Sunday Potpourri: Wants & Needs

In case the recent and ongoing financial crisis hasn't taught you this; the success of the U.S. economy is wholly dependent on marketers ability to redefine the word "want" into the word "need" in consumers minds. We all like to think we understand the difference but frankly not that many of us do. I want the Seawolves to succeed; I don't need them to. I want Anchorage climate to suddenly mirror Honolulu's but I don't need it to. We all want the double-cheeseburger but we probably only need the tofu-granola salad. I sure don't need text messaging and honestly neither does anyone else. But try to tell that to 16 year old and I suspect you'd hear the word "need" as part of their retort. I doubt any of us could actually go through the next 24 hours without hearing someone misdescribe a "want" as a "need".

I understand we have Sigmund Freud's nephew, the father of Public Relations, Edward Bernays to thank for all that. I'm feeling like a little diatribe about the dangers of psychologically generated/influenced marketing and the hollow unsatisfactory world it leads to but, none of you want to read about what I think is fucking up the world right? (I trust at least one of you will actually Google Edward Bernays name to see what I'm on about or look for the Adam Curtis documentary - Century of Self.) Ok then ... there's plenty of wants and needs for the Seawolves in the upcoming second half of the season.

There's pretty much only one overriding id-generated desire of every sports fan; we "want" our team to win. For that matter, the players "want" the same thing. Some fans may even "need" their team to win for them to keep shelling out their dough to watch. I mentioned above that I don't need the team to succeed but, I'll admit that the level of my "wanting" is pretty much as high as it could be without becoming a "need". I think there is only one way that we Seawolf fans are going to get our wants fulfilled this season. And that is for the team to do what it "needs" to do to win more games. Here's my list of what the Seawolves "need" to do (in order of importance):

1. Improve the Penalty Kill
This is number one because the current Seawolf numbers are frankly ugly. Early in the season the PK looked promising. The team seemed to be killing off back-to-back and 5-on-3 chances one after another. There's something obvious in that observation I think ... the number one way to help improve the penalty kill in the 2nd half will be to take fewer penalties eh? Taking the 5th or 6th most penalties per game in the whole NCAA isn't recommended if you want to win hockey games. Don't get me wrong here. I think the Seawolves have a potentially dangerous set of penalty killers. Paul Crowder isn't the only regular PKer that has SHG potential. But 10+ penalties a game is too much. How do you solve it? I suggest focusing the effort on committing ZERO penalties in the opposition zone. ZERO.
2. Improve the Power Play
The Seawolves 5-on-5 play this season has been dominating. Yes. Dominating is the right adjective. Every line has done a terrific job with the puck possession strategy. In many past seasons, we've seen one or two lines capable of that sort of dominating play. But this year all four lines have created those periods. So you'd think they'd be tearing it up with a man advantage. I think the power play is tentative. Everyone is gripping the stick a bit tightly. Get solid possession, relax and find a good pass ... the goals will come. Also, I don't like forwards who aren't practiced in the fine art of keeping the puck in the zone at the point; please put only D-men in those roles. Plus the D-men have heavier shots.
3. Leaders must Lead
Mat Robinson, Josh Lunden, Kevin Clark and Brian Bales need to contribute more points. All of these guys are performing extremely well in my view. They each bring talent and skills to every shift that benefit the team. None of them have bad scoring numbers. But it just hasn't been enough from them. These four guys bring a wealth of experience and maturity; they're all studs. They are 4 important leaders on the team. For us fans to get what we want these four guys will need to make more pucks go in the other teams net. It isn't inapporiate for us to expect the leaders to lead.

If all of the other important attributes that make a hockey team successful just improve incrementally (as you'd expect with time and experience) during the 2nd half then I think we fans will have our varying levels of want fulfilled to varying degrees. There's only 6 points to 3rd place and the Seawolves have 2 games in-hand over 6 other teams. The team's fate is in it's own hands. They are facing the exact hump that we've all heard about for so long. The first step on the way up this hump is the series against Wisconsin next weekend. There can be no zero point weekends from here on out. There better be few if any 1 point weekends.