When I read Ted Leonsis’s blog about the Washington Capitals’ choke job with the Montreal Canadiens the other day, a faint bell rang.
I remembered another hockey owner years ago who dumped on his coach and the result.
Here is the key part of what Leonsis, the Caps’ owner, had to say on his blog:
“[The Canadiens] played committed team defence. They took our stars out of play all series. I believe our hockey IQ seemed low this series and we didn’t adjust well on the ice to the new schemes coming our way.
“Live by the O and die by the O. We were horrid on the special teams. When you score more goals shorthanded than with a man advantage in a 7 game series how can you expect to win? To me this was the biggest surprise and disappointment. We just couldn’t score on the man or two man advantage thus we didn’t deserve to win. And our second line didn’t contribute to us the way they did during the regular season.
“We had a goal scored called back. We weren’t mentally tough enough to overcome that and capitalize right away on the momentum that a visual of a goal in the net provided us.”
Pretty much all of the above can be seen as an owner indicting his coach. Leonsis never mentioned Bruce Boudreau but he didn’t have to.
Back in November, 1994, during the first NHL lockout, I was sent to Fort Wayne, home of the famous Komets, to do a story on life in the International Hockey League.
The Komets were not very good but it was not the fault of the coach or even the general manager. At that time, the IHL was in the midst of the same small market-large market tension that gripped the NHL.
A group of teams in cities like Chicago, Detroit, Orlando and San Diego had joined the IHL and were able to spend far more money on minor-league free agents than the poorer teams like the Komets. It was part of the IHL’s strategy to spread itself around the United States and be a cheaper alternative to the NHL. It also resulted in the death of the league a few years later.
Nevertheless, one of the owners of the Fort Wayne Komets thought his coach was at fault. Michael Franke was one of three brothers who owned the team. The other two brothers tended family businesses, I was told, and Michael was the Komets president.
I sat down with him between periods of a game to discuss the problems of trying be a small-market team in a league that was getting too big for its britches.
First, though, Franke wanted to talk about the first period, which saw the Komets fall behind. Unsolicited, he went through a laundry list of what he saw as bad decisions and bad strategy by his coach. Like Leonsis, Franke never mentioned the coach but the meaning was clear.
When I returned to the press box for the start of the second period, I ran into Doug MacLean, who was an NHL scout at the time. I told MacLean what the owner said about his coach and said I didn’t like the coach’s chances of hanging on to his job. MacLean agreed it is never a good thing when an owner starts second-guessing the x’s and o’s on a coach.
Sure enough, the coach didn’t make it to Christmas.
His name? Yep, tough guess. Bruce Boudreau.
I see Leonsis did some back-tracking in the wake of his blog. He said he isn’t ready to “blow it up” as some fans requested, implying that means Boudreau will keep his job.
Nevertheless, I don’t think Boudreau should take that to the bank.
