With the right attitude, it’s never too late to find common ground. It’s never too late to have breakfast with someone.
Just take Jonathan Drouin, Jon Cooper and the Tampa Bay Lightning for example.
During several moments of the 2015-16 season, it seemed like their differences were irreconcilable. Drouin was waiting at home for a trade, a move that GM Steve Yzerman was openly looking to make.
Injuries and other considerations provided Drouin with an opportunity, and boy did he seize that chance to prove himself. The young forward scored 14 points in Tampa Bay’s scrappy playoff run, tying him with Victor Hedman for third on the team.
Now, it appears to be water under what once seemed like a burned bridge. So how did they make those repairs?
Breakfast, of course.
Joe Smith of the Tampa Bay Times reports that Cooper and Drouin cleared the air during a candid breakfast at the end of the regular season, a moment that may have turned the tide.
“We probably said some things to each other that we’d thought about but had never said,” Cooper said. “I told him this was my thought: ‘This is what I believed when I was doing things, but now, listening to you, maybe there were some things I shouldn’t have done. Now that I look back, maybe I was wrong.’ And vice versa.”
No word on what they were eating, sadly, so we can only assume they were hashing things out over hash browns. Feel free to also use the phrase “egging him on.”
All terrible most important meal of the day humor aside, other teams may look to this as a reminder that hurt feelings can be soothed in the pursuit of victories and money.
It’s plausible that Drouin and the Lightning are mainly maintaining a business-like relationship, and you know what? That’s OK. Plenty of sports teams can achieve success even if there are people who aren’t best buddies off the ice.
(Remember that anecdote about those championship-winning New York Knicks teams hailing 12 different cabs?)
Just think of all the situations that could have been mended over breakfast. What if P.K. Subban and Michel Therrien could have worked things out while enjoying some french toast?
Feel free to Photoshop various hockey people with breakfast. You’re encouraged to do so, really.