WINNIPEG - John Hufnagel is about to take a well-deserved vacation. Nike Free 3.0 Mens sale .The Calgary Stampeders head coach/GM followed up his teams 2014 Grey Cup championship by being named the CFLs coach of the year Wednesday.I have to go to work (Thursday) but the day after Im heading on a plane to go across the ocean for a week so Ill be sipping a mai tai, he said of his Hawaiian holiday.Hufnagel, 63, earned his second Annis Stukus Trophy after leading Calgary to a CFL-best 15-3 regular-season record. The franchise then claimed its seventh championship with a 20-16 Grey Cup victory over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats at B.C. Place Stadium.Tom Higgins of the Montreal Alouettes and Chris Jones of the Edmonton Eskimos were the finalists. Hufnagel received 43 first-place votes on the 65 ballots cast by members of the Football Reporters of Canada.Hufnagels first coach-of-the-year award came in 08 when he led Calgary to a Grey Cup title in his first season back with the club. The Stampeders lost the 100th Grey Cup game to the Toronto Argonauts in 2012.Hufnagel has one more season to try and claim a third Annis Stukus Trophy. Hell return to the sidelines in 2015 then hand the coaching reins over to offensive co-ordinator Dave Dickenson and focus on his GM duties. On Wednesday, Hufnagel said there was no temptation for him to go out on top after winning the championship.This whole thing was an agreement put in place last year to keep Dave in the building, Hufnagel said. In fact, Dave told me right after the Grey Cup game, he said, Now dont do anything stupid.We have a plan and we will follow through with that plan. I enjoy coaching and so I have one more year to enjoy it.Calgary defensive back/linebacker Keon Raymond was proud to see his head coach honoured. Raymond, a CFL Players Association rep, on hand as part of the leagues annual meetings.Im extremely happy for coach Huf, Raymond said. For him over the last couple of years to be coming so close and for him to win, and not just to win, but to have the season that weve had…Words cant express how important he is to our team, our organization. A lot of people on the outside see him as the Grinch, per se, but honestly hes a coach that I wouldnt mind watching my kids. I mean, he probably wont hear them a lot of times breaking stuff (Hufnagel has a hearing impairment), but hes such a players coach because he played, he understands the situations we go through as players.For example, Raymond said Hufnagel supported a company that approached the Stampeders to try to help players prepare for careers after football. Hufnagel wants similar programs across the league.He sees you as a human first, then a player, Raymond said. He understands the man, then the player.So when you can get a coach who understands the aspects of what you bring to the table and who you are, you want to lay it out on the line for him.Hufnagel said he tries to be up front with his players.I always say to the players, I try to be completely honest because Im not smart enough to remember the lie I told them yesterday, he said.Hufnagel joins Wally Buono (1992-93) as the only Calgary coaches to receive the award on multiple occasions. Besides Buono and Hufnagel, the other Stampeders coaches to capture the honour include Jerry Williams (1967), Jack Gotta (1978) and Higgins (05).Higgins, the former CFL director of officiating and a two-time coach of the year winner, led Montreal to a 9-9 record and second spot in the East Division in his first season with the club. Thats an impressive feat considering the Alouettes opened the season 1-7.Now its become a joke, Higgins said of Montreals early struggles. When we were 1-7, its difficult to lose that many games because it seems like its over a three-month period of time you havent had any success.(My wife) Sharon and I, I continued to tell her, We didnt sign up for this. This isnt what I went to Montreal for. But lifes a journey, so is each and every season. Youre going to have ups, youre going to have downs.We just happened to have a whole bunch of downs and all of sudden it turned because all of a sudden there were some athletes that were injured that came back and we were able to make a change in some certain positions, so it was such a rewarding year.Edmonton posted a 12-6 record — second-best in the CFL — under Jones, its first-year head coach, after registering a 4-14 mark in 2013. But the Eskimos couldnt solve the Stampeders, losing all three regular-season games and the West Division final to their provincial rivals.Jones credited his coaches and players for turning the team around.Unfortunately, winning and losing are both contagious, Jones said. Sometimes you get on a string where youre not playing well or youre losing a game or two and people lose confidence. I think thats just human nature.So to have them come back and this year play as hard as they played, its a tribute to them. Nike Free Run+ 2 Sale UK .C. United on Saturday night and boost the Unions playoff hopes. Nick DeLeon scored in the 36th minute for United (3-23-6), which had ample opportunities to build on its lead but went its 10th straight match without a victory. Nike Free OG UK . Sotnikova trailed the 2010 Olympic champion by just .28 points after the short program on Wednesday, but had a brilliant free skate on Thursday. She earned a top score of 149.MINSK, Belarus - When Troy Brouwer returned from a vacation during the NHLs Olympic break, he tuned in to the final few games of Team Canadas run to gold in Sochi. Understandably, he liked what he saw. "I think the Olympic team did an absolutely amazing job at showing how Canadians play hockey," said Brouwer. Brouwer wasnt the only one. Phoenix Coyotes coach Dave Tippett saw not just a winning style of hockey but something to emulate. As coach of Canadas team at the world championship, he wants to follow the path blazed by Mike Bab**** and the stars who went undefeated at the Olympics. "I look at the blueprint from a few months ago in Sochi, the way Canada played: A hard, Canadian style of hockey," Tippett said in a recent phone interview. "If we can go and try to continue that mindset for our team, I think that would be something that would be crazy not to look at." It would be crazy to think any team can duplicate that effort in perfect fashion. Canadas team for the IIHF world hockey championship wont have any players from Sochi and this is a different tournament altogether. Most of the other countries are in the same boat, absent the top-end NHL talent from the Olympics, save for Alex Ovechkin and Sergei Bobrovsky returning for Russia after its disappointing run and others like Jaromir Jagr of the Czech Republic and Gustav Nyquist of Sweden also going to Minsk. But that doesnt change Canaadas plan for this tournament, which begins with Fridays opener against France. Kyle Turris isnt Sidney Crosby, Morgan Rielly isnt Shea Weber and neither James Reimer nor Ben Scrivens is Carey Price, but the hope is that talented NHL players in their own right can get the same job done. "I think your team has to have its own identity, but you look at what that team did and the success it had on the big ice and with NHL players, theres certainly some things that you can use on our team," Tippett said. "The team that played in Sochi, you could say was one of the best teams in the history of the game, the way they played. You realize we dont have that same team, but the way they played and their commitment to playing as a team was as strong as anything weve seen in a long time. te into ourThat part of the game can certainly transla team." The first steps are there. General manager Rob Blake along with assistant GMs Ron Hextall, Brad Treliving and Brad Pascall, like Steve Yzerman and his management team several months ago, looked for forward pairs to put together. Tippett, like Bab****, believes in having a left- and a right-handed shot on each defensive pairing. In terms of selecting the roster, Blake reiterated the obvious: that unlike the Olympics, an event every healthy player called wants badly to play in, the world championship is more selective. It has been a long NHL season and its too much of a grind to expect Sochi Olympianss to jump at the chance to play three extra weeks in Minsk. Nike Free 3.0 V4 Womens sale. "You go down to the tier of the younger guys and you get your commitments," Blake said in a phone interview. "You kind of work around. But Ron Hextall, Brad Treliving and Brad Pascall, the one thing they were pretty passionate about from the beginning is the guys that want to be there, those are the ones that you want." That group includes three Maple Leafs: Reimer, Rielly and centre Nazem Kadri, who played on the wing in Canadas exhibition game Tuesday in Zurich. It also includes in defenceman Braydon Coburn and forwards Brayden Schenn and Matt Read, three Flyers who just wrapped up a seven-game series loss to the Rangers. The crown jewel of the roster might be one of the final additions: Colorado Avalanche rookie Nathan MacKinnon, the likely Calder Trophy winner who impressed in his first season and first Stanley Cup playoff series. MacKinnon is on the team at age 18 like Crosby was in 2006, when the Penguins star had eight goalsand eight assists in nine games. Even before MacKinnon it was a young team thanks to defencemen Erik Gudbranson, Ryan Ellis, Tyler Myers and Rielly and forwards Jonathan Huberdeau, Sean Monahan and Mark Scheifele. Jason Chimera of the Washington Capitals, who won gold at the 2007 worlds in Moscow, is Canadas oldest player at the age of 35. Chimeras Capitals teammates Brouwer and Joel Ward are also on the roster. Chimera, a candidate to be captain, is important to Tippetts plan for the tournament because he knows what its all about. "The importance of the players who have been over there before and their experiences, especially relating that to our younger players that havent had that experience, is going to be a very important part of our preparation," Tippett said. The one thing about Canadas relative international inexperience is that its not a rarity here. Aside from Norway, Switzerland and Latvia, which feature national teams with major Sochi flavour, most teams have significant turnover from the Olympics. Tippett didnt see that as something Canada can take advantage of. From his experience as an assistant in this tournament, he knows what it means for European players and countries. "For the players that play in those leagues over there, this is their Stanley Cup playoffs," Tippett said. "If they win, their country puts a lot of onus on this tournament, and even though the players on our team would look at the Stanley Cup as the greatest thing to play for, you almost have to have that mind-set that the world championships, for a lot of these players over there, thats their Stanley Cup. "Well make sure that our players know the importance it is to those other teams to win and our competitiveness should be at the same level if were going to have a chance to win." --- Follow @SWhyno on Twitter wholesale nfl jerseyscheap jerseys from china ' ' '
