Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Ron Wilson fan. But coaching the Toronto Maple Leafs may be one of the toughest jobs in professional sports and I’m not so sure Wilson will be able to survive.
In the short-term he has nothing to worry about since expectations are low this season and he has a costly 4-year contract. Right now the fans and media love his "shoot from the hip" style. Not surprising considering over the last 10 years the brash and talent-challenged Tie Domi was more popular with fans than the classy and skilled Mats Sundin.
You know where you stand with Ron Wilson. Wilson is determined to change the culture in the Maple Leaf dressing room where less than your best effort has been tolerated going back to the Pat Quinn era. The players are being challenged and they are responding. This is the first step to working your way back to being competitive. At least the Leafs will out work their opponents.
But his confrontational approach combined with his openness will eventually backfire. This is a team where everything you say, don’t say, do and don’t do are examined under a microscope, dissected, turned upside down and then thrown in your face by fans on call-in shows, by the media, by bloggers, and let’s not forget Donald S. Cherry.
Publicly embarrassing players is having a positive impact on their performance by making them more accountable. If he continues to do that he will eventually lose the dressing room. He runs the risk of having the whole team quit on him. Right now the media chuckles at being called bipolar because of their tendency to overstate team highs and lows. However, although the local media has no problems with character assassination when it comes to Toronto athletes and sports officials, many have very thin skins. They can dish it out but they aren’t real good and taking it back. The sense of entitlement extends beyond the Leaf dressing room into the Leaf media room. So eventually enough reporters covering the Leafs will turn on Ron Wilson too. When that happens, the fans will likely join in and management will cut Wilson lose faster then you can say Alexei Ponikarovsky. That’s basically what happened in San Jose.
I don’t know when it will happen I just know that it will happen.
12 years ago
