Also inside: The importance of Phil Kessel’s signing bonus, Brian Daccord’s next move, Alex Goligoski’s house sale, NHL Awards and notes, and a farewell to an old friend
Tourigny: “There is no team in the world I can coach, without it being a hardworking team. Because when I’m the coach and they don’t work it will drive me crazy. I won’t play you. I don’t care how good you are. You cheat yourself and your team. That is who The Bear is.” (Note: His nickname is Big Bear due to his size and disposition).
This is a excellent article on Tourigny with some fantastic quotes:
“A day off for Andre is like a regular workday for most people,” said 67’s general manager James Boyd. “That’s just the way he’s wired. He’s a workhorse.”
“You’d go early in the next morning and he would be there,” said Desbiens, a former NHLer who now coaches at St. Louis Park HS in Minnesota. “And we’d ask, ‘Did you actually sleep in your office?’ He was very, very committed. The amount of hours he would put in at the office was incredible.”
Another interesting note in the above article is that he didn’t learn to speak English even conversationally until 2006. Very impressive.
Some things I’ve dug up from Google:
Interesting tidbits on Tourigny:
Has been QMJHL coach of the year twice and OHL coach of the year twice and CHL coach of the year once. In 14 years as a CHL head coach, he’s missed the playoffs only once. In his last 130 games coaching the Ottawa 67s he’s won 100 of those games. 100 wins, 30 losses. The last time his team was in the playoffs they set a record with 14 straight wins to begin the playoffs.
Team Canada noticed his success.
He’s been the head coach for Team Canada at the U18s, an associate coach at the U20s, has been named head coach for the next U20s, has been an associate coach at the Men’s World Championships and has been named an associate coach for the next Olympic Games.
He has three seasons as an NHL assistant coach under his belt, as well. Coached guys like Iginla, Stone, Karlsson, O’Reilly, MacKinnon, Zibanejad, Barrie, Ryan, Duchene, Landeskog, Stastny, etc.
Thank you for the additional info! Now I'm really excited and hope we can snag him. If only to sit the "passengers" of the game. Coming from the leagues he has coached, I'd imagine he can do it without hurting a players confidence, but showing them they can play more focused hockey. Let's go Yotes!
Tourigny sounds like a solid choice for the challenges of the next five years or so for the Coyotes.
Great description of Chuck as an irrepressibly positive soul is on the money, too. He was one of the people who managed to make the Coyotes experience feel like family, and we'll miss him.
It actually somewhat makes me happy to think about how much harder Chychrun will train this summer after being told he's only the tenth best d-man in the league. He's going to end up lifting cars and performing telekinesis. I hope he scores 30 next year.
Woke up early this morning just so I could spend a couple hours in a quiet office to actually get work done...and I get notified that Craig dropped an article...at like 530 central time....Is Craig a robot that doesn't need sleep? Maybe....(I proceed to use like 30 minutes of said quiet time in the office reading the article and typing this instead)
Thanks for all the updates! Good to hear that we might be close to a hire. I like Tourigny from what I've seen...sounds like a good pick for the Yotes. Did I miss the Masterton award? Or has that not been announced yet.
Awesome, thank you. I always like knowing who won that one and I didn't see it on my twitter feed, and then didn't see it here so had me wondering if I missed something.
Interesting how we hear so often about players not getting paid in NCAA...why aren't they fighting for their volunteer coaches to get paid?🤔 It's across all the sports yet there is plenty of money to pay athletes and none to pay coaches?
I'm not as well versed on the coaching staff rules and regulations of the NCAA as I am other areas...but I believe this actually comes down to regulations on how many coaches are allowed to be on staff at a university for a specific sport. So often times, volunteers and unpaid interns fill roles that are deemed important but not important enough to let it count towards their staff numbers. And my gut instinct says that often times if a team has a high profile volunteer coach of some kind, there's a donor in the background giving money directly to the volunteer. I have no proof of this, so don't go claiming this as gospel...but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if it happens.
Volunteers are not getting paid outside the lines.
In college hockey, it comes down to the smaller programs not wanting to have to pay a third assistant and not wanting the bigger programs to have that advantage in coaching & recruiting.
More proof that writers voting for the Lady Byng is stupid. The NHL should switch it up and have the refs/linesmen vote on it - now that would be something to talk about.
1) The All-Star Game going to Vegas makes me irrationally angry. I know the NHL won't give the Yotes franchise a thing while the team is in Glendale (or while Jerry Weiers or his equivalent is in the mayor's office in Glendale), but an All-Star game would be such a boost to hockey locally. Bettman OWES the Yotes a replacement for the 2006 game that got canceled, and I tweet about that anytime I can so hockey media at large knows this fanbase hasn't forgotten. I know the draft will never be here (Bettman made that clear) and that's fine, but an outdoor game would be cool in the alternative - and if the problem is Glendale, they could stage it somewhere else. My idle mind conjured up this business plan: they could have a four-team outdoor mini-tournament with the Kings, Ducks, and VGK up in Laughlin on the shore of Lake Havasu.
2) Slightly less-outside-the box than that Havasu idea - I'd love to see each team have their own skills competition like the NHL runs at the ASG. The Yotes could run it as a low-cost-ticket at the start of the season, to help show off the players... even give away a bunch of tickets to parts of the fanbase they want to grow. I'd love to see management in turn lobby for our players to make the NHL skills competition. For example, we might have a player with a surprisingly hard shot, or a quick skater... and we wouldn't know because those sorts of things aren't apparent to casual fans.
3) The Norris voting doesn't really surprise me because small market teams get ignored in voting for awards like this all the time - even more so this year because I presume media members like fans had a tough time finding ways to watch teams outside of their local team's division. (See: Barkov's status as an unappreciated star for the last few years because he plays in Florida.) I look at the players above Chychrun on that list and a couple seem like they're there because of east coast media bias (McAvoy) and Canadian hockey media bias (Nurse), but the others are there on genuine merit. Fox's season-ending numbers earn him that trophy and all-NHL-team billing.
YES on #2. I would actually love to see just a big skills competition replace the All Star Game, with multiple representatives from every team. It's far more interesting than the actual game, you'd see some new faces, and I think the players might enjoy it more, esp. if it was someplace warm with good golfing in the winter (ahem...). I
was thinking low-cost tickets with proceeds going to charity, maybe Skatin' for Leighton locally.
Ever since Keller repped the Yotes at the skills competition a few years ago and got dusted by Kendall Coyne Schofield, I've had the thought in the back of my head that the Yotes could have sent someone faster. I think it's great the NHL let the women participate (and I think they should do that with the NWHL going forward), but the Yotes likely had a faster skater sitting at home... Michael Grabner comes to mind.
I thought the same thing--a guy like Grabner possibly could have even beaten (or come close to beating) McDavid. That's when I first had that idea.
And this past year, with that long-range shooting thing...the Penguins had Crosby and Malkin compete against each other in something similar. Crosby was hurt, but Malkin beat him in the Pens competition anyway. I would have loved to have seen what he could have done with that.
I was pleasantly surprised Chychrun finished as high as 10th. With division-only play this year and the Coyotes not exactly having a big national TV presence, I expected him to be lower. I really want to know who gave him their first place vote.
Jose Romero over at the AZ Republic gave Chychrun the #1 vote. Courtesy of the ballot release document that can be found via Craig's retweet. Not gonna lie, I felt very weird looking at that...still think votes should be private unless voter decides to disclose.
Yeah...they shared that after I posted my comment.
I get where you are coming from with publishing ballots, but it is kind of interesting to see who is making some of the outlier votes. I think this year, since they limited voters to 100, there was a more objective evaluation than there has been in some years past.
(That said, I don't think Chych really deserved a 1st place vote this year. He was very, very good...but not 1st place good.)
I don’t know for certain that they won’t, but let me ask you this: If the Canadiens hadn’t made this run, would you have even cared about Luke Richardson?
Yes. He ticks a lot of the boxes they should be looking for: 2 years as an AHL HC, good reputation for developing young D. Also, I think he's a guy whose team would play with an edge.
Anyone who is interested in what Tourigny is all about should listen to this fantastic interview. Very in-depth:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-hockey-masterclass/id1533693349?i=1000518191609
Tourigny: “There is no team in the world I can coach, without it being a hardworking team. Because when I’m the coach and they don’t work it will drive me crazy. I won’t play you. I don’t care how good you are. You cheat yourself and your team. That is who The Bear is.” (Note: His nickname is Big Bear due to his size and disposition).
This is a excellent article on Tourigny with some fantastic quotes:
https://theathletic.com/2194727/2020/12/22/andre-tourigny-canada-world-juniors/
“A day off for Andre is like a regular workday for most people,” said 67’s general manager James Boyd. “That’s just the way he’s wired. He’s a workhorse.”
“You’d go early in the next morning and he would be there,” said Desbiens, a former NHLer who now coaches at St. Louis Park HS in Minnesota. “And we’d ask, ‘Did you actually sleep in your office?’ He was very, very committed. The amount of hours he would put in at the office was incredible.”
Another interesting note in the above article is that he didn’t learn to speak English even conversationally until 2006. Very impressive.
Some things I’ve dug up from Google:
Interesting tidbits on Tourigny:
Has been QMJHL coach of the year twice and OHL coach of the year twice and CHL coach of the year once. In 14 years as a CHL head coach, he’s missed the playoffs only once. In his last 130 games coaching the Ottawa 67s he’s won 100 of those games. 100 wins, 30 losses. The last time his team was in the playoffs they set a record with 14 straight wins to begin the playoffs.
Team Canada noticed his success.
He’s been the head coach for Team Canada at the U18s, an associate coach at the U20s, has been named head coach for the next U20s, has been an associate coach at the Men’s World Championships and has been named an associate coach for the next Olympic Games.
He has three seasons as an NHL assistant coach under his belt, as well. Coached guys like Iginla, Stone, Karlsson, O’Reilly, MacKinnon, Zibanejad, Barrie, Ryan, Duchene, Landeskog, Stastny, etc.
He’s only 47 years old.
Thank you for the additional info! Now I'm really excited and hope we can snag him. If only to sit the "passengers" of the game. Coming from the leagues he has coached, I'd imagine he can do it without hurting a players confidence, but showing them they can play more focused hockey. Let's go Yotes!
Tourigny sounds like a solid choice for the challenges of the next five years or so for the Coyotes.
Great description of Chuck as an irrepressibly positive soul is on the money, too. He was one of the people who managed to make the Coyotes experience feel like family, and we'll miss him.
Thanks for showing up.
It actually somewhat makes me happy to think about how much harder Chychrun will train this summer after being told he's only the tenth best d-man in the league. He's going to end up lifting cars and performing telekinesis. I hope he scores 30 next year.
Woke up early this morning just so I could spend a couple hours in a quiet office to actually get work done...and I get notified that Craig dropped an article...at like 530 central time....Is Craig a robot that doesn't need sleep? Maybe....(I proceed to use like 30 minutes of said quiet time in the office reading the article and typing this instead)
Thanks for all the updates! Good to hear that we might be close to a hire. I like Tourigny from what I've seen...sounds like a good pick for the Yotes. Did I miss the Masterton award? Or has that not been announced yet.
Dog woke me up at 2:45 so I figured I'd post it for the East Coast & Euro crowd.
The Masterton was announced it was Oskar Lindblom that won after recovering from cancer. (Dumba and Marleau were the other finalists.)
Right. Sorry. I didn’t cite all of the awards. Only the major ones.
Awesome, thank you. I always like knowing who won that one and I didn't see it on my twitter feed, and then didn't see it here so had me wondering if I missed something.
Shane Doan may have had something to do with the hire considering the recent IIHF connection?
I think they were interested in Tourigny before Doan met him, but his insights can't hurt.
Interesting how we hear so often about players not getting paid in NCAA...why aren't they fighting for their volunteer coaches to get paid?🤔 It's across all the sports yet there is plenty of money to pay athletes and none to pay coaches?
I'm not as well versed on the coaching staff rules and regulations of the NCAA as I am other areas...but I believe this actually comes down to regulations on how many coaches are allowed to be on staff at a university for a specific sport. So often times, volunteers and unpaid interns fill roles that are deemed important but not important enough to let it count towards their staff numbers. And my gut instinct says that often times if a team has a high profile volunteer coach of some kind, there's a donor in the background giving money directly to the volunteer. I have no proof of this, so don't go claiming this as gospel...but it wouldn't surprise me one bit if it happens.
Volunteers are not getting paid outside the lines.
In college hockey, it comes down to the smaller programs not wanting to have to pay a third assistant and not wanting the bigger programs to have that advantage in coaching & recruiting.
I knew there was something in place to balance between the bigger programs and smaller programs. Wasn't sure what it was. thank you!
MacKinnon got 3 1st place votes for Lady Bing and threw a helmet at a player's face?
Ha!
More proof that writers voting for the Lady Byng is stupid. The NHL should switch it up and have the refs/linesmen vote on it - now that would be something to talk about.
1) The All-Star Game going to Vegas makes me irrationally angry. I know the NHL won't give the Yotes franchise a thing while the team is in Glendale (or while Jerry Weiers or his equivalent is in the mayor's office in Glendale), but an All-Star game would be such a boost to hockey locally. Bettman OWES the Yotes a replacement for the 2006 game that got canceled, and I tweet about that anytime I can so hockey media at large knows this fanbase hasn't forgotten. I know the draft will never be here (Bettman made that clear) and that's fine, but an outdoor game would be cool in the alternative - and if the problem is Glendale, they could stage it somewhere else. My idle mind conjured up this business plan: they could have a four-team outdoor mini-tournament with the Kings, Ducks, and VGK up in Laughlin on the shore of Lake Havasu.
2) Slightly less-outside-the box than that Havasu idea - I'd love to see each team have their own skills competition like the NHL runs at the ASG. The Yotes could run it as a low-cost-ticket at the start of the season, to help show off the players... even give away a bunch of tickets to parts of the fanbase they want to grow. I'd love to see management in turn lobby for our players to make the NHL skills competition. For example, we might have a player with a surprisingly hard shot, or a quick skater... and we wouldn't know because those sorts of things aren't apparent to casual fans.
3) The Norris voting doesn't really surprise me because small market teams get ignored in voting for awards like this all the time - even more so this year because I presume media members like fans had a tough time finding ways to watch teams outside of their local team's division. (See: Barkov's status as an unappreciated star for the last few years because he plays in Florida.) I look at the players above Chychrun on that list and a couple seem like they're there because of east coast media bias (McAvoy) and Canadian hockey media bias (Nurse), but the others are there on genuine merit. Fox's season-ending numbers earn him that trophy and all-NHL-team billing.
YES on #2. I would actually love to see just a big skills competition replace the All Star Game, with multiple representatives from every team. It's far more interesting than the actual game, you'd see some new faces, and I think the players might enjoy it more, esp. if it was someplace warm with good golfing in the winter (ahem...). I
was thinking low-cost tickets with proceeds going to charity, maybe Skatin' for Leighton locally.
Ever since Keller repped the Yotes at the skills competition a few years ago and got dusted by Kendall Coyne Schofield, I've had the thought in the back of my head that the Yotes could have sent someone faster. I think it's great the NHL let the women participate (and I think they should do that with the NWHL going forward), but the Yotes likely had a faster skater sitting at home... Michael Grabner comes to mind.
I thought the same thing--a guy like Grabner possibly could have even beaten (or come close to beating) McDavid. That's when I first had that idea.
And this past year, with that long-range shooting thing...the Penguins had Crosby and Malkin compete against each other in something similar. Crosby was hurt, but Malkin beat him in the Pens competition anyway. I would have loved to have seen what he could have done with that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDaW4uiSgLA
I was pleasantly surprised Chychrun finished as high as 10th. With division-only play this year and the Coyotes not exactly having a big national TV presence, I expected him to be lower. I really want to know who gave him their first place vote.
Jose Romero over at the AZ Republic gave Chychrun the #1 vote. Courtesy of the ballot release document that can be found via Craig's retweet. Not gonna lie, I felt very weird looking at that...still think votes should be private unless voter decides to disclose.
Yeah...they shared that after I posted my comment.
I get where you are coming from with publishing ballots, but it is kind of interesting to see who is making some of the outlier votes. I think this year, since they limited voters to 100, there was a more objective evaluation than there has been in some years past.
(That said, I don't think Chych really deserved a 1st place vote this year. He was very, very good...but not 1st place good.)
I find it disappointing that the Coyotes wouldn't wait another week or so to discuss the HC job with Luke Richardson.
I don’t know for certain that they won’t, but let me ask you this: If the Canadiens hadn’t made this run, would you have even cared about Luke Richardson?
Yes. He ticks a lot of the boxes they should be looking for: 2 years as an AHL HC, good reputation for developing young D. Also, I think he's a guy whose team would play with an edge.
Listened to a bunch of hockey podcasts. Consensus seems to be Torney is a fantastic guy & coach, especially with puppies. Great hire all around
I would not have put Matthews over McKinnon or Crosby for the All-STar quite yet.