The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 202: Getting Behind The Bench

Episode Date: October 26, 2017

Craig Custance joins the show to discuss his new book, in which he got to spend time with an assortment of the league's best coaches, dissecting their most important individual games and picking their brains about how they got to where they are. Topics include: 9:55 Dan Bylsma 21:52 Mike Babcock 32:00 Bob Hartley 38:38 Todd McLellan 47:14 Mike Sullivan and John Tortorella 55:47 Joel Quenneville 1:01:20 Ken Hitchcock 1:04:57 Claude Julien Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $20 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews are also greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Are you ready for the most ridiculous internet sports show you have ever seen? Welcome to React, home of the most outrageous and hilarious videos the web has to offer. So join me, Rocky Theos, and my co-host, Raiders Pro Bowl defensive end, Max Crosby, as we invite your favorite athletes, celebrities, influencers, entertainers in for an episode of games, laughs, and of course the funniest reactions to the wildest web clips out there. Catch React on YouTube, and that is React, R-E-A-X-X. Don't miss it. This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light.

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So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dimitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Dimitri Philipovich. And join me as my good buddy, Craig Hustens.

Craig, what's going on, man? What's up, Dimitri? How are you? I'm good. So you have your own podcast now. You have the full 60. Yeah. Do you have a go-to catchphrase yet that you start off the show with?

Yeah, yeah. I always start every show off with, all right, everybody. Let's play a full 60 out there. And we just kind of go from there. You don't be a good gimmick. I mean, it is the full 60. if you just cut off your conversation exactly the 60 minute mark,

even if you were like having a fascinating back and forth with someone. Sorry, it's at least 60 minutes. Yeah, sorry. I did, like, I did find myself wondering if I, like, I thought we were going to go under on my last episode, which ended up being a lot of fun. It was a Thrashers retrospective with Ray Ferraro and the first ever Thrashers beat writer Jeff Schultz.

And, and it ended up being like 59 minutes. So I went a little long in my outro just to, because people I had people commenting on the first one hey it was a minute and it was an hour in three minutes that's three minutes over 60 yeah I mean it's just a name I don't think I had to be beholden to times do I no there's some real sticklers out there for that stuff like do you mention PDO and every one of your podcasts no I don't I definitely don't but I got it in there just in case for you yeah we got it this time we fill the quota no I don't I think listen like I remember when I started doing this thing um Um, the shows were pretty short. They were like 30 to 35, maybe 40 minutes. And I just, I was like, just trying to bang them out. And, and I was, it was more stressful now as I've done more of them and gotten more reps under my belt. I feel much more comfortable, just sort of taking it slow and inkling topic by topic.

And now I've been stretching it out to like over an hour pretty much every time. And I remember during the summer, I had one that was like an hour and a half. And I actually had some guy like freak out at me being like, that's way. too long and it's like it's a podcast you don't have to listen to it in one sitting like you can break it down into different sections or you don't have to listen to the whole thing like if you only have 30 minutes go ahead and cut it off but how do you know what the best 30 minutes are that's a great point see it's on you to edit it down I agree with that guy now you've convinced me yeah um okay so we'll talk more about your podcast later but first let's talk about your book um yes bench so I actually uh last

time I had you on when we did the watchability rankings I think two weeks ago um I was telling you how I had just started it and I'd maybe gotten about a third of the way through or halfway through. Now I've officially finished. So I can, I'm free to talk about the full book in its entirety from a start to finish. All right. What's your, okay, you've just finished it. It's fun to get feedback as a writer.

What's your initial thoughts? Be honest. Like, we're all friends here. I loved it. I mean, obviously the idea itself is a great one. And reading it, I was surprised that I hadn't really. read more stuff like this like picking people's brains obviously i guess you gotta sort of it's a two-way street you got to get their um time and commitment to it as well and i thought you executed it really

well i mean obviously like you know what my main criticism is going to be it's i i would have liked to see you kind of poke and prod a bit more in the torterella and ron wilson chapters and stuff like that and i'm sure that in your in your time hanging out with those guys you had discussions with them and just for the sake of not doing a 700 800 page book you had to kind of cut down and put the most interesting stuff in there. But I would love to just, I don't know, that stuff was fascinating when you were talking to Mike Sullivan and John Tortorella about sort of, you know, after they got fired from the Canucks, like what they did in their path to getting back to NHL and how they took that time off to

actually do a bit of research and learn some stuff that they hadn't really had time to do while they were NHL coaches. So stuff like that fascinated me. But I mean, listen, I'm not buttering you up here because you're my guest, but I, I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend everyone reads it. So, okay, the concept, just so if listeners aren't familiar with it, I sat down with 10 coaches, we watched game film together at like their home or office or summer home or whatever it would have been.

And kind of, I really just let the conversation go wherever they wanted. So each, some coaches it was, you know, there was some X's and O's or it was about the game. Other coaches it wasn't about the game at all. Like you mentioned Tortoralla. I think that because the game was so. long ago, the lightning winning the Stanley Cup, beating the Calgary Flames, that we ended up, and so much has happened to him since it ended up becoming this conversation about his path. So, but I'm, I'm curious by your thoughts. And we can, you want to meet a prod.

Let's start with Ron Wilson. Okay. Ron Wilson, we watched, I went back-to-back chapters with him and Mike Babcock with the same game, the 2010, Olympic Canadian gold medal game, or U.S. silver medal game, however you want to phrase it. And let me just preemptively defend myself on Ron Wilson because it was the first time either of us had watched. This was a fit my failure as a writer. It was the first time either of us had ever watched this game. And I think this was the second coach I did. So I was still kind of figuring out how to do this.

And as you guys all know, like that game is one of the best. I mean, that's one of the best, maybe it's the best game I've ever been to live. Like great game, great action. So there was long stretches where we're just watching and into it because he hasn't watched it since he lost. I haven't watched it since I covered it. So it had been six or seven years. And then I realized, you know, the first period, I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is going to make a horrible book. If we're just going to sit here in silence and watch games and go, ooh, great play.

So then the conversation started. But it was hard because he'd get rolling. and then something would happen and it would take us back. So where did you want me to push more with Ron? I thought the stuff about him and Phil Kessel was interesting. And obviously that's something people will kind of circle back to it. It's a bit of a pressure point. And I don't know, I found the kind of dichotomy, I guess,

between his feelings on Phil Kessel and then the stuff Mike Sullivan was saying about him and Mike Sullivan's chapter fascinating. and sort of that's the thing I took away from the Mike Sullivan chapter. I think you were trying to make that point as well about how, you know, he can adapt very well and he sort of puts his players in a better position to succeed. And it's not like the thing that always fascinates me about coaching is how much of it is, you know, a guy who has his own systems and the way he wants his teams to play. And he's set in that way versus a coach that comes into a new situation.

and sort of adjusts around the players that are already in place. And, you know, when Mike Sullivan came in and took over that Penguins team, he obviously sort of recognized that they need to be playing a certain different way than they were playing under Mike Johnston, where they just needed to play faster and get the puck up the ice as quickly as they could. And that really benefited the personnel they had there. And maybe, I mean, maybe that's just the thing that he would have done anyways, but, you know, it's quite possible that if he was in a different situation

with a different team, maybe he would have approached it a different way. So I'm always kind of curious to see how adaptable coaches are because that's ultimately what's going to determine success in the league, but also provide them with longevity because you're not always going to have the same group of players. Right, for sure. I just had this conversation briefly. I'm doing a story on Claire Drake who's going into the Hall of Fame, I think it's a builder. He's kind of a legendary coach in the coaching circles. And Barry Trots, you know, is kind of one of his disciples. And Barry was saying the same thing.

He's like, it's funny. when you play teams around the league, you can tell, there's some guys, like, you can tell it's either it's Mike Babcock or it's a Mike Backcock disciple, like he says, you know, you play Carolina and it's a mirror image of Toronto. I mean, they're doing what they're doing. And then you have some coaches that it's very personnel-based. And I think one of the things that Mike Sullivan was interesting to me about when I sat down with him and him and John Totorello were at the same time.

So they're both in the room as we're watching these games. is that he got Sidney Crosby involved kind of right off the hop and said, okay, how do you want to play? How can we maximize? Because people forget, when Mike Sullivan joined the Penguins, people were talking about how Sidney Crosby

was no longer one of the best players in the game. I had a conversation with a general manager in a press box and we were talking about Cid. And I said, you know, even top five right now to you. And he said, no. so like which is and it was and at the time I'm like yeah that's probably fair because he he wasn't he wasn't himself and Mike Sullivan to his credit I mean and Mike Babcock brought this up when he talked about

Sidney Crosby and the lines he played on the Olympics when you put it on the player when you give them the opportunity to have input it also you're putting it on their shoulders to produce on some level too right they had they now have some skin in the game it's it's their kind of concept it's how they want to play. And maybe that is how Mike Sullivan wanted to play all along. But I think he was smart to get Sid on board right away. Yeah. Okay, well, let's go chapter by chapter here.

I have a few notes on each coach that I think sort of have a practical discussion that we can get deeper into. I mean, the Dan Baelsma chapter you started off with. You know, the thing that I took away from that was he was so vividly talking about, you know, when they get that lead. in game seven against the Red Wings and they go up to nothing, how the Penguins as a team sort of adjusted the way they were playing where, you know, obviously when you're protecting a lead lead in a playoff game like that, you're taking shorter shifts, you're focusing on

the hockey cliché as of getting the puck deep and playing it safe and all that. And obviously, you know, it's human nature and no one wants to be the guy that's going to make the mistake and be the goat. But I'm always fascinated by how, you know, like the concept of score effects and how we know that when teams go up, they start playing much differently. they would otherwise very conservatively they get into a defensive shell and the other team starts out shooting outchanting them much greater than they would have otherwise and that's sort of there's that interplay between the you know human psychology where it's going to happen anyways just because you

want to hold on to that lead while you have it versus sort of acknowledging that well if you go up early in a game maybe the best way to defend that lead is to actually just keep attacking and keep playing your game because we've seen so many times that once you change that maybe that can things can go southward really quickly for you. So I don't know, like stuff like that is is, is, is, um, while I was reading the Bosmoa chapter, that's what really stuck out to me. It was interesting because I think I ended up cutting it out because there's a point in the game. Because when I, my first crack at this was, I think 100,000 words or 110,000 words.

And, um, and then I went back and looked at my contract and they own, it was for like 80 or 70. Like I was way over. Right. So there was a lot of chopping and for good measure. Like a lot of stuff didn't need to be in. It was self-indulgent. But for Dan Balsma, there was a point where I think it was a two-on-one or something. Like the penguins, you know, they're protecting this league and they dumped it in.

It didn't like change or whatever. And Dan just started like, he's like, look, you know, as coaches, yes, we wanted to play a little more conservative when you had a lead. But I'm never telling guys dump a puck in when you have an odd man rush. It's like these, it's just like you said, it becomes human nature to these guys. guys. And he's like, and it wasn't like, we weren't reminding him to do this. We weren't saying short shifts. They just go into that mode, trying to protect the lead. What jumped out to me with Dan Bilesma, and this became a bit of a theme throughout, even in the Joel Quinville, and we can get to that in a sec, is how tenuous that team's place was in kind of, and Dan Bilesma in hockey history.

Like, there's a point where late in the game, where the Red Wing I think it hits there's a shot from the point or whatever and it hits the crossbar and I'm sitting there with Dan Bilesman. He just kind of lets out a low whistle and he's like whew man that and that's that shot goes that we're talking about an inch that shot goes in the Red Wings win in overtime. Maybe Dan you know now maybe Sidney Crosby's the pressure on him to win a cup is higher and imagine if they don't win that cup and it all go you know then then what follows had followed and you know Sidney Crosby doesn't have a cup early on in his career and maybe he doesn't know how to win the big game and damn about like all of these different narratives because a puck was an inch off and and and you know a coach after coach in this process said man people don't want to talk about how much luck is involved in this but it's it's a big part of the equation in these moments yeah yeah to win in that you know to win at all you really need a lot of things to go your way I mean the other thing that I took away was and you made this point in there as well as, you know,

if you told someone after that season when the Penguins did win that cup, that it would take them so long to get back to that level, they probably wouldn't believe you just because they had that. You know, you knew that some of those supporting roles were going to change and they'd have to bring them different guys there, but ultimately with Crosby and Malkin, you figure that it wouldn't take that long, but it did. And it just, that's like the point I always try to make it, you know,

you definitely don't always. just want to kind of go all in and just neglect the future entirely and just trade all your picks for current win now guys and then see where it goes after because that can obviously go horribly wrong too but when you're a team that has a chance to win it there is something to be said for making a more sort of concerted aggressive effort to do so because you can't just take for granted that it's going to happen again to you right and and i remember so there was a point so they i mean they they did push in a lot like ray shiro was aggressive at the deadline year after year with the with the penguins. And then when Jim Rutherford took over, I remember not liking the Phil Kessel

trade and saying, you know, maybe let's take a couple years in reset and gather some young players and young assets rather than continuing what they'd been doing. And obviously, I was wrong. It all worked out great and they've got multiple cups. But I, you know, I do think, I think you're right in that, especially if you can win one early, like the penguins did and like the Blackhawks did, I just think that it takes pressure off you down the road. You have that experience now. It sets you up. So I would tend to be aggressive.

Like I look at where a couple teams are in their life cycle. Like I wrote this last year about the Leafs. I would have even maybe taken a run at Chattonkirk. Like, you know, make that play early without assuming that you're going to have a decade of glory. Yeah. Yeah. Well, same thing with the Oilers. I think that was the disappointment where while they had dry saddle and they still have McDavid this year for,

way cheaper than he's going to be moving forward that it didn't kind of optimize that and try to win now as opposed to taking it slow the other thing i took away was like i liked some some chapters in here because they were just reminders and kind of walks down memory lane and stuff that you forget about a little bit and i think i wonder if we truly appreciate fgeny malkin and his individual greatness because you know he's obviously got a bunch of accolades and uh when you watch him at the top of his game it's impossible not to marvel at what he's capable of but just kind of thinking back to this year he had where he was really the you know the penguins driving for us i mean you look at his numbers that season and it was like 113 points in

the regular season and then he 36 and 24 in the postseason and there was that two-year window there before he had some injuries and he started missing some games where he was like like his high his peak performance was arguably as high as and if not higher than you know what crosbie and ovechkin and the other grades from his generation get credit for and he never really gets lumped in that discussion and I think he ultimately should and I wonder how history is going to remember him by the time he finishes his career.

I think we're going to see there's going to be kind of a Genie Malkin rally at the end of his career because he's so good and I think on some level he's taken for granted and on some level he, you know, there's the shared spotlight with Sidney Crosby

but like I look at what's happened to Joe Thornton kind of in the twilighted his career like people appreciate him now they appreciate his greatness like he went from a guy where people criticized him and ripped him and he was a choke artist and all this stuff and underachiever and i think history has a way of kind of self-correcting and and my my sense is i think histories can be really good to get any malcolm i hope so i hope so um yeah it's yeah it's tough to say like on the one hand he's talented enough where you there's no reason to not to believe that he couldn't be able to,

if he had been in a different situation, carry his own team, but then obviously, like, so he loses some of that limelight and the spotlight with Crosby being there as well and being a bigger star, especially in Canada, but at the same time,

like you wonder if he'd gone to a different team and he was the only guy, whether he would have been able to be this successful or just how different his career would be because so much of it is situation-based, right? Like, the guy's not going to have the same career if he goes in two different, teams with two different supporting cast.

So it's kind of, I'm always interested in thinking about that as like parallel universe if he had been drafted to a different team without a superstar already in place, how he would have looked. When he was being rumored to be traded to the Kings, was that like, was Kopitar coming back? Like, I would like to know if we're doing like a parallel universe, what life would have looked like for the Kings. Wasn't that the big rumor one year, like a long time ago?

Yeah. Well, okay, here's a parallel universe. What would Jonathan Taves' career have looked like if he was drafted instead of Jordan Stahl? Oh, man. Can you imagine? But that's the thing. Like, would he, do you think a guy like Jonathan Taves would be considered this, like, consummate leader and cornerstone of a franchise if he came into a group that already sort of had

those guys in place? Yeah, like, would he have been allowed to grow into that role? Right. If, if, yeah. Well, I mean, the only. The only comparison I can make would be on hockey Canada, right? When Team Canada plays in the Olympics and like those aren't Jonathan Taves. Like teams are they?

Like he plays, I don't want to say a complimentary role because he's a big part of that team. But he plays more of a shutdown. I mean, I guess he does that for Chicago. I don't know. That's a great question. Would Jonathan Taves be Jonathan Taves in Pittsburgh? Yeah. I mean, you know, there's a case to be made that the like the personality would just be so overwhelming

that maybe it would win out anyways. even if he's not the most talented guy, but it's... Would he still be there? Like, they wouldn't even afford all three. No. No, yeah, someone probably would have been gone. Yeah. All right, yeah, let's, uh, is there anything else on any other anecdotes that you couldn't

put into the book or that you wanted to talk about Basma? Uh, with Dan? Um, no, no. I, that actually, I think is one of the longer chapters. So I got a lot. He was, I really like him. He's an interesting guy. It was an interesting kind of point in history for the kind of the great team of this era.

So I had fun diving in there. So, no, I think we got, we're good there. All right. Ron Wilson. So we already kind of touched a little bit about you hanging out with him and watching that Olympic game and his relationship with Phil Kessel. Is there, what else is there on Ron that we should talk about? Well, the only thing I would say on that one, I did, I did talk to Phil and, you know, just kind of, you do this as a writer. You just say, hey, do you have anything to add?

or your side and Phil doesn't care right I'm just like no I've got nothing to say here um and but like you know I think essentially with with Ron Wilson um it was interesting to see kind of the two sides of it where he's he basically was like he struggled to to find a way to use Phil effectively on a winning team whereas Mike Sullivan obviously successfully did but but not without hiccups like there's a point in the Mike Sullivan chapter where he talked about approaching Phil to play on that, the HBK line before Malkin got hurt, and Phil just was like not into it at all. So it's not like, it's not like every, it's smooth sailing, you know, once he gets to Pittsburgh, to be fair to Ron. But like, yeah, Ron was great. And it was, again,

it was another example of, it was actually the flip side of the example of, what if a puck bounces a different way and what if the American score in overtime and how differently are we looking at Mike Babcock versus Ron Wilson and you know the pre-s-A-souter American generation versus the unbeatable Canadians like that to me it was it was the other side of the coin

where all these narratives are created because of a one goal loss yeah yeah for sure um okay let's Let's talk about the Mike Babcock chapter because I thought this was the most, I mean, the Sullivan-Torrella chapter was obviously great and we'll get that in a second. But the Mike Babcock chapter, like, I know this is a hockey book, but you could have easily just taken that and put in some sort of like a motivational, like life guidance book because I thought like the stuff he was talking about in terms of change agents and sort of, you know, being proactive rather than reactive and embracing change and doing. and kind of getting ahead of stuff as opposed to waiting for things to go bad and then

making moves is like very inspirational, motivational stuff that I think we can apply to our day-to-day life. So I actually really enjoy that chapter the most, I think. It's, I mean, it's the best chapter to me for that reason because it kind of transcends the sport. It's applicable to people's. Like I think if people just bought the book and read that chapter, it would be worth it. You know, and I like, I loved all of them. I, you know, obviously. But I, to me,

he was so good on that topic. And it was an, and you see him kind of talk about these things and it's picked up and, but it was an opportunity really to sink your teeth into it. And when he says, you know, hey, I look outside of the sport of hockey for inspiration. I look outside of the sport of hockey to find new things I can then import to the Toronto Maple Leafs. And then to be able to talk to some of those people, you know, a CEO of a company in California who met Mike Babcock while hunting sheep, you know, to have his perspective in there and say, you know, this is, this is what I watched Mike Babcock apply after talking about me about how I run my company. It was just, it was transformative for me as a person just to go through this process of talking to Mike, talking to the

people he's impacted. And then you sit there and you can't help but kind of self-reflect, right? Like, it was, it was, you know, it was an important chapter in this book. Well, there's also this one passage you had in there, which really stuck out to me. And it's sort of, I think it's something we keep circling back to a lot of the issues that plague the NHL and some of the frustrations people like myself and a lot of others out there have. What the league is the fact that it doesn't really, it's not conducive to embracing change. And it's really kind of stuck in its ways. and it's a lot of like a lot of the logic is well we've always done it this way which is obviously horribly flawed for a lot of reasons and then there's also you can kind of spin in in the direction of

it is also a bit of a copycat league too so as soon as someone kind of makes that first uncomfortable step and shows that something can be done all of a sudden everyone flocks to it and I'm fascinated by that and obviously that that sort of leaves a lot of room for progressive creative individuals to make their mark in the league still because if they're willing to put themselves on the line and sort of try some new stuff, there's going to be this window where they're going to be doing it while others are still skeptical and that gives them a massive competitive advantage. So I guess there's that angle to it too. Yeah. Yeah. Like I got on my soapbox a little bit in that chapter for that. It's one of my frustrations with the NHL is that not only is like people that try to do things differently, you know, they take a risk. there's also like the kind of the old school hockey world tends to like close ranks and and go on the attack if it this the sign there is you know the first sign it's not working out and we've seen it like for example we saw it in florida like you know the the computer guys or whatever we want to say there you know i don't care what your philosophy is you can't build a team

in a year you know what i mean like i don't care if you're doing it old school new school whatever it is you can't that's not enough time to evaluate whether or not something works and then that became a punchline when they kind of were in and out in a very short short shorter. You know, I'm sure if the Arizona coyotes continue to struggle this season, people will start saying, ah, look at John Chica, you know, here's a guy that's constantly looking for something new, trying to find an edge with a small budget team, you know, big into analytics, has, you know, has a lot of people on the staff looking at that. And I'm telling you, I can, knowing this world, if, you know,

there's going to be people kind of making smart comments and in running him down. And because it's like everyone just kind of is protecting their own turf and they don't want to change. And they want to own their little tiny kingdoms, not tiny, but in some cases. But, and it's one of my frustrations with the league. Like every other, I mean, I guess this happens in baseball on some level. But it just seems like every other league is so open to trying new ideas. And hockey tends to fight it. And that's why I admire Mike Babcock because, you know, he's a guy that now has accomplished enough.

He's got the clout that he can do it, right? And nobody's going to say anything because it's Mike Babcock. And you look at one of the things I think Toronto does really well is they've built out a front office and a coaching staff with a wide variety of voices. So it's not a bunch of people that echo Mike Babcock's beliefs or Lou Lamarillo's beliefs. And in a cap system, that's one way to take advantage of being a big market team. And why other teams don't do that, that have money to spend? I have no idea. Well, I have a good idea for why that is the case.

I mean, obviously, if you reach a certain level of stature and power in your career, I'm sure that you kind of trick yourself into believing that you have all the answers at that point and you're smarter than everyone, and then you don't really want dissenting opinions in the room because it's going to make you kind of question stuff and maybe look potentially bad, and it just seems like an unnecessary hassle. So why wouldn't you rather just support yourself with sort of,

not necessarily yes, men, but people to think along the same lines as you because it's going to support your own beliefs and not kind of take you outside the box. I guess, but good luck with that, because that ends up a disaster typically. Yeah, but it goes back to the point of sort of comfort zones, right? And that was the whole thing about taking yourself out of the comfort zone.

And I also love the idea of hockey fans also have this a bit of a complex where as soon as you start talking about a different sport, they get very protective. And there is a whole lot of like that hashtag please like my sport element to it. And as an analyst and someone who thinks about the game a lot,

I love looking at other. I love watching other sports first and foremost. I'm not necessarily just only looking at hockey, but also in terms of kind of gleaning potentially interesting concepts and applying them to hockey, obviously there's going to be different stuff going on in different sports, but there are sort of philosophies maybe or things that you can kind of look at and go, hmm, that's interesting. I never really thought about that before.

How would that look in hockey? And all of a sudden, just asking those questions, all of a sudden gets you on the right path, I feel like. For sure. And so that's what Mike Babcock's great at. And he's not just looking outside of hockey in sports. He's looking in business. He's looking anywhere.

Like that really struck me. And if you read the chapter, you pick up on it. Like he's just constantly like trying to learn something new. Like there's no just conversation with them. And hey, you know, here's a book I read. Then he's pulling out. He's taking notes constantly watching this game. You know, here it's a nice summer day.

We're watching his Olympic gold medal win. This, you know, this could have been, hey, let's kick him. back and have a beer and watch this and relive the glory days and Mike is at the edge of his seat leaning forward with a pen and a paper and he's taking notes because he wants to to apply something he's in this moment that he can then use with team Canada in the World Cup which was going to happen a month later so he was looking for clips in this game you know like that's just that's how his mind works and and yeah I think there's a lot anyone can learn from that I love it um Craig let's take a quick break here to hear from a sponsor and we'll pick up the rest of the book on

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And with that, let's get back to Custin's book called The Behind the Bench. All right. So I think the next chat, chapter chronologically is the Bob Hartley chapter. Bob has some people. Yeah, what were your main takeaways from hanging out with him? And some of this comes across in your words, but there is this sort of commonly held belief that he's a bit of an old school kind

of hard ass. Which he disagrees with, which we get into in this chapter. I don't think any coach likes to hear that. you know Bob when I asked that I said you know when I asked that of him you know he went into examples of where he's helped players and kind of in their personal lives

and in in hockey but basically he's like if you don't want to work then we're not going to get along you know and so but of course we've all heard that about Bob Hartley like that you know he's one of those shelf life coaches and all of that. But in terms of what I admire about Bob Hartley and telling his

story is he's a guy that went about it in a way where he he had to earn everything he got, right? Like some coaches are former players. And so the second they're done playing, they have a spot as an assistant coach on their former teammates, HL team or whatever it looks like, right? Like they have a clear path in name recognition. And then their old GM is going to bring them up to the, you know, there's these all these connections Bob Hartley's a guy that was working in a windshield factory like there was he has you know

wasn't a former player you know played more baseball than he did hockey and so he had to be completely self-made without any connections and I think it's and he did like you just look until he wins at that level moves up a level

wins a championship next level moves up a level wins a championship clearly the guy can coach like you don't just have success after success after success. I watch him navigate in Atlanta and get a team into the playoffs that had, you know, he got a thrashers team in the playoffs that no one else in that franchise history was able to do. Like he can coach. And then, but I also think that's, you know, the hockey world is one, and I wrote this, like, there's clicks. So you have your hockey Canada guys, you have your USA hockey guys, you have your Western Canadian guys, you have your Ontario guys.

and Bob Hartley is, you know, a French-speaking coach from Ontario, you know, like, it doesn't fit any of those. And I think it's kind of hurt his ability to kind of get back into the game at times. And now, you know, I'll be interested to see, like, I'm sure he would still want to coach and, you know, who knows if he's going to get that opportunity. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the interesting thing about Hartley is. So when he was coaching the Flames, they had that one surprise season where they made the playoffs and they beat the Canucks in the first round.

And, you know, everyone was writing all these stories about the job he'd done with that young Flames team and how he'd gotten through to some of their younger stars and how they were headed on the right path. And he was, you know, giving a lot of credit for it. And I'm sure deservedly so. But then the Flames front office went out and gave him this massive extension while he still had. years on his contract and then obviously they didn't sort of realize that there was also this like luck component to it where maybe they were playing over their heads and they weren't as good as they were and all of a sudden they come crashing back down to earth the next year and I think he's you know he's released from his from his deal and the reason I bring that up is because um when we're talking

about coaches something that I keep coming back to is this idea of um shelf life and the sort of longevity that you want to give in some of these contracts, and it seems like whenever guys are extended for too long, it generally doesn't wind up working too well, but then you can also make the argument that you have to give the coach a longer-term deal to show the players in the room that he's going to stick around rather than if he's on an expiring deal that year, all of a sudden he's a bit of a lame duck where the guys might just stop listening to him.

Definitely a guy like Bob Hartley too, right? Yes. He's not a guy you want in the last year of his contract. he is demanding and so it's interesting I'm working I'm doing the forward on an analytics book and I don't want to give away too much

because I don't know this isn't my book but it it gets into one of the focuses is the transition game in hockey and and you know where that's your most you know that's where you can the percentage of scoring is the highest right like we talk about possession and offensive zone

zone time and and coursey and all these things that are great, you know, getting lots of shots and generating lots of offensive zone time when the reality is a lot of times those aren't, you know, if you're just cycling in the offensive zone, you're not getting a great, you know, the percentage of scoring in that kind of in that world isn't high. Whereas if, you know, a stretch pass and a transition and kind of waiting for your moment, those are high percentages. And it's, it's kind of forced me to rethink, you know, what we, I mean, how we evaluate coaches or teams, because we just assume, oh, if you're a good, if you have a good course, you're a good coach, you're a good team.

Where, like, I honestly think, like, I think Bob Hartley, the way he coaches, like, there's a lot of counterattack in his game, the stretch pass, a lot of transition. And so it almost became a punchline. Hey, look at the Calgary Flames. They're winning games, you know, down three goals. They come up and win. and they've got a 42% coursey, like this is not sustainable,

then it doesn't sustain and, ha ha, we were right. But I also think maybe, you know, here's a guy that recognized, we're going to try for these high percentage plays and he was successful at times. And maybe it's not sustainable. But, you know,

people say the same thing for John Totorella in Vancouver and he's found a way to make it work in Columbus. I'm just, especially after reading this book, I'm wondering, you know, know, and I know there's different ways to win in hockey. And it really challenged kind of my thoughts on just assuming guys were good at what they do or teams were good because of their possession numbers. Right.

There's many different ways to approach trying to find that success in the league. I agree with that 100%. Okay, let's Todd McClellan here. I feel like your description of everything about him and his sort of their surrounding while you did this chapter with him were like really just me out so much. Like I was like sitting in a con shop. I was like living vicariously through it.

I was like, wow, I'm super relaxed right now. It was, I loved, I love Todd McClellan. I think he's a good coach. I'll be the first to admit, like these are a lot of Stanley Cup winning coaches, Olympic gold medal winning coaches. I was looking for a way to get Todd in this book because I think he's an interesting guy.

I think he's kind of represents the next generation of coaches, kind of the John Cooper's that know how to work with young players. And so, you know, when he won that world championships with Sidney Crosby and that puts it in the triple gold club, that was the opportunity to kind of go over that game. Now, it's not a great game to watch because Canada beats the Russians. I mean, whatever it was, seven to one or something. So the game itself was a non-factor. But where Todd, to me, was really interesting was just, his path, you know, working with a guy like Doug Rysborough and the Minnesota organization,

here was this, he was kind of one of those first young hot coaches, you know, coming up through the ranks where everyone knew he was going to be a good coach. And he got some pretty good advice from Doug Rysbrough that like, take your time and learn, learn your profession along the way. Don't rush. Don't take the first promotion that, you know, look at the situation. Don't just take an NHL job to take an NHL job. And again, like this is like these were all, and I didn't want to hit the reader over the head with it, but I'm like, this is all stuff that we can learn from, right? Like, you know, try to learn along the way in every situation. And when you get to a point where you're ready to move up, you know you are when you have kind

of multiple opportunities and you can cherry pick the best one. And maybe that's the best time to do something. And I think Todd McClellan's been really smart about that in his career. Yeah, it's funny. you so I read that McLuhan chapter and that point stuck out to me about sort of you know not getting your head of yourself and taking your time and mastering one level first before and then everything the success will come naturally and then when I was reading the Hitchcock chapter later I believe like one of his one of his friends what gave him the advice of like constantly

just trying to think about what your next step is and while you're while you're the WHL going like thinking about the HL and when you're in the HL thinking about NHL and so and I don't think they're like exclusive one another yeah the two pieces of there just to be clear right yeah yeah of course well that kind of goes to the point where we're saying oh there isn't this like one sort of blueprint or you know kind of dried way of approaching it like you can kind of juggle all these things at once but yeah the obviously you wrote this i think book before um this happened so you couldn't have really talked about it with him but like i'd i'd be fascinated to sit down with todd mcclund right now and obviously i mean it might be

a bit of a sore subject or an uncomfortable topic for him to get into but just like what was going through his head while he was watching the same thing San Jose Sharks make that run to the cup final two years ago. After he'd been there for so long and on so many good teams, they just kept falling short. And then his first year out of, you know, they replace him with Pete DeBore, obviously. And, you know, he might, for, you know, Pete DeBore very well might have done certain things to, you know, pull the right strings and make it happen. But a lot of it was probably just sort of, it was kind of their time a little bit.

They were due and they would have eventually made it there if McClellan had stuck around, I feel like. So I'm sure there must have been a bit of bitterness involved in that. Yeah, I imagine. I'm trying to think if I've ever talked to Todd about that, just what it was like. I guess that's not something you are eager to bring up. I'm sure, you know, he'd say all the right things about how he's happy for Pete.

And you generally... The thing that I liked was in the Claude Julian chapter where he was talking about his friendship with El N. Vigno and how now he feels like there's a bit of a strain there because of what I went through in 2011. And I enjoy that. I mean, obviously, you know, I hope for them to resume their friendship one day. But I like that people are.

You enjoy that there's a strain? No, no. I like the transparency involved there where so many times when you, like, there's this coaching fraternity. And generally you hear, I mean, even with when John Tortorella was talking about Bob Hartley and the incident they had when he was coaching the Connoxvers, the flames and that brawl, you know, he mentions that he doesn't want to be lumped into the same sentence. as Bob Hartley and, you know, he's a different type of coach than that. But at the same time, he also makes the point of, you know, talking about how he thinks Bob Hartley is a great coach in his own right and stuff. And there's this coaching fraternity and you're never really going to hear guys talk poorly about each other

or really kind of tell you how they really feel, at least not on the record. I'm sure behind the scenes they would if you're having a beer with him. But I'd be fascinated to see, like, just what Todd McClellan's real feelings are on, on the success San Jose had two years ago while he was, yeah. Yeah. That could have been me. Right, right. I've never even, like coaches, it's probably like writers on some level. Man, do we very rarely run each other down because it's such a tough, you know, the coaching

world is so hard and they're getting it enough from the outside of people slinging arrows that I'm trying to think of instances where people, you know where it usually is. It's if somebody is like different, right? Maybe they're trying to do it. And it's the old world kind of protecting the new world. But, man, very rarely do you see that? But to get to your point about Todd McClellan and the Sharks, like we talk a lot about shelf life with kind of coaches who are challenging and hard on players.

I don't think Todd, I think I don't want to say players coach because sometimes that has a negative connotation. But I don't think Todd is super hard on guys, like where you would have that shelf life. What I think is interesting is regardless of your coaching style, I do think there's a time. to change coaches. And I think we saw that in San Jose where Todd McClellan was probably there a year too long. And maybe he would admit this. In fact, he probably would because he, him and Doug Wilson basically orchestrated him leaving. Like it wasn't like he still had another year on his contract, if I remember correctly.

So like that to me is interesting where, you know, you can have a short shelf life because the guy's super demanding or sometimes teams kind of max out where they're going to go with a coach after a while. Right. Well, yeah, I mean, even if you're spreading the message in a more sort of charismatic, uh, relatable way and you're not just yelling at guys, like eventually just hearing the same thing over and over again is going to just kind of lose it. Get dulled a bit, right? And lose its effect a little bit. So it makes sense that you would, getting a fresh face and a fresh voice in there would help. Um, yeah, I mean, other than that on the McClellan stuff, I mean, I'm, I'm always fascinated about, uh, how coaches deal with superstars and everything that comes with that.

And I guess McCollins getting a good taste for that right now in Edmonton with Connor MacDavid. I mean, obviously, by all accounts, it seems like McDavid's a pretty, at least at this stage of his career, a pretty sort of easygoing, low-maintenance superstar. But there's a certain element to the handling of that and whether you're optimizing them. It sort of adds a, it's obviously a great thing. And I think every single coach would love to coach a superstar. like that, but it does put a little bit of an added pressure, I imagine, on sort of every decision you make with that guy, all of a sudden is examined under a microscope, whereas

no one really cares, like, how you're using Mark Letestesstew, for example. Right. No, it's good. And that goes back to the Dan Baalzman chapter, because he brings that up with Sidney Crosby. And then later on in the Todd McLeon chapters, Todd talks about talking to Sid at the World Championships about how to approach Connor McDavid, because I, you know, I'm sure he suspected or knew he was going to get the job at Emmetton.

And, you know, he did say they had conversations. And one of the, yeah, Dan Biosma said exactly that. He's like, here it is years later. We're sitting in his living room watching this game. And I'm like, what's it like to coach Sidney Crosby? And he's like, well, there you go. Like that's what it's like because you're asking this question. He's like, you know, nobody asked me what it was like to coach Hal Gill, you know?

And so like those, your decisions become, everything you do around those players become scrutinized. Yeah. Yeah. Well, within reason, obviously. Yeah, so let's move on to, let's do Mike Sullivan and John Torterale here. This is obviously sort of the medias chapter in the book.

The thing that I find interesting about the two of them, and it's been a bit of a sort of wake-up call, or I've learned a lot from how it's played out, is you know, you generally kind of lump people together by association. And we, obviously it had been so long since Mike Sullivan had been in an HL head coach and we didn't really have a sample on, you know, for assistant coach, you might hear stories or stuff like that or a little anecdotes on the side, but you don't really know sort of what they'd be like if they were the head coach, how their team would play, what systems they would use. So I think everyone sort of naturally assumed that Mike Sullivan would be very similar to Artarella just because of how closely tied and connected they were. So when he came in a Pittsburgh and just sort of started just dealing with the media on a daily basis

and you'd read these really kind of profound thought provoking quotes from him about scoring chances and expected goals and all this stuff and you're like where like where does this come from? Like was this there the entire time? And it really just sort of goes to show you that you kind of not only shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but also kind of take every entity for itself and what it's worth as opposed to sort of just lumping everything together. For sure. And so a couple of things jumped out with the Mike Sullivan kind of path. One was that John Tororella basically had been telling teams for years.

Even teams he was interviewing for the same job as Mike Sullivan. Like, I'm not your guy. This is your guy. Like this, he mentioned, I think it was Atlanta, the Islanders. Maybe it was the Kings also when they hired John. Who was the coach before Darrell Sutter? I'm already. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Was Terry Murray? Was it Terry Murray? Maybe that was. So there was openings where John Totorello was basically telling teams Mike Sullivan needs to be the guy. I've learned more from him than he's learned from me. But like I just remember, I did it myself. Like you lumped the two of them together. And I think there was some pretty smart self-awareness on Mike Sullivan's part to after the Vancouver kind of disaster to say, you know what?

And they both talked about this. It's time to separate. And there's a point where John Toroble jumps in. And that's what made their chapter interesting because we'd be talking to Mike or I'd be talking to Mike about his path. And then John would just kind of be from the other side of the table. Hey, let me add something here. And this is,

and this is something he really wanted a point he wanted to make. He said what Mike Sullivan did after Vancouver was so smart. One, like they kind of divorced themselves of each other. Two, he took a job basically consulting or whatever it was with the Chicago Blackhawks. So it wasn't behind the bench. But, you know, you go to a great organization. You learn from Joel Quenville, one of the best coaches of his era. You win a Stanley Cup.

Now Mike Sullivan has a whole new experience. Can see how this great team does it. It takes maybe a step back as a professional, but has this great experience. Then he goes and takes an HL head job. Again, maybe a step back, but now he has this experience with Chicago. He's now running a bench again. He can kind of get back on the path. And basically, John toward all those points was, you know,

that we want to kind of take these linear paths up our career chain. And sometimes the best thing you can do is to take a step back and kind of realign yourself. And Mike Sullivan did that. Yeah. No, he definitely did. And obviously he came into a pretty good situation as well in terms of the talent he was taking over. But making all the work and all the click is part of the gig as well. And he's done that very well.

And it seems like he's set up for for a longer shelf life based on that demeanor and just sort of how he approaches the job as well, which is, which is, I think, just as important. Yeah. But I don't want to like, Mike's, like, if the penguins, if coaching the penguins was, you know, easy and you could win stay on the cups, like, there wouldn't have been that huge gap between cups, right? Like, I think that the job that Mike Sullivan did last spring in coaching that penguin's team was as good as any coach, as any coaching job I'd. scene. Like, you know, we, we witnessed that kind of the, the structural differences they made and the kind of the way they roped the Washington Capitals in round two. And, and like Mike was, between games, was coaching the heck out of them at practice. And, and like, to me, now he's become a top three coach in the league. And, in my opinion, and, you know, that's, yes, it's a great team.

And you need to have great players to win. Like, all of these games, we're watching Hall of gamers too so you know you hate to make it all about the coaches but um it's not you know if it was all only about having those great players they have 10 cops by now as a as a sort of podcasting broadcasting professional here I was going to go speaking of top three coaches let's talk about a joe Ochoquineval but oh you should I like that I well let's put a pin in that for a second I'll do it in a couple minutes here is there any other I know like listen torterella such a sexy subject and when you're talking about coaches it obviously like very divisive opinions and very polarizing topic.

And I thought he came across pretty well in your book. Like spending that time with him, obviously you'd sort of interacted with him in the past and covering various games and various playoff series, but spending that sort of one-on-one time with him for an extended period, did that change your outlook on him as a coach and what he's kind of capable of or what he's preaching? or is there still reason for skepticism there?

Well, it changed. Yeah, like I told him flat out. There's a point where I'm like, man, I didn't necessarily like the hire in Columbus. You know, I thought it was the classic case of, of, you know, a team swinging the pendulum the other way because Todd Richards was, you know, more of a players coach. And so I'm like, all of a sudden, oh, you go in bringing John Totorel.

Like, I thought it was an overreaction. And that was, you know, I told him. that. But what I, you know, this, this really, this experience, I'd only dealt with John in very, you know, the press conferences and, and just kind of, uh, the situations where you don't really get to know a person in their style because you're getting them five minutes after a loss where they're still angry and they're cutting it short. And, um, I, you know, this, this was an opportunity to kind of dive in, you know, he, especially we got into a lot of his use of conflict and kind of team building and having success and and basically almost creating conflict

at time when it may not even exist just to get some stuff out in the open that he feels has to get out in the open in the team and one of the lines he says is or he told me and I paraphrased is you know if you if you have something building on Monday and you don't address it on Monday you know you're going to have another issue on Tuesday so now you've got two issues and so he's just like let's always get stuff out in the open. Let's have it out as a team. Let's MF each other if we have to. He's going to initiate it at all times. And where that becomes interesting to me, and he wants that engagement from his players. It was interesting to talk to other players who, like Ruslan Fetitanko in Tampa Bay, you know, he's like, I come from a country where you don't argue with

authority, right? And now John Todorella is MF in him or whatever, and he wants them to do it back to him and he's like I never would. He's like, I'm just smiling and I'm like, I'm not going to let this guy get to me. And, and like I kind of came to the conclusion, man, I don't know if I could how I would, how well I would do on a John Torto-a-old team if I was a player. I probably would get shipped out because I'm, I would be like, oh, this guy's yelling at me. I would probably like ball up into the fetal position. I'm out, right? Like, I don't think I'd put in, but he wants guys that are pushing back and ultimately those things kind of get settled. And all of a sudden, you have this team that has this identity that's, like, I think Columbus is way men

tougher now than a couple years ago, right, but then pre-Gon-Totrera. And I don't know how to measure that, and I don't know what that looks like. I just know, like, the blue jackets have a different vibe about them and a confidence. I think that comes with having people that are, that deal with this stuff. Yes, yeah, no, I completely agree with that. Okay, speaking of top three coaches in the league, let's talk about Joel Cueno. Were we, though? I don't think we were.

No, we weren't. No, we were down on Mike Sullivan. So yeah, obviously I love the anecdotes about Quenville sort of being a player's coach and in looking out for them and from a financial perspective as well and stuff with the performance bonuses and all that. And I won't really rehash the details here because I recommend everyone just reads it for themselves. But it's really, really cool behind the scene stuff. But the thing that stuck out for me for Quentville was twofold. One was obviously him not really getting the credit he deserves for his work.

and it's sort of being perfectly cool with him because that's actually the way he prefers it. And the second thing was, you know, there were these quotes in there about how he makes a point of never really running down his own players in the media and calling them out publicly. And sort of even if he's not happy with the player's performance, he'll, like, people that know him will know that he's not happy with that guy,

but he won't actually make it too obvious to the public. But the thing is that I find interesting, about that is, you know, one of the kind of, I don't know how much of a secret it is and how much of it is sort of well known by now, but it seems like one of the things that's going on behind the scenes right now is that there might be a bit of sort of bubbling turmoil between him and Stan Bowman right now. And obviously, I mean, they've been working together for so long that that's going to happen naturally and it's amazing that it hasn't happened even more so to this point yet.

But it's just, so I'm kind of curious about that dynamic there because he's obviously been there for so long and he has this one way of dealing with the players and you never hear him talk about them really to the media. But then he's been dropping these nuggets lately, you know, after the John Mers and trade. And then even when they played the Leafs a week or so ago when they were in Toronto, he sort of made this kind of backhanded comment about how, you know, oh, it must be great to have all that young talent on your team and stuff like that. sort of, I guess, kind of taking a shot at his own team a bit, I guess.

Like, I don't know. It was thinly veiled, so I'm kind of curious about what's going on there right now with Joel. Well, because we're trained to try to interpret him, right? Yes. So, like, when we're like, okay, this guy doesn't call anyone out. So if he says Marcus Kruger was, ah, he was just okay, you know, then you're like, oh, my gosh, he just crushed him, right? So then when he says, yeah, it must be nice, you're like, what is that, you know,

you're almost like you're forced to try to do some Joel Quinville interpretation. Right. but yeah so and i mean that's just his demeanor and and so like i was not optimistic he would be a part of this for kind of that a lot of those reasons like this isn't a guy that wants to talk about himself this is and this is a book that's very you know this is um about coaches and about their paths and he ended up being unbelievable and it was great but there was definitely a um a different flavor it because it was it tended to be about the players more right and he's cheering them on and basically it became how does he maximize these not only the great players

the cane and the tapes how does he has this reputation as a guy that players will run through brick wall for and i really was trying to get at the why like how does he do that as a coach other than just being you know and and like i thought there was a couple like you know the player bonus of stories i thought was kind of a good anecdote of saying okay here's here's you know a simple thing he used to do when that was a thing that got players behind behind him. And again, I'll save it for the book because there's some great stories. And the other stuff to me that was interesting that really captured why players like them was the Adam Burrish stuff. And here you have a guy who's at the end of his roster,

you know, as they're making the Stanley Cup run, who if Joel Quenville doesn't get involved, maybe feels like he's not a big part of this championship. Instead, Joel has him doing scouting reports through, you know, funny videos and playing, you know, guitar and doing Tom Petty covers only he's doing actual scouting reports of the opposing team and and really doing a good job of it and we can talk to people like Adam would reach out to players around the league and say okay tell me everything about the Predators and this and and then he would work it into a Tom Petty song and so by the end of it Adam Burish can raise that cop and Joe Quenville and maybe it's intentional or not but Joe Quenville has found this way to get a guy playing six

minutes a night or whatever uh to feel like he was a huge part of that I I mean that I don't know how you know i just think that's cool there's a cynical side of me that um it makes me think that uh those videos that adam burrish recorded um haven't been deleted yet there must be some copy out there and we need to uh put together our our our firepower and our brains to uh to uncover them

because i feel like they'd be pretty funny they i there's no way all copies do i say they're deleted i'm trying to think of what yeah you did No, you said. Yes. Yeah. So there's no way he did, though. There me, I don't, I can't, I'm just speculating at this point.

I, I, I, I, there has to be a copy somewhere. They wouldn't, but like, you know, it's, it wouldn't be great for public. No, they're probably not the most politically correct videos, I'd imagine. All right. We're here at the, we're at the full 60 already. So let's, let's, let's hammer through these, a couple of chapters before. where people freak out. Ken Hitchcock and Claude Julian.

What stuck out to you with those two guys? Is there any key takeaways or key anecdotes that you want to share? Yeah. So two, I'll do it quickly. With Ken Hitchcock, to me the most interesting thing was here was this guy that had this, you know, kind of a rough upbringing was lost at sea a bit as a teenager. and basically had a couple of mentors who he credits for setting him on the path to success. And, you know, he says when he talks to his friends back home, like, he's a big golfer.

He has this group that he would, you know, was on a golf team with as a kid. And like, he's like, their biggest shock isn't that I want a Stanley Cup or I'm an NHL coach. It's that I'm alive at all. And to me, what I tried to, again, I was, you know, there was an effort to say, like, maybe there's something we can apply. And with Ken Hitchcock, it was, you know, it was a value of having people in your life who can, who know better than you, who can guide you who are maybe a little bit older. And I certainly have had them in my career along the way, who can put you in the right direction. and his success, especially early on in his career, I think is directly attributed to that. Yeah.

And I mean, I don't know how much of this is actually true and how much of it is just, you know, stuff you'll hear. But it seems like he's made a pretty concerted effort to change his coaching style and maybe lighten up a little bit. I mean, obviously early in his career he had this reputation. for really just driving his players crazy and being way too much of a hard ass. And then after Columbus, I feel like when he went to St. Louis and now in Dallas, maybe, he's never going to be a players coach. I mean, obviously a person's never really going to change that dramatically, especially at this age.

But, you know, you can kind of tone it down a little bit as we're seeing as Tororella made a point of. And that's obviously huge because I've made this point on the podcast a number of times. but whenever you talk to a player who might have played for Hitchcock in the 90s, and you bring up his name, like you just see them kind of like tense up all of a sudden. It's like there's some trauma there involved for sure. And I think even before that,

like I think it was worse even before that. There's like a line of the story where like one of his mentor says to him, like these are people. Like these aren't just, you know, pawns in a hockey chess match. And so when you embarrass a guy and you chew him out and all this like you you they have souls like you're you're damaging them and um like i'm sure you know i'm sure if we talk to former players especially as he got early on like they'd be like

this guy's not a good guy at all right like we shouldn't be celebrating him like it was he was hard on him and and i think there was some things he had to learn about that and and um but yeah i i think the ken hitchcock we see now is completely different and and you have a guy now who knows his limitations. Like he knows um he like he knows maybe there's times he needs to walk away and give the teams some breathing room. Yeah like that like that part where Bob Ganey basically told him like you need to

just leave for two days. Yeah. It's like no no no no. He's like oh no no no let me be clear here. Get out of here. Um, uh, yeah last one, Claude Julian. Um, I don't know. Like is there any reason why because I think the world of this guy as a coach and his track record speaks for itself, which is makes it all the more puzzling that he's had the career he has where teams have just kind of, you know, abruptly given up on him during the season. And I'm not even speaking about the players.

I mean, in terms of like just getting fired by the management. So like, why is, why is that happening? Why is there this disconnect between sort of the results on the ice and the way he's been treated or the way his tenures have ended in different cities? It's a great question. And I don't, like, I don't have, like, it seemed like even in the successful Boston Bruins years, they were always looking for an excuse to get rid of them, right? And we got into that a little bit. Like, you think about the year they win a cup, you know, if he, if they don't beat Montreal, I think it was the first round of that year, and that may be getting years mixed up.

But if they don't beat Montreal, he's probably fired. And we talk about how close, like, careers and narratives and reputations can change. it's an overtime goal that that could have done it and and yeah there always seems to be people looking for a reason to run glad julian out when all he's you know all he's done has had pretty good success you know wherever he's been kind of right now notwithstanding and i'm not sure i'm pinning it on the coach in montreal and so um you know that that one that was a fun chapter for me because that's my favorite series i've ever covered like the gold medal game's my favorite game. The Canucks Bruin series. I just loved. Maybe it was because it was kind of at a point where I was,

it was all still a little bit new to me at a national level. And, but there was so many characters and so many moments, there was so much to write about and we're flying back and forth and we're all exhausted and loopy and staying out late. And, you know, it was, you had, you know, players getting bit and tires not being pumped and whatever like every single day there was something crazy to write about and so like i i it was fun for me to then you know talk to claude julian and as i did for all these coaches then circle back and talk to the players involved and um what really jumps out to me was talking to the guys that were on the canucks in that series and most notably ryan kessler and kevin bexa and how much they still like that's still an open wound.

Like it was, if you have the audio, like if you listen to the audio of my interview with Ryan Kessler for the book, it's like, it's hard to listen to because he's still upset. And he's like, I can't. And I think it was Kevin BX.

One of them said they just recently, you know, went back and watched some of, some clips for the first time of that series. And like, it still hurts. And because that's how they were so close. And again,

we're looking at Mike Gillis differently. We're looking at Elaine Vigno differently in Kessler and all these guys. If, you know, maybe you start Corey Schneider in Boston or whatever the difference would have been. Well, the disappointing thing above all else, I feel like, is, you know, we place so much on emphasis on winning the Stanley Cup. Well, obviously, with good reason, I mean, that is the end goal every season. But it's like, you know, if you don't have a Stanley Cup ring, you're considered to be

just an inferior player. And if the Canucks had won that series, you know, I'm. Obviously, I feel like the Siddines, first and foremost, would get much more respect. I mean, I'm sure there'd be the detractors just because of the way they play and sort of how they go against the, the expectations of what an all-time great hockey player looks like, just because they're not really, you know, willing to be super physical or fight or what have you. But, you know, if they had that Stanley Cup ring, all of a sudden, like, they're just in a different stratosphere as superstars in terms of consideration. And that team as a whole, I feel like, is going to kind of, I don't know how it's going to be remembered. I mean, it's already been, I guess, seven years now.

And, you know, people will remember that it was a really good team. And they were the best team that season. But it was like, there was an argument to me. And it was an all-time great team. And I say that just as someone who followed it closely because of, they had that sort of extra gear that you very rarely see at the NHL level where, you know, you made that, you made, you had that, you had that, you made, you had that. little passage there about how Kevin BX has said, oh, let's go win 20 straight games and then they won, like, yeah, let's just go win 20 straight games. But they had this, they had this an act for like, they would really go up to one or something early in the game. And then all of a sudden, like, just like

that, they'd be up like 5-1. Right. And you'd just be like, what the hell just happened there? And, you know, they had this just insane power play. And they were really firing on all cylinders. That was a peak of the Citiens, but also Kessler being able to carry his own line. I believe he had like 40 goals that season. And so they just had, everything going for them and then obviously you know the attrition of the playoffs kind of took hold and they lost some guys and there's no excuses i mean the bruin's played remarkably well and tim thomas was easily the best player in that series but it just it's funny how that one game uh circling back this is a good ball in this discussion because of what you mentioned at the start of the podcast

but that one game just a few bounces here or there would change how we look and feel about players and a team uh so dramatically sure like Mike Gillis can't get a job right like I mean that was you know that was that was a great team and and like and they were hated too like that was the other thing that stood out to me was was the Bruins guys and Claude julians specifically in our in our conversation saying once we got to that series he was getting calls from other coaches on how to stop the Canucks because nobody people didn't want to see the Canucks win because they thought they were dirty and didn't play the game the right way.

And, you know, some of the players talked about the same thing. Like, you know, they were getting calls from rivals saying, okay. And there was a good example of that Cloud Julian brings up. I'm like, okay, what's one tip you got? And I think it was the Cedines, like, during every TV timeout would work the refs, you know, to try to get a call after. He's like, so make sure you have somebody out there with them. And like it was to see, not only was that team great. and they had swagger and probably some arrogance,

but they were hated and disliked. And like you ask how history is going to remember that team. I think we're going to just forget them, right? Like I already started like, hey, what are the great teams the last 10 years? No one's saying all of those Sadine Canucks teams. And they were a great. They were a great team. Yeah, they were.

Were there any coaches that you wanted to include in this book, but you didn't just because you kind of had to cut it off at some point or it couldn't really work out. Like I was, did you give any thought to having a guy like Daryl Sutter, for example, in here? I did. I did. So Daryl, he was in. He seemed excited about it.

And then the challenge with this book was I had a very small window, about a two-month window in the summer to do most of these interviews. Because I'm asking for a lot of their time and to kind of relive some glory years. And guys in the middle of the season are, you know, typically aren't going to be like, hey, yeah, let me give you six hours, right? So it had to be. And I'm, you know, I'm covering the league full time. So I'm not available because I was, you know, what is it? ESPN until free agency's up.

So we basically had, and the World Cup was this year. So there was a lot of these things to work, that worked against us. So I basically had this maybe a month and a half, two month window to do a majority of these. And Darrell was into it. You know, we communicated. And it just like we kind of went back and forth an email. Then he disappeared. And it just, you know, I kind of had to pull to shoot.

And, and, um, which is unfortunate because I, I was looking forward to that one, um, because there's a little bit of intimidation from my, you know, he's one of those guys that is, is like in, in the normal press settings, difficult to deal with. Right. If he doesn't like the question. And I was looking forward to getting him in this setting because I think he's so smart. And I think he's smarter than people want to give him credit for because he kind of plays, he plays it off and whatever.

And yeah, I was definitely disappointed. and we weren't able to get him in there. Yeah, he gives all this kind of like crusty old man vibe. Right, crust, right. You read some of these quotes from him, you're like, wow, that was very thought-provoking and interesting. Do you give any thought to sitting in a barbershop and getting your hair done with Jack Applano?

I know he hasn't necessarily one. That's the second book. It's behind the barbershop, poll. Yeah, I mean, I guess obviously, you know, he hasn't want to stand like up either, but a guy like Barry Trots would have been interesting as well. But I think you kind of got the main, the big names that I wanted to hear from in this book.

The one was John Cooper, who was the other one, really wanted to, like, shoehorn in for a lot of reasons. I'm definitely, like, I'm definitely most curious about kind of these self-made guys, and maybe that's my, like, that's why I like the Bob Hartley story so much. And John and I had conversations, and basically it would have been like, hey, here's a gold medal game and here's a Stanley Cup winning game. And my pitch to John was like, he had one of the all-time greats H.L. months like they won six million games in a row a Calder Cup this was like the Palat Tyler Johnson crew and that's now had success I'm like let's let's dive into that and you know and I don't like I think it would have been like you know nobody wants to get pinned as the HL guy in the midst of all these Stanley Cup winners right so like

it was basically it was like if the lightning had won us down the cup in this window I think John Cooper would have been in there and and he was you know he was we talked about him doing the four like there was I really wanted him in there and it just didn't work out and yeah so that saves us something for down the line I don't know yeah cool looking forward to um I'll give you the full 60 seconds here to plug some stuff uh where can people get this book um and tell me about uh what you're writing about and your podcast yeah uh so the book is where like anywhere barns and noble Amazon I think I make less money if you buy it at Amazon I'm learning so whatever you want to do can people just send you money directly what's that it's just

It's just send me checks and I'll mail to you. Actually, people that want personalized books, so that's on my list of things to do also. So wherever you get a book. And honestly, if you go to the library and check it out, I just want people to read it because I think there's a lot of good stuff in there. And I want these coaches, like they gave me a lot of time and access and I want it to be worth it. Then, you know, going to the plug list, subscribe to the athletic if you're not already. the stuff that we're doing on the hockey side especially is I couldn't be more proud of to be a part of this group.

Every single day, there's stories that I'm like, I can't believe we're doing this. So please consider subscribing to the Athletic and do it through the Detroit, a Detroit story. So I get credit in my yearly bonus. And the full 60, the podcast, if you're into podcasts, which if you're listening to this still an hour and a half later, I'm going to assume you are. It's been a lot of fun and it's a little bit different. We're less topical. it's turning out in terms of what's happening in the game right now and more like storytelling or introspective and I think that's because that's I like that stuff and it's you know you can actually

go back and listen to the Mike Russo or the Ray Ferraro you know Frank Provenzano they all like these aren't episodes that a week later they're out of date like go back and listen to them check it out it's called the full 60 and it's on wherever you get podcasts well this has been the full 75 with Dmitri Filipovich. Craig, man, thanks for taking the time. It was a lot of fun. Great job on the book, and we will chat soon, definitely. Thanks, Dmitri.

The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filippovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.