Not since Dean Lombardi got his own quotation page has any person earned his or her own dedicated place on this site. Not even Terry Murray received this honor, although I had one all planned out two days before his anything but on the horizon firing…
What possessed me to write this? I didn’t. It was the spirit of Jamie Kompon that brings you this prose. Jamie’s career accomplishments speak for themselves just as the L.A. Kings’ powerplay under his command and control does so each and every night. Today’s 0 for 8 performance did a lot of talking.
Take a few minutes and appreciate Jamie Kompon like Surly & I have since he was rightfully promoted to powerplay coach.
The Jamie Kompon appreciation page, aka fire this bastard before I end him, can be found at the top of your screen or, if your punk ass doesn’t wish to navigate with the cursor, click here.
“Today’s 0 for 8 performance did a lot of talking.”
Against a team ranked TWENTY-NINTH in penalty kill, no less.
Geesh. Rub it in…
Most that know me say that I have no patience…..I agree. Today, I have lost my patience with the Los Angeles Kings. I didn’t even see the game. I was forced to be at work preparing for a large conference next week in Vegas. I listened to Nick and Darryl. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing….I tried to picture penalty after penalty in my mind while I was suppose to be concentrating on an excel spreadsheet. “WTF Justin Williams” I said out loud with my headphones on….I looked around, I don’t think my boss heard me. BJ’s go up one, they try to give us the game, but we don’t take it.
As years come and go, and hockey seasons come and go, they are all starting to run into each other. Who knows how many I have left on this fair earth, but listening to that game today, took the air out of the sail AGAIN! *shoulders shrug, heavy sigh*
Thanks for providing a clean, white square to type my hockey woes! I’m home alone!
I have a sore throat from screaming at the tv. What the heck was that today? They really lost to the blue jackets? I guess this win for them gave them some confidence. I….I….. just don’t understand why our talent can’t score on a p.p. just unbelieveable!
Thought I remembered commenting this on your site, but it was on Lets go Kings.
http://frozenroyalty.net/2011/08/27/los-angeles-kings-head-coach-terry-murray-looks-back-at-2010-11-season/
Anyway in the comment at the bottom of the page, I left this comment in response to the Kings inconsistency in 2010 and the powerplay.
“Hey guys, editor of shark circle here.
I would attribute the inconsistency to one Jamie Kompton, the bane of the Kings existence, and the bane of their chances to be a great team. That guy needs to improve or go. When you’re not scoring on the powerplay, that means you’re not cashing in on opportunities to put games away, to blow out teams. You end up playing a lot of close games, and that can result in stretches where they don’t go your way, the bounces are bad. In other words when you play close games, there is a smaller margin for not just error, but bad luck. It’s very hard to be an elite team without a productive powerplay, the Bruins were a unique example. If the Kings want to be an elite team, they need an elite powerplay, same as all the other elite teams in the West. if you look at Vancouver, Chicago, Detroit, and San Jose, they aren’t just four of the top teams in the standings most years, they are four of the top teams in powerplay in the west. It will be interesting to see if Mike Richards and Simon Gagne can singlehandedly improve the powerplay, or if it’s a systemic problem with Jamie Kompton. I happen to believe it’s the latter. A good powerplay coach can make a productive powerplay with what he has. Kopitar and Doughty is not too shabby. Kompton had plenty to work with and he didn’t do well. I believe he is the problem.”
So nothing remarkable there, right? Just me spouting off about Jamie Kompton after the Kings dreadful powerplay showing last night, same as all the Kings fans.
Except I wrote that in September, a month before the season started.
Except that’s not as remarkable or dramatic as dedicating a whole separate paragraph to it made it appear, either. Surly/Scribe, this goes back to the keep it simple stupid we were discussing a couple weeks ago. Is the fact I was SO SMART to be 100% right about Kompton being a problem and needing to be fired a month before this season remarkable? No! I know a ton of Kings blogs and fans including I believe you guys wanted him fired after last season. That’s not remarkable that you, I, and so many others realized that, it was obvious.
But Dean Lombardi didn’t do it. So yet again we are in a situation where we’re not even complaining about Lombardi being sub-excellent, or “good” instead of “great.” Instead, yet again, the problem is that he is being sub-normal, sub-obvious. How many times do we have ask the question “Why didn’t he just make the easy, obvious, correct decision?” Maybe just being right about the obvious things doesnt build you an elite team in one season, you need some creativity and subtle smarts too in order to do that, but making the obvious decisions, i.e Tyler Myers, better coaching decisions, drafting some snipers, that at least gets you one in five years. But without it you can go decades. You have to make the obvious decisions.
I mean, really, I cant tell you how many times Ive known the right choice when Lombardi hasnt. I wish I had them all documented so I could prove it and really show how poorly he is doing, if not necessarily compared to most of his equally struggling peers, then at least compared to a hockey fan. Even so, at least there is a little bit of proof there, and it’s big proof. The powerplay going into this season was a huge issue, and it’s a big reason they’ve struggled this year. To be wrong on that big of an issue while a fan, many fans, went on record knowing the right decision before the season?
That’s just too big an issue for Lombardi to be wrong about. Extremely disappointed with Lombardi on this. And you know whats worse? I dont think Lombardi is so stupid that he wouldnt see the problem with this if it werent for one thing, loyalty. Why did all the fans want Kompon fired and Lombardi didnt seem to feel that way? Because Lombardi goes to work with the man and has that franchise killer known as overabundant loyalty to him Heres paraphrasing of Lombardi’s thoughts. on Kompon, I guarantee you they’re something like this. “The percentages may be low, but the PP is working hard, and Kompon’s a good guy who really works hard with them, comes to work every day with his boots tied good. Even on no-boot Thursday, he comes in with boots, says he dont know any way different, dont even own tennis shoes because he dont like that european liberal pansie Federer. Cracks us all up, but that’s just good ole Kompy. Place wouldnt be the same without him. And that PP will turn around. I promise you that one. Its juss like a mule when you bur her up on er barn for ther first time, before yur train er up. Sure, she aint gonna run proper, same as those fancy new piece-a-shit hybrid liberal cars dont run when you piss in the gas tank. (Im not sure how Lombardi got turned into a redneck here, but I cant control Lombardi’s thoughts, I just report them).
Them hybrids is supposed to be all advanced and shit, but alls I know is one can take my piss and one cant, and thats all a man needs to know know. Thats how my pops taught me to pick cars and his pops before him. The dealerships dont always like it much, but I think deep down the men there all understand, plus Im sures they all got a couple illegals to clean up the mess, so its good for everyone. Same thing here. Our boys just need a little more time to get used to Kompy’s piss, pretty soon it will start running their engines better than ever. It’s a lot cheaper than gasoline as long as you remember to drink lots of beer, hehe. In think Kompy’s working on that with the 1st unit just as we speak. Apparently Doughty is really progressing, never looked better. So I really think Kompie’s just gotta put the power in powerplay you know? I think hes starting to, he just needs to keep up the piss stream a little bit longer.”
The point I was making before my silly side decided to take the reins is that Lombardi probably realizes a bottom 10 PP is unacceptable, and that on numbers alone Kompon should not have a job. But because Lombardi knows the man, probably his family, and the guy probably has a good work ethic (just no brains), Lombardi will always choose not to fire anyone until it’s being demanded by everyone and ownership. Same reason why he waited so long to fire Murray.
Lombardi has always been too loyal and its biting him and the team just as much today as it always has and always will.
Memo to Lombardi: Sick of having to fire people? Stop hiring incompetents, or pretty soon your fans are going to start giving this same memo to your boss. One wonders if someone who hires this many people who don’t know what they’re doing might not also being someone who doesnt know what hes doing.