CALGARY, Alberta – On the heels of the Calgary Flames being snuffed out of the Stanley Cup playoffs following a Game 5 overtime loss to their arch rival Edmonton Oilers, team co-owner, Murray Edwards, is planning to implement some changes to help improve the team’s success in the post season. The billionaire oil and gas magnate understands that he has the right personnel on the team, but those players just need some specialized training to help them improve the skill of their game.
Mr. Edwards, Flames co-owner
“Hey, I didn’t become a billionaire by accident. I became filthy rich on the blood, sweat, and tears of talented engineers who did exactly as they were told and executed those instructions with surgical precision with little room for error. And I feel that every one of my players, even the soft-headed Matthew Tkatchuk, can achieve greatness if they can be trained to execute the way engineering professionals do. So that’s my mandate, and that’s what is going to happen.” – Murray Edwards, Calgary Flames co-owner
According to an insider close to the matter, Mr. Edwards first plans to cut the salary of each player by 35%, and make sure that they spend 60% more time at work. The next step is to slash player benefits including subsidized equipment, paid vacation, and team meals. But where things get really interesting is the off-ice professional training that each player will be required to take. The training syllabus, drafted by Mr. Edwards and Flames’ head coach Daryl Sutter, will include, but is not limited to the following courses:
No Expressions 101: This course, taught by none other than Coach Sutter, will get the boys into a zone such that it will be virtually impossible to show any emotions or facial expressions under any circumstances that can come their way on the ice or on the bench.
How the players will show facial expressions under certain scenarios after taking this course.
Prime Directives for Dummies: Robots, much like engineers, very, very, very seldom make mistakes. This is because they typically follow directives in the form of software instructions and they are fixated on doing one task, and doing it perfectly. In this course, players will be programmed to move, act, think, and execute tasks such as shoot, pass, make a save, and go and score, just as a robot would.
Win Even When You Lose: Did the opposing team score more goals than the Flames did and win the game? Not so fast. In the rare circumstance that the other team scores more goals, this course will teach players that you might not have won on the ice, but you can win off the ice. How? It’s easy. Although the techniques they will learn in this course are proprietary, let’s just say that it involves Milan Lucic leaving the bench with an undisclosed injury with 2 minutes left in the game with the keys to the visitors’ change room.
Boomer, from the popular Boomer In The Afternoons sports radio show loves the idea. “My roommate at the University of Saskatchewan was studying engineering, and I admired how well he executed drinking games – it was next level for sure. So I can see how engineering-like training can help push the Flames’ players to the point that they can execute that way on the ice. Murray and Rancher are onto something here,” Boomer told 2P News this morning. “I’m just glad that the plan does not include any geology-type training, because then we’d see a bunch of weak, crayon-carrying softies on the ice and the team would be done.”
