By Rob Ficiur

Sometimes the world of sports seems unfair.  Even if the numbers on the scoreboard are right, the results seems unfair.  This week there were two examples.
1.  The Canadian team won the Silver medal in the World Junior Hockey tournament.  Having won five gold medals in a row, Canada hoped to win number 6.  Silver isn’t bad, and players and fans should be content.
While math and logic say Silver is good, the left over emotions of the game still make the silver medal look sour.  Going into the third period of the Gold Medal game, Canada was tied 3-3 with the United States.  Early in the last period the Americans scored two goals to take a commanding 5-3 lead.  If Canada had lost 5-3, I wouldn’t be writing (whining) about losing the game.
Canada mounted one of the most amazing comebacks I have ever witnessed.  Jordan Eberle, the same player who scored with only five seconds left in the 2009 semi final game; the same fellow who tied the Canadian – American round robin game – scored two goals in the last three minutes to tie the game.  The overtime game was back and forth – Canada hit a goal post and then Americans came back down the ice and scored the Gold Medal goal.
Canada had built up so much momentum with Eberle’s two goals, it seemed very anticlimactic for someone else to win the game.  As we look back in history, fans may well remember Eberle’s two goal comeback, if only because he has done this so many times before.
How the Eberle come back is remembered 10 years from now will depend a great deal on the NHL career of the Edmonton Oiler draft pick.  If Eberle becomes a regular 30 goal scorer, fans will remember his great moments from the World Junior Tournaments.  If on the other hand, Eberle becomes a career minor leaguer, or a third line checker, 10 years from now fans will hardly remember that this was the same player who excited the entire country with his offensive talent back in 2009 and 2010.
2.  Andy Murray was fired as Head Coach of the St. Louis Blues this week.  Coaches are fired all of the time in pro sports.  When this NHL season began 14 of the 30 teams had a different coach than they started the previous season with.  Why is it unfair for Andy Murray to be fired when half of the teams have changed coaches since October 2008?   In June, Andy Murray was one of three finalists for the Jack Adams Trophy for coach of the year.  Murray’s coaching success in the 2008-2009 season made him a candidate for coach of the year.  He took over a struggling St. Louis team and turned them it the best team the last half of the 2008-09 season with a record of 25-9-7.  The Blues made the playoff and Andy Murray looked like a genius coach.
This week that same genius Andy Murray was fired because the Blues had a loosing record.  Murray’s success in turning the team around so quickly last year led to his firing this year.  The reality is that the 2009 Blues were not as good as we saw and the 2010 Blues aren’t as bad as we see now.  Murray made an underdog team play above everyone’s expectations last year.  This year fans and owners reset their expectations and when Murray couldn’t deliver to that new level he was fired.
Firing a Coach of the Year nominee is not news.  In 1997 Ted Nolan of the Buffalo Sabres was the coach of the Year.  He was fired by the team before the next season began.  Terry Crisp coached the talented Calgary Flames to the 1989 Stanley Cup championship.  A year later Crisp was fired after a first round playoff exit.
 Andy Murray’s coaching style helped lead to his demise.  He is a very intense and demanding coach.  Players will often respond to this approach for a while, but eventually over an 82 game schedule players begin to tune out the demands of such coaches.  There has to be a fine line between demanding from players (and then getting fired) and being so soft on the players that they don’t perform.  Since half of the NHL coaches have been fired in the last 16 month it seems like a very hard balance to find.
Not every team fires their coach when they hit a bad stretch.  Lindy Ruff has been the Buffalo Sabres coach since 1997, and Barry Trotz has been the Nashville Predators coach since 1998.  The teams have stuck with their men through good and bad.  However, neither team has won a Stanley Cup.
On February 15, 2009, the Pittsburgh Penguins who made it to the Stanley Cup finals in 2008, fired their demanding Head Coach Michel Therien.  Newcomer Dan Bylsma led the team to a 18-3-4 record and won the Stanley Cup.   So maybe firing the coach isn’t always a bad thing.
Sometimes the world of sports seems unfair.  Sometimes life in general seems unfair.  In the end Jordan Eberle, Andy Murry and the rest of us choose how we respond when life is unfair.  Whether we pout because of the world’s unfairness or whether we grow from our trials is a choice we each make.