Sutter Leaves Devils for Family Reasons

We are in the middle of the Stanley Cup Finals and that has captured the attention of the hockey world (including sportsroids.com) and rightfully so. But for the moment, with an extra day off before game seven, let’s focus our attention elsewhere to look at some other off-ice news.

Brent Sutter has resigned as head coach of the New Jersey Devils after only two seasons. The reasons he gave for stepping down revolve around the fact that his family is located 3,000 miles away in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. A number of people have criticized him for leaving “too early” but I am not one of them. A lot of times people will leave a job citing family reasons just to take another job somewhere else and it turns out they were basically hiding from the fact that they simply wanted to leave their job. Sutter has not done that, he is going home to his family and while he may find himself work once he gets there he is doing it to be with them. There is a lot of money floating around that distracts plenty of people from the folks important to them no matter how much money they may already have in the bank—not to mention the fact that the Devils will put a very good team on the ice next season. So I applaud Sutter for this decision because so many times people throw away their families in the pursuit of the next big challenge in whatever sport or business the person is involved in. Good for him and the example he is setting for everyone associated with him. And once he does get back into the game I’ll certainly be pulling for him no matter where he ends up.

p.s. game seven predictions coming soon…