Mudbugs Hockey Blog

The Mudbugs so far have earned a some points, 4 to be exact in the 5 games played thus far. Now is that acceptable? If was this was any other beginning to a season that I have witnessed anyway, my answer would have been ” No”.

But this is not your normal beginning to a season in any league. Sure we have seen some flashes of brilliance and cohesiveness at times, but rest assured what you had seen was raw talent and hockey instincts breaking through all the confusion and suspect confidence.

Lets look at it this way, those flashes were you do witness perfect passes and beautiful goals are the talent the players actually posses and will come forth on a more regular basis once all their pucks are in a all in a row.

The team is getting crucial practice time together this week leading into this weekend games in Tulsa and Wichita. Despite only winning 1 game has racked up some points and learned some valuable lessons very early in this new season.

What are they?

1. To be dealt with adversity, and having the opportunity to either use it to grow stronger or allow it to eat you up and convince you that you its just too much to overcome and fade in the background until the dust settles where you will then see the players who had already chose to give that extra amount, and not listen to what they CAN’T do, but to work as hard as it takes to do what they CAN do.

Either way it’s a decision any person in any walk of life has had to deal with at one time or another. No different for the men in the purple and teal. Men that I believe will have the character and pride to make the correct decision.

2. They are, and will learn all season long long hard lesson of what happens if they don’t do their job for 60 minutes. working hard every shift is something that can only be learned when you are pushed to the limit, and only then can you see clearly the potential that you already possess and never new you had.

Learning from your losses and disappointments is what gives us the wisdom to recognize our faults and how to deal with them when they present themselves once again. That will build character and mental strength in these players. Because as physical as the game of hockey is, it is also just as much mental.

This team I believe has already shown signs of learning these things and more. Until the picture comes much more into focus, every point they can muster up in anyway they can get it is a bonus. Because the one constant that will forever hold true is the how many, not the how.

© 2006 – 2009, Mudbugs Hockey Blog. All rights reserved. To Republish you must link back to the Original Article

Believe in it or not you have to admit there have been a ton of changes since last season ended and so many weird oddities about the beginning of this season that it leads one to wonder. I just don’t know what it is but something just hasn’t been right.

Could it be bad Karma that has been making me feel this way for fear of bad things to come, or is good Karma drenched in the inability to see through the muddled mess leading up to this point to which may have clouded my foresight to see all the good things that could possibly take place in spite of it? I guess just like everyone one else, I will have to wait to see what I see.

One could say ” if this is how the beginning is, then how will the end come to a close and at what point?”

A more optimistic person could say ” if this is as bad as it gets, then we are in for a great season”

I am going to take the middle road on this one because I am basically middle of the road kind of person and predict that it will get ugly before it gets pretty.

The Bugs will struggle in the first 15 to 20 games while they search for their identity and on ice trust of one another. Just the fact that nearly 70% of this team is full of new faces should tell you this team is going to need time to gel.

Time to gel. What does that mean anyhow? It means time for players to get to know each others good habits and bad habits, time to get to know one another to see who fits best with who and most of all the true belief of every player in that locker room believes in himself and everyone of his teammates and them in him.

Heck! I am going to have to stick my face to the roster sheet each night just try and figure out who is who. But that will come and so will the wins. we will all work our way through this learning process and new beginning together, together as a family, together as a Hockey family, and even more special together as a Mudbugs Hockey family.

New season, new beginning, new attitude, same Mudbugs Hockey.

© 2006 – 2009, Mudbugs Hockey Blog. All rights reserved. To Republish you must link back to the Original Article

Ok! Enough is enough; I can’t stand all this hush hush anymore. I’m sick of that and the disappointing way the team has not done very little to put myself in an excited frame of mind to get this party started. Almost every day I find myself looking at the MudbugsInsider countdown to remind myself when the first home game is.

All I can say is thank god for the NHL starting up Wednesday. If not for that I may have has to resort to watching reruns of badminton on ESPN. I am always keeping an eye on other teams and from what I can see is that comparably we fall flat on our faces when it comes to community involvement to hype the city to the upcoming season.

Oh! I know there are some who will say “the coach has put together a winner every year, why should this year be any different”. I will tell you why! Because we are starting our 10th season, that’s why! That’s ten seasons fans have supported this team with their hard earned cash.

You can’t blame fans from having their doubts and building up and bad taste in their mouths. We don’t want to but, when we are given very little hype and positives to ward off that kind of skepticism it become almost insurmountable to not have doubts.

Now don’t get me wrong I will continue to support this team as I have in the past. I will continue to cheer for this team no matter who is inside the jersey that is not the issue.

The issue stems from the lack of pr done by this team. If it was just another season we could say oh! Well” that’s they way the do things and accept it” But again this is a milestone season we are getting set to embark on Where’s the hype?

Keeping quiet about who is in and who is out is bogus, first of all if the Coach is trying to pull a fast one by springing a bunch of ringers on the league is big fat waste of time. One game is all takes to alert other teams to who you have. And does it really matter? For one thing every coach in the league knows Muscutt’s style of coaching as well as recruiting to play that style so why the secrecy?

It’s the secrecy itself that frustrates many fans myself included.

© 2006 – 2009, Mudbugs Hockey Blog. All rights reserved. To Republish you must link back to the Original Article