Today’s OWOTD is team, in honor of two of the best reasons to enjoy spring sports.
The NHL playoffs are one of my favorite spectacles this time of year – the players grow beards (except for the young stars, and bless their hearts they TRY to grow beards) and play through injuries visible and invisible, the game speeds up, and every goal is incredibly important. All five players in the offensive zone are willing to shoot the puck much more often than in the regular season, and all five players on defense are much more willing to block shots, sometimes by laying down in front of the shooter. Every game has a feeling of urgency, and every player takes on an expanded role for the good of the team. It’s exciting!
Another of my favorite spectacles this time of year are the spring classics. These are one-day bike races in northern Europe – Belgium and Luxembourg, mainly. They take place in March and April, and usually involve rain, sleet, wind and lots of mud. Almost all of these races have sections where the riders have to race over what the French call pavé and we call cobbles – old farm tracks that are kept passable (sort of) just for the spring classics. They’re muddy and rough and slick as snot, according to those who’ve ridden over them. Makes for exciting racing, since one rider going down in one of these sections usually means that at least two or three behind him will also go down, and many more behind that will have to stop and get around the crash. So you want to be in the front on the cobbles. Even better, you want to be alone in the cobble sections, although that doesn’t often happen, as there are advantages to being with one or two others in the rest of the race.
The classics are fun to watch and read about because while each team builds a strategy centered around a particular rider, anything can happen. So the team that puts all of its energy into a single rider risks a poor outcome if that rider goes down or has a flat in the wrong place. To avoid this, teams usually formulate plans B, C and D, for when their original plan falls apart. And it means that on a given day, a relatively unknown rider can actually win. These races are much more “every man for himself” than the better-known grand tours that begin in May.
Both of these are team sports. But the meaning of “team” is substantially different. I’ve thought about this some as I watch my oldest son’s soccer career unfold. His sport has teams in the way that hockey has teams. Every person has a specific job to do, and each is trained to be a part of the whole. The team wins and loses together – wins depend on many players in multiple roles, and losses contain plenty of blame to go around (usually with an extra share for the goalie whether he deserves it or not).
Cycling teams are different. In this case, everyone works for the individual success of the team leader. Especially in the classics, team members do quite similar jobs, and while the winner is usually careful to say what a great team effort the victory was it often looks more like a great solo effort. Riders depend much more on their individual skills, and the team’s role in the race is much harder to see.
Philippe Gilbert, winner of this year’s Tour of Flanders. He was his team’s Plan B rider.
The cycling version of a team is a lot easier to participate in than the hockey version, isn’t it? The success or failure that comes with our participation depends only on our own effort. Every teammate’s role is (more or less) the same, and so none of us has to depend on another person doing a substantially different job well. Team members can share ideas and all know that the advice is coming from someone who understands the work. There is a team leader, and everybody agrees on who that person is, at least for now. Later on, another person might become the team leader.
And yet, when a hockey team (or a soccer team, or a baseball team) does well, the celebration seems much more, somehow, than when a cycling team succeeds. And, it’s an amazing thing to see the plays of a well-coordinated team with outstanding players in each position. So I’m left wondering which sort of team is better. My natural inclination would be to join a cycling team. Sometimes, though, I wonder what I’m missing…
You know the saying, April showers bring May flowers. May it be so…we’ve certainly had our share of April showers.
lynn hunnicutt 