This past Wednesday, one of the two Bay Area Major League Baseball teams — the San Francisco Giants — won their third World Series Championship in five years in their start to building a true sports dynasty. First off, on behalf of Blades of Teal, congratulations to them. Now what the hell does this have to do with Sharks and hockey in general? Well, it technically doesn’t, but the way they won it does.
Sharks TV Color Analyst Jamie Baker wrote a blog about it on SJSharks.com. In it, he quoted Giants Team President Larry Baer:
"We play a team sport, I think we are a role model for all teams– SF Giants Team President Larry Baer on players playing for each other and dealing with adversity"
Further more, Baer had said that “it’s down to the culture and chemistry of this club”, obviously — as Bakes himself noted — something that the San Jose Sharks are trying to look for.
How can the Sharks learn from the incredible consistency of the Giants in the off-season? Well, I think a quote by pitcher Jeremy Affeldt at the Giants World Series Championship ceremony summed it up pretty nicely. He basically said that during the post-game interviews he’d done, the most common question was what do the Giants need to do to win the ring again? He said they didn’t need to do anything. They didn’t need to win against the Pittsburgh Pirates, or the Washington Nationals, and they didn’t need to win against the Kansas City Royals. They wanted to win against all those teams to get into the World Series, and they sure as hell wanted Game 7 against the Royals in Kansas City. (And yes, I bolded and italicized those two words because I feel they are extremely important to drive the point home.)
As for the Sharks, they really don’t need a Cup, right? I mean. They’ve shown they’re ready as hell for the regular season each time and they’re only going to show up for the regular season ’cause that’s all that matters to them, right? If they really want a shot at the Cup, or even the Cup Finals, they’ve got to have that want to win it all, and they haven’t shown that at all in their history. Sure, they’ve come close but close doesn’t get you a Stanley Cup win. Close doesn’t get you multiple championships like the San Francisco Giants have. They’ve got to really want it, and I mean really, really, really want it. It’s got to come naturally, and again as Baer said, it’s all about the culture and chemistry in the locker room. I’ve noted that before in my previous article about the Sharks’ first big test of the season.
So, the final question I have for them is… do they really want to win hockey’s Holy Grail?