Duthie: The coaching ranks: ex-panelist pathos

James Duthie

TSN Host

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I'm not sure when I feel worse for the coaches I know. When they get fired, and take temp gigs on our TSN panel. Or when they get re-hired, and start peeling more years off their lives with the relentless stress and scrutiny of an NHL head-coaching job.

I saw it in Paul Maurice's eyes as he stood at the podium Monday in Winnipeg, answering a question about accountability on his team. Maurice is one of the best men I've met in hockey, and might be the single most polished media presence there is in the NHL coaching ranks. But as that question was asked, he swallowed hard, the veins bulged a little in his neck, and he answered, "I could f----- make you cry in that room." You could see him catch himself after he said it, and moments later he would apologize for the profanity. But he meant it. It was raw, real, and...understandable from a coach of a struggling team, whose collective character was being called into question.

Mo's blue moment spoke volumes. No matter how cool and composed you are, coaching in the NHL in 2014 can make you lose your f----- mind.*

(*I wrote flippin' Mom. Promise. The editors just dashed it for effect.)

"We used to get 20 games before we had to deal with the real pressure, but now these guys are feeling it three or four games in," says longtime NHL coach Marc Crawford, who is currently coaching in Zurich in the Swiss-A League. "I think it's because of the increased intensity of the coverage, especially in Canadian markets, and the parity in the league. A week into the season and if you aren't doing well, everything gets questioned — coaching, goaltending, captaincy. I've faced a lot of scrutiny in my time, but I've never seen it at this level."

On the second day of training camp, Toronto Maple Leafs coach Randy Carlyle was asked if he thought Phil Kessel hated him. Before his team had played a single pre-season game, he was listed as the Vegas odds-on favourite to be the first NHL coach fired. People speculate endlessly about Mike Babcock coming to Toronto next year like there is already a vacancy. You feel like Carlyle should be over in the corner jumping up and down waving his arms yelling, "Hello!?! Over here! Still the Leafs coach! Just sayin'!"

"I've come to expect the unexpected in this market," Carlyle told me back at training camp. "The most trivial things somehow become stories. It bothers me that my friends are upset by it, that my family gets upset."

He maintains he doesn't get upset. I don't believe him.

"When you guys are ranking the top five coaches on the hot seat before the season starts, I think it's just the stupidest thing in the world," says Crawford. "Where else in society do we do this? Do we list the top five teachers to be fired, the top five executives? NHL coaches get paid very well and no one is going to feel sympathy for us, but lists like the ones you do are ridiculous."

Err...Well this is awkward. That weird section of the column where you use a Marc Crawford quote saying you're part of the problem that you're writing about. I suddenly feel like Leo DiCaprio when he realizes he's the insane killer at the end of Shutter Island. Oopsie.

Crow's right. The panel, The Quiz, Sportscentre — it's all part of this Godzilla of scrutiny the coaches have to deal with when they'd rather just be playing with their whiteboards, designing new breakouts.

Crow's also right when he says they won't get sympathy from most. As tough as the gig has become, Crawford and every other ex-NHL coach would kill to get back in the league, and be stuck in the middle of this media mayhem again. Such is the drug.

But I do feel for them. Mostly because I've seen what they're like when they aren't coaching: relaxed, stress-free, excited as kids at a birthday party when their pizza arrives at intermission.

By my count, we've had a full roster's worth of ex-NHL coaches on our panel over the years — Maurice (twice), Crawford (twice), Ron Wilson, Mike Babcock, Peter Laviolette, Tom Renney, John Anderson, Craig MacTavish, Andy Murray, Bobby Francis, John Tortorella, Mike Keenan, Joel Quenneville and Claude Julien (both for just one Tradecentre appearance), Kevin Constantine, Mike Milbury, and Pierre McGuire. Only McGuire and Milbury were content being full-time broadcasters. The rest were between jobs, and the panel is a decent place to watch a lot of hockey, and maybe keep your name fresh on the mind of the next general manager who decides "a change of direction is needed."

I still get asked all the time, "What is (insert coach/panelist here) really like?" The answer is almost always the same: "Really nice guy." In other words, not at all like the guy you see ripping the reporter in the post-game scrum, trying to climb over the partition to get at the opposing coach, or grabbing certain body parts (that have to be pixeled out on Sportscentre) to make his feelings clear to an official. General television/life rule: when we have to pixel out your junk, you've had a bad day.

I get asked about Tortorella more than anyone else. He is the poster boy for how opposite a personality a man can have when he isn't in front of the microphones every night defending his power play. When he was at TSN, Torts was church-boy polite. Shy almost. He would struggle not to doze off during the double-headers because his usual bedtime is 9pm. Our top-ten lists show the one or two short clips when he got angry on the panel, ripping Sean Avery and The Quiz. The endless replays of those brief soundbites warp everyone's memory of the five months Torts spent with us. Reality is, he was mostly calm and quiet (to a fault for television), and said almost nothing controversial. Then he got the back behind the bench in New York, and later Vancouver, and...well we all watched it.

I checked in on Torts this week. He sounds happy (if you can actually "sound" something in a few texts), spending most of his time keeping up with the careers of his two grown children, and working with his wife on animal welfare causes (they have a house full of rescued dogs). I tried to ask a couple of hockey questions, but he chose not to answer, opting instead to just ask about my kids...and dogs. Wounds still too fresh, I assume.

Peter Laviolette is another of my ex-panelist favourites - smart as a whip with a dry sense of humour. He's off to a great start in Nashville and will likely be there a long time. But Lavy is also acutely aware of the tenuous position of the NHL head coach - always just one long losing streak away from...another potential panel temp job.

I reached him the other night, looking for some insight on Filip Forsberg, the young Swede who is off to a great start with the Predators. He gave me a couple of quotes about what a good young player Forsberg is, then began the following text exchange: