Teal Talk: Coach Warsofsky

Teal Talk: Coach Warsofsky

All right, coach. We know that you had a busy but productive off season. The gold medal. You You threw out a first pitch at Fenway Park. Is that right? Yeah, that was pretty cool. How’d it go? Strike? Little outside, but had some zip on it. Had some zip on it. So, it reached home plate. It didn’t play. I was happy with the pitch. A lot of That was fun. That was a really a dream come true. So going into the second year in this role, you’ve been a head coach before at different levels, but with the Sharks as a head coach now for the second season, doesn’t it make it a little bit easier to come into this building, kind of know what to expect and kind of have your have your understandings about things already? Yeah, for sure. Uh again, you know, more comfortable, I would say, is the biggest thing. And um the second biggest thing is the players kind of know me. Obviously, there’s some new players, but for the guys that were here last year, Defoley, the Ferraros, the GDros, they know what my expectations are. They know how I run practice. They know what my um video sessions look like. So, they know what they’re getting into, too, as well. So, um you know, I think that’s really important for us. Uh same staff coming back, I think, is important. Um we can start building this thing. Obviously, that’s uh something that’s very important that we need to get going here and start winning some hockey games. So, um I think all those things and again you just being more comfortable would be the biggest thing. Your groups had decisions to make before camp. You’ll have decisions to make during camp. You’ll have decisions to make at the end of camp and even early in the season maybe with some players and what to do with them. How does your team, your group go about making decisions? I realize they’re not all the same, but what are the conversations like and and how does that process go? Yeah. Yeah. Well, through training camp, we’ll meet with Mike and his staff, uh, the coaches and myself, you know, every day right after the training camp practices and scrimmages, um, and kind of rate the players and go through them and, um, what are what we’re seeing, what we’re not seeing, um, the expectations and and whatnot. So, um, those conversations h happen usually, you know, after the skates and then usually in the morning as well. And then as we get going, uh, we’ll start making some tough decisions. But um that’s the nature of this business and and we got to put the best team on the ice that we believe that can help us win hockey games and um that’s what we’ll do. I rarely ever want to make it this personal or this individual. But I I got to know, have you talked to Ryan Reeves yet? Like do you do you tell him what what his role is? Does he kind of know how does that even go? Yeah, we we’ve had, you know, a few discussions now and um really I’m getting to know him a little bit. You know, I don’t he’s he knows he’s been around a long time. I think he knows his his role pretty well. So, um I don’t need to spell that out very, you know, too much. Um he is going to be an important piece of our team, you know, and I’m that that will be um you know, that talk will will be in place and but we’ve had you know, getting to know him as as a man and as a husband and a father, uh was more important right now. And then as we get going, um the roles will kind of carve themselves out. There’s been a lot of players that were hard to play against for the Sharks and then when they became a Shark, it’s a totally different feeling. You like having them in your room. I think that’s going to be the case for uh for Ryan. Uh pretty competitive camp. It seems like it might shape up to be that way. It’s a difficult problem, but like we were saying about the decision- making process, you want that, right? You you want at the end of the day to have tough decisions to make. Yeah. Mike and I talked about it really at the rookie tournament and watching those games was um we now have internal competition. You know, we now have uh guys trying to beat out a veteran for a spot. We now have a veteran trying to hold a spot. We now have, you know, a young kid coming in like a Michael Mason and Dickinson that are um, you know, really ready to, you know, crack an NHL roster. We may have a guy that surprises us, right? Uh, that was in the American League last year like, you know, Guin did um, you know, last season in training camp, but we now have more internal competition than we ever ever had before. So, uh, that’s when you really start making gains as an organization and that’s what we’re really excited about. I think the term bubble player in the past and with different teams may have been a knock to some degree or you know you don’t know where somebody belongs. I think in this case the players are so young and you don’t know how really they’re going to come back and look and and how things are going to play out. That’s why there’s there’s a lot of bubble players I feel like here. Yeah, for sure. Um like I said, we’re looking for the most competitive players. We’re looking for the guys that uh have attention to detail that play with winning habits at the end of the day and um they’re well conditioned and they do what we the coaches asked and the organizations asked and uh we have to start setting a standard and and holding each other accountable. Uh so all those things we’re looking for guys that are you know kind of all in invested in what we’re trying to do here and if and if you’re not um you won’t be here and that’s you know what’s kind of happened here last couple seasons and in this offseason we believe that we made the right decisions to to get the guys that we we need and the guys that we didn’t think fit and you get them to move on. I don’t want to go down the road of naming names but obviously there’s a captain situation here. Maybe you have one, maybe you don’t. Maybe you’ve got varied amounts of of different um alternatives. Is picking a captain important to this team or to any hockey team or is that a procedural thing that everybody needs to see and have? Is it is that a big deal or not? Yeah, it’s it’s a very big deal. You know, it’s um because when you put a C on someone’s jersey, you’re not just um the captain of the hawk team. You’re really representing the organization, representing the community, representing the fans. Um you have, you know, you’re involved in a lot of aspects of some decisions. are involved in um you know really having a lot of responsibility for the the team and and how they conduct themselves on and off the ice. So there’s a lot of responsibility that comes with that. Uh we’ve had a lot of conversations, Mike and I, about uh where we see uh the leadership group going and and how we see it playing out and um we’ll continue to talk here in the next few days and into the next week and make some decisions. But uh we have a pretty good feel of what it should look like. Two more things and they both actually involve like infrastructure. Weird enough, this place, Sharks Ice, your kind of home base in your headquarters. It got a significant upgrade in the offseason. Looks a lot different downstairs, a lot of different rooms and spaces. That’s important. I know that, you know, players are accustomed to, you know, the top level of things, but it’s nice to have a home that you’re proud of. Yeah, for sure. And I think that’s the biggest thing is we’re taking steps in the right direction uh with our players and getting talent in here and um getting some character and now we’ve, you know, upgraded our facility and um state-of-the-art. It’s it’s it’s a beautiful beautiful. They did a beautiful job of um like you said the locker room, the spaces, the training facility, everything. There’s no excuses now of um why you can’t be at the facility a little bit longer in time. So, we’re we’re obviously very excited uh about what we’ve done and and what the organization’s done here this summer. And lastly, you know, within the last month that uh the city of San Jose, the Sharks, a new lease, but also huge upgrades to SAP Center, which you’re going to get those type of same amenities over at the tank eventually. Uh it’s just got to be reassuring to kind of see the big picture of all this. You’ve got your team. That’s what you worry about, but to know that everything is kind of coming together here. Yeah, for sure. Feels feels feels good, right? Yeah, absolutely. It’s just um again, you can see the future and and of the players and now we can see the future of, you know, the tank being full again and really getting the upgrades it needs and and putting the facelift on it. So now fans that have kind of been through, you know, five tough years here, six years of um some tough hockey, they can be proud of a team and uh they can leave our building uh when we win a hockey game and be damn proud of of the product that they saw and and they can be happy with, you know, and be comfortable watching the game in a new nice upgraded uh arena and hopefully they can go downtown, have a couple cold beverages and be in, you know, a great Saturday night and enjoy themselves. I can’t wait for things to be back. And you’ll know it when you see it. Trust me, there’s there’s nothing like it. So, I appreciate this. Yeah.

Brodie Brazil sits down at the start of Training Camp with Sharks Head Coach Ryan Warsofsky.