"Yeah! Co-utch drilled 'im, right in his MIND!"
...one of the Hansen Bros. talking about Reg Dunlap
Finding a man who looks and talks more like Dale Carnegie than Toe Blake, the Kings have charted a 180 degree turn in strategy for how to lead the troops into battle.
Andy Murray takes control of the bench a year after the Kings waffled out of demanding a commitment one way or the other from Larry Robinson as they apparently had brick and mortar more on the mind than silver cups and banners.
Andy Murray .. a handle without brand name recognition or even a metallurgical monniker, like Iron Mike or Lead Patrick. From the initial signs, however, Murray might be trying for the nickname "Dale," as in Dale Carnegie the famous self-help guru from the 1950's who made a fortune motivating salesmen to believe that they could sell "anything," even tail lights on a Caddy that looked more like Marilyn than motorcar.
Will Murray take the Kings to the Promised Land of LordStanleyana? Everyone here at the Online Kingdom sincerely wishes him success. And like fans everywhere, when we root this hard we want at least a cursory understanding of what exactly goes down behind the scenes
Let's look at the "Dale's" Canon.
Rule To Live By # 1 - Know What Your Buyer Will be Thinking, and Answer His Questions Before He Has a Chance to Ask Them. For Dale Carnegie that meant, anticipating every possible reason your buyer could say "no sale," and refuting each one with a specific reasons why if they did "buy," they'd be smarter, handsomer, and doggone-it, more people would *like* them. For Murray that meant going to your initial job interview with a specific action plan for what the Kings *should* have been doing to make their team better, including an NBA-style shot clock for Vladimir Tsyplakov.
Rule To Live By # 2 - Plan for Every Minute of Every Day. For Dale Carnegie that meant staying up all night planning how you would stalk down every single buyer on your list. Where they went for a donut in the morning. When they'd pick up the phone because they thought it would be their mother calling. For Murray it meant staying up all night writing out schedules for how many seconds the players have to put on their left shin pads, who rotates on the "pull the pucks out of the net" during shot-taking practice, in what order the players have to skate off the ice, and who winds Pete Demers' stopwatch so he never has to look down when he's timing the players' 40-second shifts.
Rule To Live By # 3 - The Mirror is Your Bestest Friend. For Dale Carnegie that meant admonishing young salesmen not to go to work without buffing their shoes, spending more on a good business suit than on junior's whole annual clothing allowance, and polishing that "Ipana" smile. For Murray that meant hiring a videogame junkie to tape record every movement the players make from pulling into the parking lot, to sticking their key in the lock when they get back home. Video replays of practices, of sitting on the bench waiting for your shift, of how many seconds you spend wrapping tape on your stick. Tendencies. Tendencies. And hiring a ex-pit-boss from Vega$ to oversee the videotapers just to spot those occasional "tendencies" that don't get noticed by anyone other than a serious hustler always on the look for that critical "tell."
Rule To Live By # 4 - Never Pass Up an Opportunity To Make a Gratuitous Gesture. For Dale Carnegie that meant *always* saying "Have a nice day" at the end of a sales call, regardless of whether you made the sale or even already ruined the buyer's day. For Murray that meant calling the FTD man and spending most of Norstrom's salary increase on flowers for the players' wives and girlfriends.
Rule To Live By # 5 - Hit the Road, Jack. For Dale Carnegie that meant preaching that buyers don't come to you. You go to them. Spend 365 days of the year on the road selling. Invest in that Pontiac instead of just a Chevy because on some days, you'll need that extra horsepower just to get to where they're going before they do, so you can jump out of the car and sell 'em before they can get two feet up on the curb. For Murray than meant junkets to Austria, Finland, and lord knows where else just to show the players the *real* meaning to the old phrase, "You can run but you can't hide!"
Rule To Live By # 6 - Make Perfectly Clear What Everyone Is Expected To Do . For Dale Carnegie that meant making damn sure buyers understood that if they didn't buy your product, no living person on the face of the Earth would ever speak to them again. For Murray that meant living, not just mouthing, the WWF Mantra - "Know Your Damn Role, Jabrone!"
Rule To Live By # 7 - Make Sure THEY KNOW YOU REALLY CARE. For Dale Carnegie that meant contacting every single buyer every single day and gushing into their ear about how your whole life revolves around how much their friendship means something to you *because they actually buy stuff from you,* and really, truly, madly, deeply, meaning every word of it. For Murray it means making himself and every single member of his co-utching staff track down every single player and talking to him every single day. It also doesn't hurt to open your jacket and show them the vest stuffed full of dynamite, and repeating how quickly you'll light the fuse if they ever think for even one second that you (the player) don't mean more than the breath of life itself to co-utch.
Micromanagers have been a fashion. The North American continent has seen its share of Robert McNamara's just as often as it's seen their laissez-faire counterparts like Larry Robinson. Will the Yin win out this go-round, or will the Yang? Who knows, but I look forward to watching. Right now, though, I think I'll go the library and pick up some treatises on Decartes' Dualism of the Mind and go stir up a frosty glass of Ovaltine to toast success to our newest "Dale."