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No more Mr. Nice Guy, as Derek Jedamski takes over Royals
Team name changes to Flower City Fury
October 1st, 2024
Exit the nice guy and enter Derek Jedamski, who was recently described by someone as a John Tortorella type head coach/GM.
Jedamski has everything that the previous coach/GM didn’t. He is a former hockey player, he has experience coaching younger players. He also doesn’t seem to have any issue working with players that are considered to be stars in the league.
If one comment stood out from his the many he’s made over the past week, it’s that he doesn’t feel he needs to micromanage guys like Hughes and Kaprizov.
“I’ve always been a believer that you have to allow your top players the latitude to make plays and act on their instincts,” Jedamski said. “It’s fine line between making sure that you stay out of the way in certain circumstances, but you provide the necessary structure so that you don’t become a high-risk team.”
He also sounds like a guy who has been there, done that and has learned a lot about what it takes to be successful in fantasy hockey.
Jedamski also seems ready to focus on something that was absent under the previous coach – helping the team figure out what they want to be. Or in simpler terms, establishing an identity.
“What are our strengths as a group and how do we play to those strengths to have a competitive advantage?” Jedamski said. “I don’t think it’s any secret that the Westbury Royals are built around speed and skill. That has to be part of our identity on how we’re going to play.”
That again speaks to letting those top players go out and do what they do. Guys like Hughes, Kaprizov, Dobson, and Konecny need to have a longer leash to create offense. They can’t abandon their defensive responsibility, but there should be times during the course of a game where they can focus on putting pucks in the net instead of keeping them out.
Jedamski sounds like he wants to be more of a director. He wants to be the guy to explain processes, correct them when they go awry, but he’s going to put the onus on the players to create the atmosphere of success.
“I challenged them to embrace the process,” Jedamski said. “I told them hockey is a hard game. It’s a hard sport. It’s hard to win. We have to embrace the struggle here. We have to embrace the process. I think if we do that we have the best chance moving forward.”
He’ll get his first chance to do that this weekend when the Royals take the ice against the Long Beach Ice Dogs in their season opener. Some things might look familiar, such as lines during the early going, while others will be completely different.
“Everything’s on the table. I spoke with the coaching staff this morning about that and got their input and the line combinations the defense pairs as they have been through these preseason games. I’m coming in a little late here and trying to get an assessment of what the line combinations have looked like and what kind of chemistry is there and if there is a need to try to tweak things. I’m looking forward to the opportunity to start playing regular season games so I can see for myself and get a first-hand view of how this team can really play.”
Rain City Repeats as Stanley Cup Champions
Jason Henley becomes First GM to Win THREE Titles
April 16th, 2024
Jason Henley cemented himself as the greatest GM of all time, winning his third AFHL Stanley Cup Trophy on Sunday night as the Rain City Bitch Pigeons defeated the Laval Nomads by a final score of 6-4.
“It wasn’t the way we drew it up, certainly not having McDavid all series long didn’t help,” Henley told TheAFHL.com after the game. “It was great, a lot of mental toughness, our team’s had it all year and we never doubted each other. That was a great hockey team we beat. I’m just so happy for our team and the fans of Rain City.”
In his third Stanley Cup Finals appearance, Henley entered last week tied with Lucas Main for having the most (two) Cup victories in the AFHL. With the victory over Laval, Henley now stands alone as the only GM in AFHL history to win three.
“This is clearly a special franchise and a unique collection of talent,” the AFHL Commissioner Furino said. “This is probably a team that deserves to be called a dynasty.”
Henley believes they have a “unique chemistry” within their locker room and he thinks it’s a competitive advantage.
With Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl leading the way, the Bitch Pigeons can dominate with talent. But it’s mental toughness that has carried them to two titles over the past 12 months.
“Everybody outside our room kept saying things like ‘repeating is hard to do,’ and ‘the Bitch Pigeons aren’t a top team in this league anymore’” said Henley. “But no one inside our room said we couldn’t do it.”
The AFHL Commissioner said he thinks the Bitch Pigeons were able to repeat because they were “a determined, gutsy, talented group of guys.”
“They went through a lot of adversity – they had a lot of key injuries throughout the year, and they were even without McDavid in the Finals,” Furino said.
Now that Henley has three Stanley Cup championships, Furino believes Henley deserves great recognition.
“Henley should be in the conversation when we talk about the greatest of all-time,” Furino said. “He’s a guy who just knows how to win.”
Henley was asked what drives him, and he said, “This (winning) feeling right now. You can’t match that.”
The Bitch Pigeons didn’t like talking about the quest to repeat, but it was always in the back of their minds. They were aware that the 2017-2018 San Diego Gulls were the only franchise to successfully defend their title.
“I remember watching those Gulls teams; it was something special,” said Pigeons forward Mitch Marner. “I knew that if there was a team that could do it – it would be us. We had a ton of confidence, all the confidence in the world – it was something that no one on the team gave up.”
Henley talked about it in his own way.
“Coach drove the point of ‘cementing your own legacy,’” defenseman Adam Larsson said. “We knew it was going to be a challenge to do it. There’s a reason only one team had done it in 14 years.”
Now the question is whether this team can win again. McDavid, Draisaitl, Marner, Dahlin and Kochetkov, who are all most likely going to be elite players for this team for many more years to come, are the foundation blocks. Could the Bitch Pigeons win again?
“Let us have two or three days off,” Henley said, “and then I will let you know.”