All I need to know about Management and Leadership I learned from Dungeons and Dragons #PMOT#Agile #D&D

Recently I had the opportunity to play Dungeons and Dragons again. I hadn’t played since I was in high school and didn’t realize how much I missed it. D&D and I drifted away  after version 3.5 and all the advanced rules. I had heard great things about the version 5 so I thought it deserved another look. The thing that really triggered it was a fascinating article about how some middle-aged Dungeon Masters are becoming professional Dungeon Masters.

If you are interested in the article here is link: How to be a professional dungeon master host

Forming the Fellowship

So it turns out that if you work in Information Technology, all you need to form a fellowship is to mention you would like to play D&D. In the space of 15 minutes, I had six people wanting to play, four of them Druids. (Don’t ask me why, Druids were always my least favourite character class)

Before I knew it we had a party formed and were going on our first campaign. Those first sessions confirmed that my Management and Leadership style was indeed formed in those early Dungeon and Dragons sessions in my youth. I was amazed how many similarities there were between a good fellowship and great team.

Shared Vision

So I started off with the typical starting point for all good campaigns – Ye Old Tavern. Unlike my first D&D experience, the fellowship didn’t just accept the fact that we found ourselves in the Tavern. The fellowship spent an inordinate amount of time discussing their backgrounds, motivations, and history that would have brought themselves to this point. The was the first metaphor that applied to all good teams – everyone needs to understand what the shared vision is and why they are there. Only once that is understood can the team take on a new mission and campaign. Unfortunately, most of the time we just group people together and expect they will function as a team or fellowship.

Collaborative Storytelling

When I started to think about playing again I found a book called “Of Dice and Men” that reminisced about the memories of Dungeons and Dragons and told some of the history behind the game. One of the concepts the book introduced to me was that Dungeons and Dragons was so successful because unlike normal games, Dungeons and Dragons involved Collaborative Storytelling. Collaborative Storytelling involves the Dungeon Master creating the genus of the story and then works in collaboration with the fellowship to modify the story to create the best story, outcomes, and enjoyment. The primary thing is to accomplish the quest, but the path or plot may change based on the actions and decisions of the team.

Second metaphor for great teams and leaders. They start out with a shared vision and genus of what they want to accomplish, but the entire team contributes and changes the story as it evolves. Especially key to this is the fact that the Dungeon Master is not separate from the team. He or She doesn’t create an exact plot that the team needs to follow. (Although some Dungeon Masters, Leaders, and Manager do try this approach with very limited success)

For a truly great team, the Dungeon Master, Leader, or Manager must view themselves as a member of the team just playing a different role.

Now that doesn’t mean the Dungeon Master, Leader or Manager makes decisions by consensus. Sometimes they need to make a decision or ruling but they need to remember why they are making the decision. What is the intent of the fellowship or campaign? And most importantly a great Dungeon Master, Leader, or Manager encourages and incorporates team feedback to change the quest and story. It isn’t their story to solely own.

Helping Each Other

And finally the behaviour I notice most in Dungeon and Dragons fellowships is the coming to the aid of each other. It is extremely common for members to heal each other and shield each other from harm. It is the one behaviour I notice in every fellowship I have ever been part of. There is something about the game that really encourages risk taking that benefits others over yourself.

Summary

Perhaps instead of other ‘team building’ activities, we just need to break out the 20 sided die and remind ourselves how we succeed together. Even better, we should all take turns as the Dungeon Master to remind ourselves that the best Dungeon Masters, Leaders, and Managers exists to help the players level up, gain treasure, and enjoy themselves while solving a quest.

 

 

 

 

 

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Why #athletes make great #Project team members #PMOT #DnD

I was attending a Manitoba Coaches meeting last week we were discussing the topic of Emotional Intelligence in both leaders and teammates. Emotional Intelligence is usually discussed in conjunction with the ‘soft skills’ that people have.

Emotional Intelligence is usually defined as “the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one’s emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically. ”

There are four fundamental aspects of Emotional Intelligence : Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management.

Although Emotional Intelligence can be augmented through training and education, there is the acknowledgement that some people have a propensity to have high Emotional Intelligence. The usual Nature/Nurture discussion arose and it was agreed that Emotional Intelligence is usually built through the relationships that people have in their early years.

Epiphany

It was discussed that people who are Emotionally Intelligent are proficient at:

• Collaboration
• Communication
• Accountability
• Independence
• Teamwork
• Leadership
• Problem Solving
• Critical Thinking
• Listening
• Conflict Resolution
• Managing their Emotions

I had an epiphany that team sports is one of the few things that provide consistent, repeated, and evolutionary experiences in most, if not all, of the characteristics listed above that Emotionally Intelligent people excel in. Team mates experience and grow in all of the proficiencies listed above due to the nature of team sports and shared purpose.

In particular, team sports are one of the few activities where peers hold each other accountable, manage conflict, problem solve, manage their emotions, and take turns leading in their own way.

Summary

Team sports are critical not only for physical and mental health, but also project health. Great project team mates have usually been great team mates previously in all sorts of sports.

The lesson? If your children want to be developers, sign them up for Hockey, Baseball, Basketball, and Volleyball. Their future team mates will thank you later.

If they really don’t like sports of any kind, get them to play Dungeons and Dragons. And the computer D&D games don’t count. They need to sit down with friends and learn how to co-operate and deal with looking each other in the eye when they betray or disappoint each other.

That’s accountability – Nerd Style.

The Future of #AI Augmented Project Management is misguided #PMOT #Agile

I haven’t read a Project Management article for a long time that spurred me to write a bog entry within 24 hours. I had that experience yesterday after reading The Augmented Project Manager by Treb Gatte. This article provided an introduction to the interesting application of Artificial Intelligence to the Project Management role.

Treb discussing the three areas of Project Management that could be affected by the application of Artificial Intelligence:

• Planning
• Resource Allocation
• Tracking

Planning

Treb discuss the future of AI Augmented Project Planning:

“Imagine if your scheduling bot generates a proposed project plan, based on the aggregated and anonymized experiences of similar sized companies doing the same type of project. Today, we use tools like Monte Carlo to simulate this information. The bot could incorporate real world data, potentially yielding better results.”

Let that thought percolate while we moved onto Resource Allocation.

Resource Allocation

Treb then illustrates the possible future of Resource Allocation:

“For example, your resourcing bot determines that you need a social media expert on your project on April 5^th for two days of work. It searches data sources like LinkedIn and your public cloud calendar to find a list of suitable and available candidates. Three are West Coast of the U.S., one is in Paris and one is in Sydney. It then automatically reaches out to these candidates with offers. If multiple people accept, it automatically manages the negotiation. Once complete, the planning bot is informed, a virtual desktop with requisite software is provisioned, user login credentials are generated and the specific task information is sent to them. When the job is complete and rated as satisfactory, the bot coordinates with your accounts payable system to pay the freelancer. The planning bot automatically updates the plan and pushes the data to the BI dashboards.”

I’m not sure this illustration involves much Artificial Intelligence as it really if just about integrating with existing technologies and platforms – but I digress.

Tracking

And then finally Treb discusses what the future of AI Augmented Project Tracking might look like:

“Project feedback loops on work are awful. The largest challenge is incomplete data, which results from increasingly fragmented work days, limits of the worker’s memory and tools that rely on human input. It is also incomplete as it serves little benefit to the person entering the data.

Workers are overwhelmed with tasks arriving via multiple communication channels and no consolidated view.

Imagine a world where the timesheet is antiquated. Today, we have systems such as Microsoft Delve that know what content you’ve touched. We have IP-based communication systems that know what collaborations you’ve conducted. We have machine learning capabilities that can determine what you’ve discussed and the content of the documents you’ve edited. This week, we have facial recognition capabilities and other features that can track and interpret your movements. Given all of this, why is a timesheet necessary?”

Opinion

Oh boy, where to start? It seems like most of focus of AI Augmented Project Management seems to be on the collection of data that will make the results better.

• “If we have better historical data, we can plan better”
• “If we have better, faster access to resources, we can complete tasks better and faster”
• “If we have better real-time data on tasks, we can report status and adapt better”

The Problem

The problem was all of these perspectives is they seem to be promoting, advocating, and recommending less human interaction between Project Managers and their teams. If we only had AI augmented Project Management, we can go back to our closed doors and avoid the pesky human interactions. Agile Project Managers realize that human interaction is he crucible of project success – AI Augmented Project Management seems to have forgotten that.

Yes, planning is hard.

Yes, resourcing and building high-performing teams are hard.

Yes, tracking and adapting the project is difficult.

But the answer is more interaction, communication, coaching, caring, and collaboration. Not less.

I’ve even seen another article promoting that chatbots could help to get status updates from team members. Oh yeah, that will greatly improve communication of information. Developers will just love getting the impersonal 9:03 am greeting of “What are you planning to do today, what did you complete yesterday?”

Summary

I believe the idea of AI Augmented Project Management will end up on the trash heap with the CASE tools that were going to replace developers in the 80’s, Artificial Intelligence can assist augmenting individual competencies, but not replacing team communication, interaction, and problem solving. Perhaps, there is a role for Artificial Intelligence in reviewing plans and highlighting possible areas of concern regarding scheduling or estimation that a human can review. But the automated  creation of plans, resource allocation, task assignment, and task tracking is misguided.

The idea that worthy Project Manager work is stakeholder management,  but not team collaboration, engagement and communication is wrong.

Software Development is a team sport, and requires collaboration, communication, and engagement to plan, resource, and adjust. The idea that you can broadcast the skills you need and just drop a resource in to do a task and not worry about culture, fit, team dynamics, and personalities is pure hubris. These are people working on complex, nasty problems. They need time to gel, bond, and collaborate.

Sports is frequently identified as an area Artificial Intelligence has helped. Absolutely. Artificial Intelligence can refine skills like throwing a football and shooting a puck. Assisting in team dynamics and planning remains elusive. Coaches still call the plays and adjust plans. Even coaches that leverage technology realize that…

 

Best #Coaching book ever! #TheCoachingHabit www.boxofcrayons.com/the-coaching-habit-book

I must admit when I was strolling through Indigo the other day, I wasn’t looking for a coaching book. In fact, it wasn’t even on my mind. I was there to buy my son a book because he left his copy at school and needed to finish reading the book by Monday. (Sound familiar, parents?)

So while my son tried to find his book, I sauntered over to the business book section and came across this little gem.

Two Reasons

This book is a gem for two reasons; the content is awesome and the author can actually write. I point this out because I usually slog through business books because the content is great, but the delivery is lacking. This book was very different, I picked it up on a Sunday and finished it on Wednesday. The book to easy to read, has great anecdotes throughout, and also a sense of humour to lighten the mood.

Michael Bungay Steiner introduces the 7 questions that are key to a coaching discussion. I won’t go into exquisite detail here as I want you to run out and buy the book. But he starts off with the Kickstart question of “What’s on your mind?” and concludes it with the Learning question of “What was most useful for you?”. I don’t believe I have seen a Coaching method or book that includes a step for reflection and a retrospective. That combined with the question of asking “So what is the real challenge for you?” helps to cut through gossip, complaining, and unproductive coaching sessions/meetings. In short, this book is a must have for every manager and aspiring coach.

You even get a bonus of a brilliant 5 step method of facilitating a Strategy discussion. But I’m not going to tell you what it is, you have to run out and buy the book. There even is a complete set of entertaining videos to complement the chapters and reinforce the learning.

Run, don’t walk to your nearest bookstore or amazon.

 

How to #Innovate – an Example

How to Innovate

In my last post, I was stressing how encouraging Innovation is not simply about layering Innovation over existing processes and culture, but how it really is a change management project about changing the culture of an organization. If you missed it, you can read it here.

Reading through the Winnipeg Free Press today, I was provided with an example of how Winnipeg is not really committed to Innovation, but only interested in it.

The Example

So it turns out that the city of Winnipeg, is building a new library named in honour of former Mayor Bill Norrie and his wife Helen. This is a good announcement for something that is really needed. You can read the story here. I listed the CBC link instead of the Winnipeg Free Press because the Winnipeg Free Press has a pay wall. (but that lack of Innovation is for a later post at another time)

I say this is only a good announcement because libraries are always good things and the library will be addressing some shortcomings in other libraries in regards to accessibility, natural light, and outdoor spaces. And it is also beneficial that it will be connected to other facilities and public transportation. But it could have been so much more if Winnipeg’s leaders were committed to Innovation.

I’m reminded of the old joke about how the chicken is only interested about breakfast while the pig is committed to breakfast. Winnipeg is definitely interested in Innovation in Libraries as they have created Maker Spaces among other Innovations at some libraries.

How could they be committed to Innovation you ask? Well I’m glad you asked.

Empowerment

A key factor in Innovation is breaking down the hierarchy of control and empowering others – changing the culture. This involves those in control letting go of their authority. They no longer ‘approve’ the Innovations recommended by others and plan and design in isolation.

How would this look?

1. Libraries are a key service provided by the municipality and would be an area where the city can control Innovation if it was interested. So it seems like a very good example.
2. Define a Library Strategy of what Winnipeg wants to achieve with their libraries. Start with the mandatory items that are legislated like accessibility so it is clear what is non-negotiable.
3. Create working sessions and involve City of Winnipeg Council, City of Winnipeg Administration, Citizens, Universities, Educational Professionals, and children to help to define the Strategy. The only existing Library Strategy I could find was one to discuss whether we should build or lease libraries. That just made me sad. 😦
4. Once we have the Strategy, have the same group define what the short-term and long-term objectives are and how we will measure if we are successful.
5. Once we have the Strategy, Objectives, and Success Factors we can innovate and discuss the features that satisfy the Strategy best. A Library has to be more that just building with books inside. For example:
   1. What is the content we should provide?
   2. Ask the current administration how libraries can be improved?
   3. Ask City Council what their constituents are asking for?
   4. Ask the Teachers what is lacking in the libraries currently?
   5. Ask the students why they study at a Starbucks instead of a Library?
   6. How does the Library change with e-readers? Do we rent e-readers with content? Could we offer books in multi-languages easier this way?
   7. There is a movement to more group spaces in other libraries. Should we dedicate more group spaces?
   8. What other services could be partnered with Libraries?
   9. How do libraries change with Social Media? Do they?
   10. Are libraries next on the cusp of a Blockbuster/Netflix moment? Should we investigate streaming content?

These are just a few ideas. The key is to communicate what you want to achieve and then listen to your clients.

And here is the scary part, implement what they recommend. Majority rules!

That is the scariest part of Innovation. Executives still want to ‘approve’ innovations. A culture of Innovation believes that everyone has great ideas and majority rules. There is no knowing where the great ideas come from, but it is likely to come from those closest to the value.

Usually announcements like this are made once all those things are decided.  Getting everyone involved early and empowering them with real decision making would make these announcements great.

 

You just have to work #here #HigherEducation

Here? Specifically? Well kinda.

But I’ve always said that it is best for an individual to have a breadth of work experience. In the past I have mentioned that I felt it was important for a person to have experience in a private company, a government agency, and a consulting company for a least a couple of years each. Each one of these models operate very differently and distinctly. And the interesting things is that no one model is better than any others. Each model has different drivers and priorities that drive their behaviours.

University

I’ve now found a found category to add to the list – University. University is a bit of a mix between Private, Consulting, and Government, but it also has characteristics present in none of them.

University does have the drive to improve and innovate from Private, the challenges of people coaching and change management from Government, and the lack of direct authority in a Consulting environment where you need to rely on the your skills as a facilitator, negotiator, and influencer.

But at University you need to do three models all at the same time and realize two additional truths:

1. Every Faculty and Department are/can be a company on its own. There are limits to any authority over them so the focus really need to be on bridge-building and selling the benefits of your ideas.
2. University culture is about questioning. But rather than questioning to show their own knowledge, questioning at University are done to make the idea better. While this can be frustrating, once you realize the questions are following the method of Socratic Questioning,  they are easier to accommodate.

Oh yeah, and with the need to facilitate and influence and answer people’s Socratic Questions, things just take longer….

But the solutions and ideas are really better.

 

The #1 characteristic of a great teammate #WinnipegJets #Pavelec

I was watching a recent Winnipeg Jets game when I was reminded about the #1 characteristic of a great teammate.

Connor Hellebuyck was anointed as the starting goaltender for the Winnipeg Jets this year. He had a great season in the AHL last year. He had all of the great reviews as he moved through the various levels of hockey. The Winnipeg Jets had grown tired of Andrej Pavelec and his inconsistent play over the last few years. With Pavelec’s contract expiring at the end of this year, the writing was on the wall that a switch was going to be made sooner or later.

Resiliency

But we saw play from Hellebuyck that was very similar to Pavelec. Inconsistent, with a bad goal given up almost every night. Both goalies also had pure gems of games that could get you hoping of what the future could hold. But when Hellebuyck got pulled in three straight games in January, you saw a difference between the two goalies. And then when Pavelec came up to the big club and started three straight games and won you again saw the difference.

Various radio shows called it something different – ‘timely saves’ was the term most commonly used. Whatever the term, Pavelec may give up the bad goal, but then didn’t give up the next goal. He fought through the shots and kept his team in the game. And his team knew that Pavelec would fight to prevent the next goal and keep them in the game. We was a fighter and it was hard to get the ‘next’ goal on him.

Ondrej Pavelec has Resiliency that Connor Hellebuyck doesn’t have yet. The Winnipeg Jets players know that and due to that, they play better in front of Pavelec because it gives them confidence to play their game. They don’t need to worry about making a bad play, because Pavelec will overcome it if it happens. It is a larger worry making a mistake in front of a goalie where it may open the floodgates. Because of that you hold your stick a bit tighter and ironically make more mistakes.

Summary

Resiliency is the #1 characteristic of a great teammate. That trait in a teammate that they are resolute, plucky, committed, able to rebound and recover. We all make mistakes, but those people who take a shot, dust themselves off and stand tall are the special teammates we all want on our team. Give me a resilient craftsman over a fragile artisan every day.

Another example of Pavelec’s Resiliency is how he took his demotion with class and professionalism. Resilient teammates accept decisions made for the good of the team, confident in their abilities and committed to rebounding and proving themselves when the opportunity arises.

I hope Connor Hellebuyck can build these characteristics. But until then, I’d start Pavelec.

Why #Goalies make the best Project Managers and Leaders #PMOT

I was driving with my brother back from a family event and we started talking about the upcoming Jets and Flames hockey seasons. After some speculating on free agent signings, we started to talk about the qualities of good Project Manager and Leaders. That balance good leaders have between being persistent and committed and being able to admit a mistake and change course. There is a whole continuum of leaders that give in too quickly and some that never give in at all. What makes once person able to move on quicker than another?

We agreed that while we aren’t sure where those points are for every situation,  but we did agree on one thing. If you have been a goalie, you will find that point easier than other people. Here are the five reasons your next leader or Project Manager should be a goalie.

Goalies know they can’t win by themselves – focus on the project

No matter how good a goalie is, they can’t win games by themselves. This helps immensely to keep egos in check. They know they need forwards to score goals and defenceman to help keep goals out of their own net. More than any other position, you are brutally aware on how the entire team is needed.

In addition, your role as a Goalie is to give the rest of the team confidence as well. The rest of the team should not have to worry about bad goals in our own goal. Our team should have the freedom to challenge and rush when the opportunity arises.

Goalies know that the focus needs to be on the wins and not the goals. It is about the project and not the tasks.

Goalies know you can’t win them all – look forward

Goalies are perfectionists in their craft and in all things except having a good memory. Goalies are also extremely forgiving with their teammates and their mistakes. This provides an interesting dichotomy. I am a perfectionist until that pucks is in the net, then I need to be able to wipe the slate clean and move on. Usually there is a quick re-evaluation process and then you need to move on. This requires a short memory and a good amount of confidence.

Even more, Goalies understand that the games is made up of 20-30 mini-games and they need to be ready for the next one. You can’t get too high or too low.

Bad decisions and mistakes are part of the game. Everyone makes them so it doesn’t make sense to spend a lot of time on persecuting the guilty. Fish the puck out and move on….

Goalies know about perfect shots or deflections – don’t over plan, over analyze

You can have the perfect angle and sometimes a shot is going to beat you or is going to be deflected. That is just life and it is no ones fault. Good Goalies spend minimal time looking backward and almost all their time looking forward.

This also help Goalies to not over plan. People can over plan or over analyze because their believe it will increase the chances of success. Goalies realize that even if you spend two weeks working on something, a deflection is still likely. Rather than spending all that time planning, spend time on how you will recover because you know a deflection is going to happen.

Goalies realize communication is the key – communicate

For those of you that haven’t been on ice level, Goalies are probably the chattiest players on the ice. Always chirping our information to the defencemen – ‘time’ , ‘left’, ‘right’, ‘point’, ‘DUCK’

Goalies realize the key is rebound control – deal with issues immediately

Goalies and Project Managers and Leaders realize that issues happen. What they all realize is that it doesn’t matter how or why the issue arose, just how can we get it resolved. Having an issue is not a bad thing, booting the issue around in front of the net for 3 or 4 shots is a bad thing and will lead to a goal.

Find the issue, locate the issue, cover the damn thin up a get a whistle.

Goalies guide projects to where they want them to go – minimize risk

When I played a lot, I had a great glove hand. My brother had great lower body reflexes. So what did we do? We showed more or less to influence the shots to go to our strengths.

Similarly, a great Project Manager or leader will guide the project to where he knows the project is prepared. He or she will know the high-risk areas and compensate for those areas. I always used to hug the stick side post.

Summary

But Terry, you say, ‘I’m not a goalie, does that mean I can’t be a Project Manager?’

Not at all. But if you are a good Project Manager, it means you probably would be a good goalie. 🙂

Turn the Ship Around by @DavidMarquet Book Review #agile #pmot

“Turn the ship around” by David Marquet is a rare gem of a book. It is one of those books that come around once a decade. The book is very well written, provides a lot of lessons that you can apply to your situation, and is very entertaining to boot. In his story of how David Marquet turns around the Sante Fe, we can see similarities to companies, jobs, and teams in our own situations.

It is an inspiring story how one can turn the leader-follower model and turn it into the leader-leader model, even in one of the most seemingly hierarchical situations in the world, the military. I’ve read multiple books now that dispel that myth. I think the military probably gets a bad reputation of being hierarchical, but to survive has probably adapted more and quicker than perhaps any other industry.

Mistake Monitoring

There are many things that you can take away from David Marquet’s book based on what you are experiencing and what problems are foremost in your mind. For me, I was thinking about the challenge of making project reporting more lean and valuable.

So when I read the section lamenting that monitoring in the Navy was just focused on preventing errors and mistakes but not at getting better or more efficient, I immediately saw  parallels with project reporting. I was thinking the same thing about our project reporting. We report about whether the project is yellow or red and what problems we have encountered, but we rarely if ever discuss how we became more efficient or got better on the project. If we are lucky, we discuss those items in the project or iteration close outs. Many times, the items are small improvements and many times they don’t get shared outside of the project team.

It got me thinking, how can we monitor and focus on efficiency improvements on our projects? As Marquet mentioned, the bar is set quite low if success is measured by the absence of errors and mistakes. If success is just based on meeting budget and schedule, are we really trying to improve and get better?  Why wouldn’t team members just provide large estimates so that they were deemed a success. Where is the focus on continuous improvements and wanting to get better? I want to do more on my projects than just avoiding mistakes.

I don’t have answer for where this will lead and what we are going to monitor and share. But thanks to David Marquet we are asking the question to our teams and trying to determine how we can set the bar higher and get better and more efficient on our projects. Maybe that is a good place to start, to say finishing a project on time and on budget is not enough and to ask the stakeholders what other goals and objectives should this project have? And then overall, what goals and objectives should the Project Management Office have?

I’ll report back in a future blog on what we have tried and what have worked.

Brooks Laich #Leadership and #Winning

Brooks Laich can be on my teams anytime. In one of the cruelest turns of fate, Brooks Laich was traded from the Washington Capitals to Toronto Maple Leafs on February 28th. If he wasn’t traded, he would have been demoted to the Washington Capital’s American Hockey League team to try to get some salary cap relief. One way or another, Brooks Laich was not going to be able to compete for a Stanley Cup for the team that he lived and bled for over the last 12 years.

And then Brooks Laich who had been a Washington Capital since 2004 was suddenly gone.

My Brooks Laich story – March 22nd, 2013

I was lucky enough to sit beside Brooks Laich’s relatives at a Winnipeg Jets game three years ago. They had made the trip out from Saskatchewan to see Brooks play. Two adults and two kids were there all decked out in Brooks Laich jerseys and there were the most friendly, honest, and polite people I have ever sat beside.

They made such a good impression I couldn’t help but clap when Brooks Laich opened the scoring at 12:10 of the first. Ever since then I have honestly cheered for the guy.

February 29th, 2016

So Brooks Laich was looking like he would finally get a chance to complete for the Stanley Cup after 12 years and then he wakes up in Toronto a day later. I thought he would be crushed and I am sure that he was. No one could ever tell from how he carried himself though.

All I heard from him in his first media interview was how happy he was to join the Maple Leafs and about the great young core they have in Toronto.

I don’t need to see Brooks Laich name on the Stanley Cup. I already know he is a winner.