NLL Insider

 About a year ago I spoke to Troy Cordingley about his new job as the head coach of the Calgary Roughnecks, his first job as an NLL head coach. Cordingley had been a long time assistant in Buffalo but had experience as a head coach with the Brampton Excelsiors.At the time he loved the fact that the Roughnecks seemed to be flying low on the raider for anyone who was making pre-season predictions. He spoke about many reasons why he liked his new team. They had solid goaltending, especially after trading for Steve “Chugger” Dietrich.  Offensively they had veterans Tracy Kelusky, Lewis Ratcliff, Kaleb Toth, Curt Malawsky as well as youngsters Scott Ranger, who was coming off a break through year, and athletic Jeff Shattler who Cordingley had seen blossom while playing for him with the Brampton Excelsiors. On the back door they had all-stars Andrew McBride as well as recently acquired Kyle Couling, who also came from Buffalo. Cordingley was big on the Carnegie brothers, who also played for him in Brampton along with the speedy and dependable Bruce Codd. As well they had the two big bruising defenders Ryan McNish and Jeff Moleski. On the bench Cordingley also had some veteran help with assistant coach Terry Sanderson, who had won Minto, Mann and NLL Championships.   And in the front office was GM Kurt Silcott, who had been with the Buffalo Bandits for many years, and had a great relationship with Cordingley.    Coach Cordingley loved everything about his situation.Cordingley could not have predicted what would have ensued in the 2008 season.  Captain Tracy Kelusky suffered a concussion that kept him out of all but 7 games.  So did Dietrich, who only played 9 games.  Even though Cordingley liked the late season blockbuster deal that brought over super set up man Josh Sanderson for SniperLewis Ratcliff  the Roughnecks finished the regular season 7-9 and were never able to get on any kind of regular season roll. At times it looked like they would not even make the playoffs, despite the fact that the Edmonton Rush stated the season with 6 straight losses. In spite of the disappointing regular season Calgary came within one bad period of making it to the NLL Championship game.During the offseason, the changes have continued. Gone are Steve Dietrich, Ryan McNish (both traded to Edmonton) and general manager Kurt Silcott was fired. However Cordingley is once again feeling optimistic.  Why wouldn’t he?  Last year he had to play much of the season without two of his best players (Kelusky and Dietrich). Although Dietrich is gone, Cordingley is confident in Patty Campbell’s ability to fill the role or starter. Also he will be starting the season with two of the leagues best offensive quarterbacks with Tracy Kelusky and Josh Sanderson.  He’s also feeling quite confident in his coaching abilities and team systems after coming off his first Mann Cup as a head coach with a convincing 4-0 sweep of the New Westminster Salmonbellies. He is using the same aggressive defensive system that just won Championships for his Brampton Excelsiors and his ex-team the Buffalo Bandits. Again most experts are not expecting much from the Roughnecks and Cordingley loves that. More than any coach I know he uses the Rodney Dangerfield (”we don’t get no respect”) School of motivation for his troops. He saves every bit of negative press for dressing room wallpaper. Cordingley also is quite aware of ” Murphy’s Law” that says that it something can go wrong it will. He experienced that first hand last season. He’s hoping that Murphy teaches that lesson to another team in 2009.

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