Q: After all your time in the NHL, what made this job attractive to you?
“Well,
I got a call from Paul Holmgren before the draft. We made a commitment
over the phone to do this. There wasn’t a lot of stuff coming in from
the NHL teams after
I got fired in LA. The phone rings for about four or five days and
then it goes silent, and there was nothing up until Homer called me. I
took some time to think about it, and I was thinking back over some of
the coaches that I’ve played for, and I remember
seeing Pat Quinn coach the Canadian world juniors in Ottawa
a few years ago. He’s a coach that I have a great deal of respect
for. He took a step back and coached junior hockey and did a tremendous
job. He got himself back in the NHL, he ended up in Edmonton
after that. He’s a guy who loves to coach, and that’s what I am. I’m a
hockey coach, I love to coach. When Paul presented it to
me, in the way that he did – coming back to the Flyers in particular
was very exciting, and I feel like it’s a great opportunity to work with
young players and again, it’s just a wonderful challenge and I’m
looking forward to it.
Q: Have you had a chance to look at the roster or learn anything about the team?
“No,
I haven’t looked at any rosters at all. I don’t know any of the
names. Coaches get moved around sometimes, everybody wants to make the
playoffs and there’s reasons
why it doesn’t happen sometimes, with injuries or whatever it might
be. Call-ups have an effect on an American league team, there’s no
question about that. You’re always losing your best players. I feel
very good about it, I’m really excited about the
challenge, and the Flyers I know are going to, it always seemed to me
anyway, to put good players in their minor league system. Many years I
go back with watching the Phantoms when I was coaching or the assistant
coach of the Flyers, and they were always
a very competitive team with a lot of prospects. It’s up to the
coaching from there to do their job too. You’ve got to take these kids
and bring them together to a team as quickly as possible, and help them
get to the National Hockey League as players.
That’s the thing I feel I can do a good job with. I feel I build good
teams and get the right attitude and right chemistry together, and let
them go play the game.”
Q: Is there an adjustment coming to the AHL level?
“I
don’t think there’s a lot of difference there, quite honestly. Just
the last team that I coached in LA, going back four years ago, that was a
team that was very
very young. The youngest team in the NHL… a lot of guys coming in
their first year of pro hockey. There’s guys that I coached that put
the Stanley Cup over their head this year that had their first goal,
their first save, their first pass, their first
hit in the NHL, and some guys had their first time in pro hockey. I’ve
been through it. I’ve been through it with many teams and young
players, and I don’t think the approach changes at all with players in
the American Hockey League. I’ve been to the American
Hockey League myself and I coached in Baltimore,
Washington’s farm team. It’s a process, attention
to the detail and helping these young guys come out and play
instinctively and play the game the right way, and build up as a team.”
Q: Do you have any ties to
Adirondack?
“Adirondack came I believe from
Kansas City maybe in 1979? I was playing
with the Maine Mariners at that time, that was the Flyers farm team. So
I remember when the team came into the league. I do remember going to
Adirondack and playing as a player, but I have no other ties to the area and no other ties to any teams that have been through there.
Bryan was the GM of Adirondack, Barry
Melrose was the coach, and I know they had a nice run together. I’m
looking forward to doing the same thing with Paul Holmgen – have a good
run, get deep
into the playoffs and have great success with the young players.”
Q: What are your thoughts from coming from a major NHL market like LA to coming to one of the smaller AHL markets?
“It’s
a hockey team. You’re trying to put together a team that’s going to
win. You want to make the playoffs, you want to win the championship.
That doesn’t change
from a major market out in LA, from Philadelphia, to
Adirondack. Once you get in the building, you get in your
office, you turn on the video machine, you’re reviewing the game on
tape, you’re preparing for your meetings, you’re getting on the ice.
The ice is 200 x 85. It’s
the same as it is in any NHL rink. That’s your focus. That’s the way
it is, and that’s the focus that has to be brought every day, you’re
getting ready to win the game tonight, and if you move through that game
you want to get ready for the next game. And
that does not change, whether you have a veteran hockey club that’s got
players that have been in the NHL for 15 years, or you have a bunch of
young players in the AHL. The purpose is the same. You want to become a
team as fast as possible, you want to have
success, you want to win, you want to make the playoffs. That’s what
I’m looking forward to. That’s the challenge that’s exciting for a
coach, and I’m really excited to get to Adirondack to meet the people up
there and see what the facility is, and I hope
to do that fairly soon here in the month of July.”
Q: Were you surprised to come back to the Flyers again?
“I
was surprised. When Paul and I first talked about this by phone and he
threw it out there, I said wow, this is really catching me off guard.
It’s something I had
not thought about. But at the end of the day, I’m very appreciative of
the opportunity. The Flyers are a great organization. I was there as a
player, as a head coach, assistant coach, I’ve got a lot of friends
that are still in the organization. Paul and
I played together, Bobby Clarke and I played together. It’s a team
that wants to win. They want to do things right every year. That’s
what a coach wants. You want to be able to win, and you want to have
the ability to win through stuff that the team can
give you. Players, they want to give your team the right place to stay
on the road, the right way of travel, the right way of doing things.
It’s all about doing things the proper way, and the Flyers have always,
from the time that I first went to the Flyers
in my first training camp which I think was back in 1975, right through
till today – they do things right, and that’s always a very intriguing
and very exciting team to work for.”
Q: Have you talked about assistant coaches?
“There’s
no one new in the mix. Paul and I did briefly touch on that and we
have not talked about it more than briefly so I do need to just firm
everything up there,
but nothing will change on the assistant’s side of it as of I’m
speaking to you right now. Kjell [Samuelsson] and I have a great
relationship, we worked together with the Flyers. Riley [Cote]’s I know a very competitive guy
and he’s done a great job over the past couple of years. I don’t anticipate anything changing with that.”
Q: How do you see Ian Laperriere fitting in with his new role?
“He’s
a player I have a great deal of respect for, going back to my time of
coaching and scouting in the league and being an assistant coach. He’s
one of the most competitive
players that you could possibly face in any given night, and I have a
lot of respect for the kind of game that he showed game-in and
game-out. I know that he’s very intense, he’s going to work very hard,
he has a great deal of experience in the game, and
he’s going to do a tremendous job with his developmental role with
these young players. I would assume that he and I would have a pretty
good relationship that we’re going to develop over this coming year,
with phone calls and him coming to
Adirondack to watch and be a part of it. I welcome his
opinion. I have a lot of respect for his opinion, how he played and
what he saw as a pro, and we’ll work together very, very well to get
this accelerated and get these
young players into the National Hockey League.”
