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Lessons Learned

Watching the Carolina Hurricanes win their fifth game of the season (5-1-3) last night, I found myself annoyed with the way that they played in the second half of the game.

You see, when the Hurricanes build a lead, they tend to slack off and try to protect the lead instead of pouring on the kinds of pressure that got them that lead. More often than not this strategy lets their opponents come back. Last night it was only one goal, but in the past it has cost them many games.

In hockey, being in the lead is not enough, which is why 2-0 and 3-1 are considered to be the worst leads in hockey - you slack off and put yourself in danger of losing the whole thing through complacency. You have to finish the game. A hockey game is 60 minutes, andyou have to play the whole 60 minutes if you expect to win. you can’t play for 30 or 40 minutes, coast through the rest and hope to win consistently.

I doubt that this lesson can be extrapolated to all of life, but it certainly bears on starting and finishing projects. You can’t almost refinish a floor or almost paint a wall, you either finish the job or you don’t. So the lesson for today is that I need to finish the job before I start a new one.