Aeros Functionality: Part 1

Joe O'Donnell, voice of the Aeros, brings us a meaty segment with Asst. GM/Asst. Coach Troy Ward talking about how the team breaks down responsibilities for the three coaches and, to start, how the coaches break the game down for offensive play.

Nothing earth shattering here, but I always enjoy listening to coaches get into the nitty gritty of hockey and Troy is a great teacher, so it's easy to follow if you're not all that well-versed in hockey systems.

(BTW, if the video doesn't work for you, as it didn't for me in Firefox or IE, it works in Safari. Could just be my system, but I figured I'd throw a solution out in case I'm not alone in my technical difficulties.)

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Captain, Revisit

Wow, did I ever miss the boat in my original musing on the contenders for the captaincy in Houston this season. Andrew Ferraro brought to light this article on d-man Brandon Rogers, who just signed a 3 year deal with the Wild, today and the comments from (my favorite) Aeros assistant coach Troy Ward definitely give me the sense that Brandon is likely a good bet for one of those spots.

"He had a calming influence on our team," said Troy Ward, the Aeros' assistant coach and assistant general manager. "He improved offensively with his numbers and he defended very well. He played a lot of minutes for us. He gave us good offense and defense and brought a lot of leadership to the team."

"What separates him from other hockey players is he has a humanistic side. He has a work ethic and passion and people skills and that radiates positive things for everybody. He's humanistic at a high level and unfortunately you don't see that in a lot of players."

Sounds like captain stuff right there, doncha think? Honestly, I didn't pay a lot of attention to Brandon during the season, but when I went back after the season and looked at his stats, I realized he was doing a lot more back there than I was giving him credit for. He's like the Nick Schultz of the Aeros, I guess. Just quietly doing his job extremely well and being a leader. Word. Good job locking that one up, Wardo!

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