all for "new" techniques that may or may not lead to the discovery of a super-human hockey player but I think they're barking up the wrong tree (yeah, that was a bad dog pun...and right there was another, but I digress or some such thing). These guys probably just need a hot meal and some good hookers to get themselves out of the dreaded February funk. I would like to see what hypnotherapy could do at the NHL level.....could Ovechkin score from his own red-line? Could the Canadiens' management quit smoking?

If you read the preceding link I shouldn't have to point out the irony involved in hiring a specialist in golf hypnotherapy to help out hockey players, so I won't.


*IHL - It's the International Hockey League....with all teams located in the USA.....and within an 8 hour bus ride of Flint. I guess "Interstate Hockey League" was taken.

PS - The Flint Generals just signed Matt Spezza, the younger brother of Jason Spezza. Matt's a goalie. Something tells me Jason killed his younger brother's confidence in goaltending from an early age...I hope that hypno-whatever works on goalies too.