Based on the train wreck that was his only season with the Vancouver Canucks, former Tampa Bay Lightning head coach John Tortorella will be out of the league for a while.
Which is too bad really, because he's one of hockey's more fascinating characters. An old school, no-nonsense coach with a hot temper and a habit of (too) openly speaking his mind, Tortorella is an often riveting figure. Unfortunately his teams are rarely as exciting as his press conferences, and for every stellar Tortorella soundbite, you get eight or nine failed breakouts.
Still, every hockey fan has time for a good Tortorella story, and his former Lightning colleague Jay Feaster has some doozies. He recently shared them in a wide ranging interview with SBN's Tampa Bay Lightning blog Raw Charge:
"Oh gosh (laughs), we could spend days on Torts stories!" Feaster began, to which we respond: "please do."
"My favorite part of our run together, I always go back to '04 and the playoffs," Feaster continued. "It was just the way he had this ability in the playoffs, because he was such a hard-ass guy during the regular season and constantly grinding and pushing, to adapt. When the playoffs rolled around, he used to tell me, "Now I need to be with them. They need to know that I'm their guy."
Feaster elaborated on a particular instance where Tortorella's ability to control the reactions of the media and the fans served his hockey club well:
And I look back to the Philadelphia series and Nikolai Khabibulin got bombed here at home, gave up 7 goals or whatever it was, and the whole "Shut Your Yap" thing to [then-Flyers head coach Ken] Hitchcock and how that whole thing exploded. And it was all planned.
That was the thing about John. I don't believe his trying to get into the Calgary locker room this past season was planned (laughs). I don't believe that was planned ahead of time. But everything he did back in '04 was all carefully orchestrated and designed to take pressure off the team. And it worked. By the time we got to Philadelphia after game two here, we got there and nobody asked about Khabibulin. Nobody asked "are you off your pins here? Things aren't looking good." It was all focused on John Tortorella and "Shut Your Yap."
When you back the bus down the ramp at the Flyers rink and get off the bus, there's a catwalk above where the fans congregate. They see the visiting team coming in and they're booing and yelling and cursing and they have signs and that was the normal environment. But when we backed the bus down and our players got off that bus, there wasn't a sound. Honest to goodness, not a sound. Nobody yelling. Silence. Torts always got off the bus last and the minute he stepped off, they just went nuts. They just exploded. And it was all planned.
Feaster also touched on how Tortorella managed to shift the pressure when his club's backs were up against the wall in the 2004 Stanley Cup Finals. Though Tortorella managed the media masterfully in this example, he may want to brush up on his Canadian politics:
When we went to Calgary after losing game five here in overtime. So now we're down 3-2, on the road, and the Cup is in the building and he was just masterful at painting the picture, in public, not just to our group, that all the pressure was on them.
"Its hockey night in Canada. All their friends and family are coming in. Everybody. The entire country. The mayor of Canada is in their dressing room!" Of course, meaning the prime minister. He just did a great job.
When I went to Calgary, Jarome Iginla told me, "you know, I think we bought into that, 'oh boy, it actually is on us'." It was all those things. He was a master of knowing when to take the pressure off.
Miss you Torts!
[H/T @mlse]
