Q: Based upon the team's performance last season, what do you foresee as being the most significant issue to overcome with the Wings this year? How will you overcome those issues?

A: The biggest issue that we were unable to overcome last year was injury/ illness.  That exposed a lack of depth.  The good news is that a number of guys who would have seen less action saw more action and we expect to benefit from their experience this year.  We have made some nice additions to deepen our roster already this off-season and hope to have a few more before we tee it up for training camp.  The biggest issue we face this year is approaching everything we do with a sense of urgency.  We have assembled the core of what could be a very good team for the next few years and in order for us to get the outcomes we all want everyone in our organization will need to perform their jobs with a greater sense of urgency than ever before.  On a team level we will be together as a group just 47 times this season.  That is not a lot of time and each of us will need to commit to be at our best each time.

Q: Do you anticipate any difficult trades this year (ex. trading a great player) to accomplish your new strategy for the team (to get additional future draft picks, less seasoned players, etc.)?

A: Yes we do anticipate making some difficult trades and we want you to know that although some of the trades may at first glance be apparent and make sense; that others while at first glance might not make as much sense are part of a broader plan that we hope would make sense down the road.  Trading any player is difficult because we develop a personal relationship while we are together.  Sometimes the situation, the teams’ and/or the players’ is such that it is in everyone’s best interest to make a trade and the deal gets done.  Like most things in any other business the best deals are win/win ones and that is the approach we are taking to any trades we do.

Q: How does your leadership style differ from the previous leadership of the Wings?

A: I think its best to lay out how I do things and leave it to others to make comparisons.  I believe that high performance organizations are comprised of good people who are given the tools and environment to perform their job.  I believe that self motivated players perform best and are best led by other players.  Short answer is that I am a delegator.  During my first year I did not spend enough time developing our leadership team and that was an area I set out to improve last year.  Our leadership team, headed up by Thomas Hajek, was excellent in keeping us together and moving forward during some pretty difficult situations.  I think we have a great group of leaders, and as importantly followers in place on this team and I expect the results to reflect their traits this year.

Q: What benchmarks or goals do you expect to achieve by mid-season for fans to be able to determine if you are getting the job done effectively?

A: The easy answer is, have an undefeated home record and be a few games over .500 while playing exciting lacrosse.  I think you deserve a better answer than that so let me try and share how we went about setting goals for the Wings last year and the changes we are making to that this year.  Our team, led by our captains, went through a fairly extensive goal setting process at the beginning of last season and they shared their work with me and our staff.  We had some back and forth, agreed on process, performance and outcome goals and went forward.  Last year our outcome goals fell far short of where we wanted to be, our performance goals somewhat short and our process goals better than you might expect given the outcome.  This year we are going to move from setting goals to setting standards.  I read Coach K’s “The Gold Standard; Building a World Class Team’ this summer and he spoke about establishing standards rather than rules or goals.  I like the simplicity and clarity of his approach and we will adopt that with the Wings this year.  I am sure our guys will establish some very high standards for us and we live up to them the results will take care of themselves.

Thank you 

Dave Negrin
(Wings fan since '90, season ticket holder since '01) 

Q: How do you feel about your prospects in 2010 NLL Season with all the speed and skill you’ll have available in Transition this year when Mr. Christmas comes back and having Mr. Levine on the field as well?

A: We are probably at our best when we play fast and there is no doubt that John and Jordan are two of the fastest guys in the league.  We have already added some more speed in Bill McGlone and are going to keep adding more in the coming months.

Q: A couple of weeks ago I was watching the Bayhawks / Nationals game (you know the one where Snider went after Nadelen – for a clean hit) How do you handle these type of issues or conflicts on the field when they occur on?  Do you take a position? What do you do if they crop up? 

A: I think the administration of the rules is best handled by the referees and the league but have been around long enough to understand there are situations where players feel a need to “police” the game.  As long as it is done in a manner that does not put our team at a disadvantage, long term, and there are no safety or game integrity issues I am generally OK to let the affected parties, players league and officials work it out without adding my two cents to it.  As for the situation with Nads and Snides it was just two tough competitors doing what they do best.  I liked what both guys did and both guys are fine with it.

Q: Now that you are the Coach and GM of the Wings how will you handle coaching your son?  I know I coach my 2 boys, and the President / Co – Founder of our organization,  I actually feel as if I am doing them a disservice, because I worry about the “Coach's son is getting preferential treatment” stigma .. and they have the least amount of playing time on the team because of that?

A: I coached Kevin all through youth lacrosse and helped out on the defensive end for the last two years of his high school career.  In talking to other dads who coach their kids I made the same mistake in youth lacrosse as we had the same feelings you did “… feel as if I am doing them a disservice…”  I am making a guess here but you may have also criticized your kids in front of everyone else far more than you did other kids because you know they “can take it”, so if you did welcome to the club.  After talking it over with other coaches in the same boat I came to the conclusion that by being extra hard on my kid I was not doing a disservice to him but actually to the other boys on the team because I was not being completely honest with them.  I corrected that in high school and decided that from that point forward I would treat every player equally badly.  It also helped that he was an attackman so he was not a direct report with my role as a defensive coach.  As it relates to the Wings we are bringing on a great offensive coach so Kevin won’t be a direct report with me here either.

Thanks

John Barrett

Q: We 've added a lot of new and talented players on the offensive side, however what do have in store for our defense mainly our goal tending?  This has been a problem here ever since Dallas left.

A: I competed against Dallas from the visitor’s bench for years so I can tell you they broke the mold when they made him.  He was truly one of a kind.  Like all great players who leave you never replace them with one guy but instead hope to have a whole bunch of guys pick up the slack.  Our defensive play is improving in all facets and I thought we were at a good level the last six games of last year.  With the guys we have coming back and as importantly their and our understanding of what we need to do now I am looking for continued improvement in 2010.

Q: Second Question, is everyone staying with us that were currently on our team last year, and will there be any chance of a Christmas Return? 

A: No, there will be some more changes to our roster in addition to the players we added in the dispersal draft.  I think the sweeping changes we made over the last two years have slowed down as we like the core we have assembled and are looking to tweak rather than rebuild.  I saw John in Toronto recently.  He looked good and we talked about his LEAPS project and about his return, so we will see what happens.  Whether or not John returns he is truly one of the nicest people I have met in this sport and we should all be very proud of what he doing with LEAPS.

Thank you,

Russ

15 year season ticket holder

Q: You had a lot of positive ideas when you took over as coach; what do you think the next steps are to bring together a vision that will lead to home playoff games, and a title? 

A: I believe we are a lot closer to those outcomes today, after a 7-9 season, than we were a year ago after a 10-7 season.   Thanks to an open minded group of players, coaches and ownership we have been able to implement many of those ideas.  Some of our initial ideas were good and we have improved on them.  Others were not so good and we changed direction on those.  I mentioned an increased sense of urgency in an earlier answer and the need to be at our best for each of the 47 times we are together this season.  That sense of urgency is the most important step for us in 2010.

Q: Can you highlight some of your plans that will differ from your predecessor's approach?

A: I enjoyed working with Lindsay and learned a great deal from him.  I consider him a friend and someone I can go to for advice and counsel, as I have over the past couple of months.  We value the same personal characteristics in players so I will continue to bring in good people that are good players.  Because of our geographic differences it is probably safe to say that I am slightly more comfortable with American players than Lindsay might be and that he is slightly more comfortable with Canadian players than I am.  What that means for the Wings is that you will still see a balance of American and Canadian players but the balance may shift by a player or two the American way.  As far as style of play goes our plan, which we all agreed on, when I became coach in 2008 was to play faster.  Our plan was to play even faster in 2009 but circumstances dictated a more deliberate approach on the offensive end and, as in 2008, that decision was a consensus one too.   Right now we are looking to play faster in 2010 than we did in 2008.

Q: What type of style changes do you expect to enact in overall team play and roster?

A: Subtle ones.  I expect a return to the more wide open offensive play of 2008 combined with the type of defense we played at the end of 2009.  We have already made some additions to the roster which will necessitate some subtractions and we will have a couple, albeit not many more, in the coming months. 

Q: Do you prefer the more open style of the MILL, back from your first tenure as GM, or the more specialized offense/defense approached used in the NLL today?

A: Since I actually ended up playing back then I am definitely going to say I like today’s game because there is no way, even at my best 1970’s weight and skill level, I could survive much less play with the guys out there today.  I think the best way to answer your question is to quote one of the great original Wings and a teammate of Mike French (Wings Owner) and mine on the 1978 World Champion Canadian team, Captain Carm Collins.  Carm attended the inaugural game of the Eagle League at the Spectrum in 1987 in front of a packed house.  John Grant Sr. and Mike were playing and I was GM/Coach.  After the game I asked Carm what he thought of the game and he said, paraphrased, “David, you know I don’t really care for the game played with the Tupperware (Canadian for plastic sticks) but any time there are 15,000 people watching and loving a lacrosse game that is just great for me.”  I loved this game when I was a kid playing with a wooden stick on a dirt floor, loved it ever since and love it today in every shape and form.  I am very grateful to my dad for introducing me to it, and to all the people who have allowed me to be a part of it for all these years.  Thank you John, for being one of those people.

John Tidd

Q: Now that Mr. Sanderson is no longer with the team, will you let them open up more and take shots on goal?  Nothing is more disappointing to fans than for one of our players to get a break away and then stop dead to wait for the rest of the team to show up.  I know myself, I would rather see him take the shot and miss than play catch and run down the shot clock without ever getting a chance to take a shot again.  

A: We opened it up quite a bit in 2008 to the tune of 225 goals for and a goal scoring record for AI.  It would be disingenuous for me to suggest that Lindsay was not a vital part of that team.  He was the guy who got us the players and was fully supportive of our playing style.  As I indicated in an earlier answer circumstances that were beyond our control dictated to a large degree a different approach in 2009.  It would be equally disingenuous for me to suggest that I was not a big part of the decision to play slower and deserve the lion’s share of the blame for the result.  We are all committed to opening things up again in 2010 and god willing we will have the healthy bodies to do so.

Congratulations on your new position, I can't wait for the new season to start!

Sue G

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