So I was driving home from church this morning and the Audio Adrenaline song Get Down came on across my CD changer. Now, I’ve heard the song plenty of times, but I don’t think I really ever “heard” it before. Here is the line that caught me…
To live your life you’ve got to lose it
And all the losers get a crown
How about that first line? To some, they may never understand it, but it’s a great analogy by Audio A. What they’re saying is that you need to lose your old life or in other words, repent. Let’s check out Acts 3:19:
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord
Now the second line, the losers get a crown. Let’s break it down, who are the losers? Well, go back to the first line, the people that “lose it”…the people that lose their old lives, or repent. So the losers get a crown. Why would the losers get a crown? Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 9:25:
Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.
And to follow up further, 2 Timothy 4:8:
Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day
Well, much commentary has been posted about the Pens 08-09 season’s woes on this site. Therefore, the lastest news coming from the Steel City is that Head Coach Michel Therrien has been fired.
Therrien is being replaced by WB/S head coach Dan Byslma as an interim head coach. Byslma currently has a 35-16-1-2 record coaching the Baby Pens. Coach Savard has been reassigned within the organization, while Coach Yeo, & Coach Meloche remain on staff. Tom Fitzgerald was promoted to Assistant Coach after serving as Director of Player Development within the Pens organization.
So my thoughts…
First and foremost, I don’t think this means Therrien is a bad coach. Heck, he did just take the Pens to the Stanley Cup Finals last season! Ray Shero stuck with him when fans were calling for his head months ago. He still lost but Shero remained patient, and for that, I admire. Many within the organization seemed to also agree with Shero sticking it out, saying it was players just playing poorly and Therrien couldn’t do much more. Obviously, something needed done besides a personnel shake up, which the Pens actually had done w/ quite a few Baby Pens. There really isn’t much on the trade market, at least at this point in the season, to make a change.
Were the Pens underachieving or playing only as good as they were capble of? I just believe our hopes were raised so high from last season that we expected more. But this is a much different team, without many key role players from last season. I think they should be winning a few more games than they are now, but to be #1 or #2 is somewhat of a stretch.
Therefore, I don’t think the Pens can get much worse right now, there’s too much talent on the bench to do that. Hopefully, this firing is the prominent move needed that will show the players that management is sick of their recent play on the ice and they finally step up (& into a playoff spot)!
