Post by jets07 on Apr 3, 2011 9:37:47 GMT -5
Us against the world’: Tippett uses sale drama to galvanize Coyotes
By PAUL FRIESEN, Winnipeg Sun
Last Updated: March 31, 2011 11:24pm
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Phoenix Coyotes head coach Dave Tippett has done a remarkable job of keeping his team in contention despite off-ice issues that have plagued the franchise for several years. (WINNIPEG SUN FILES) GLENDALE, Ariz. — The walls of his modest office, buried deep inside the Jobing.Com Arena, remain bare, 18 months after he took the job.
And he’s renting, not buying.
But that doesn’t mean Phoenix Coyotes head coach Dave Tippett thinks the team has no future in Arizona.
“I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t think there was,” Tippett, in a one-on-one interview with the Winnipeg Sun, said Thursday. “That’s what I told my wife when I came down here. The opportunity to build something was intriguing to me.”
Tippett was wondering about something else when he first walked into one of the most unstable, not to mention bizarre, situations in recent pro sports memory.
At the time — September, 2009 — everybody had been wondering if Wayne Gretzky was going to show up for his $8-million-a-year job, while the team was going through messy bankruptcy proceedings, including a legal tug-of-war between the NHL and would-be buyer, Jim Balsillie.
Tippett walked into this quagmire just nine days prior to the start of the regular season.
To say he wondered where his players’ heads would be at is an understatement.
“When I first came, that was a real concern of mine,” Tippett said. “I got here with a week left in training camp. They’d gone through all the turmoil. They weren’t sure if Wayne was going to come.
“I had a meeting with (Ed) Jovanovski and (Shane) Doan and voiced my concerns. And both those guys said, ‘Look, we’ve addressed it as players. And we’re going to play hockey. That’s what we do.’ ”
They’ve been doing it ever since.
Last season, a franchise-record 50 wins, 107 points, and the team’s first playoff spot in eight years earned Tippett the Jack Adams Award as the NHL coach of the year, probably the only time someone has showed up No. 99 on the ice.
This season, they’re doing it again: 42 wins, and counting, good for fourth place in the NHL West — all while being owned and operated, on a shoestring budget, by the league, as one would-be saviour after another comes and goes, rumours of a relocation to Winnipeg abound.
Might want to make a copy of that Adams Award engraving.
Because as much as veteran players like Doan and Jovanovski have slammed the dressing room door on the off-ice crisis, it’s the calm, always-seeming-to-be-in-control Tippett who refuses to let it back in when it knocks.
And it’s been knocking nonstop, it seems, all season.
“It starts with Tip,” Doan said. “He’s done a great job of keeping it out of the room.”
Asked how he’s done it, the 49-year-old from Moosomin, Sask., a former Unsung Hero and Mr. Hustle Award Winner with the Hartford Whalers, basically shrugs the credit to his players.
“There’s times when the media attention is ramped up a little bit,” Tippett acknowledged. “Two weeks ago there when they had (Senator John) McCain there, and it sounded like everything was going, that’s an example. The players know what’s going on. To say they’re oblivious to everything, that would be untrue.
“But they know when they come to the dressing room and we prepare to play, it’s about hockey. It’s not about ownership or where we’re living next year.”
Tippett actually saw some opportunity in all the craziness, latching onto one of the oldest tricks in the book.
“He’s kind of made it us against the world,” Doan said. “There’s not a lot of times where you have the opportunity to say that everything is stacked against you.”
The coach describes it as galvanizing.
“It’s brought our group together,” Tippett said. “We take that disadvantage and turn it into a positive. A challenge.”
Consider it met. Again.
Now he just needs something to hang on those walls, like maybe a division or conference championship pennant.
Crazy?
He’s seen crazy.
It’s been pounding at his door going on two years.
By PAUL FRIESEN, Winnipeg Sun
Last Updated: March 31, 2011 11:24pm
StoryCommentsEmail Story Print Size A A A Report Typo
Phoenix Coyotes head coach Dave Tippett has done a remarkable job of keeping his team in contention despite off-ice issues that have plagued the franchise for several years. (WINNIPEG SUN FILES) GLENDALE, Ariz. — The walls of his modest office, buried deep inside the Jobing.Com Arena, remain bare, 18 months after he took the job.
And he’s renting, not buying.
But that doesn’t mean Phoenix Coyotes head coach Dave Tippett thinks the team has no future in Arizona.
“I wouldn’t have come here if I didn’t think there was,” Tippett, in a one-on-one interview with the Winnipeg Sun, said Thursday. “That’s what I told my wife when I came down here. The opportunity to build something was intriguing to me.”
Tippett was wondering about something else when he first walked into one of the most unstable, not to mention bizarre, situations in recent pro sports memory.
At the time — September, 2009 — everybody had been wondering if Wayne Gretzky was going to show up for his $8-million-a-year job, while the team was going through messy bankruptcy proceedings, including a legal tug-of-war between the NHL and would-be buyer, Jim Balsillie.
Tippett walked into this quagmire just nine days prior to the start of the regular season.
To say he wondered where his players’ heads would be at is an understatement.
“When I first came, that was a real concern of mine,” Tippett said. “I got here with a week left in training camp. They’d gone through all the turmoil. They weren’t sure if Wayne was going to come.
“I had a meeting with (Ed) Jovanovski and (Shane) Doan and voiced my concerns. And both those guys said, ‘Look, we’ve addressed it as players. And we’re going to play hockey. That’s what we do.’ ”
They’ve been doing it ever since.
Last season, a franchise-record 50 wins, 107 points, and the team’s first playoff spot in eight years earned Tippett the Jack Adams Award as the NHL coach of the year, probably the only time someone has showed up No. 99 on the ice.
This season, they’re doing it again: 42 wins, and counting, good for fourth place in the NHL West — all while being owned and operated, on a shoestring budget, by the league, as one would-be saviour after another comes and goes, rumours of a relocation to Winnipeg abound.
Might want to make a copy of that Adams Award engraving.
Because as much as veteran players like Doan and Jovanovski have slammed the dressing room door on the off-ice crisis, it’s the calm, always-seeming-to-be-in-control Tippett who refuses to let it back in when it knocks.
And it’s been knocking nonstop, it seems, all season.
“It starts with Tip,” Doan said. “He’s done a great job of keeping it out of the room.”
Asked how he’s done it, the 49-year-old from Moosomin, Sask., a former Unsung Hero and Mr. Hustle Award Winner with the Hartford Whalers, basically shrugs the credit to his players.
“There’s times when the media attention is ramped up a little bit,” Tippett acknowledged. “Two weeks ago there when they had (Senator John) McCain there, and it sounded like everything was going, that’s an example. The players know what’s going on. To say they’re oblivious to everything, that would be untrue.
“But they know when they come to the dressing room and we prepare to play, it’s about hockey. It’s not about ownership or where we’re living next year.”
Tippett actually saw some opportunity in all the craziness, latching onto one of the oldest tricks in the book.
“He’s kind of made it us against the world,” Doan said. “There’s not a lot of times where you have the opportunity to say that everything is stacked against you.”
The coach describes it as galvanizing.
“It’s brought our group together,” Tippett said. “We take that disadvantage and turn it into a positive. A challenge.”
Consider it met. Again.
Now he just needs something to hang on those walls, like maybe a division or conference championship pennant.
Crazy?
He’s seen crazy.
It’s been pounding at his door going on two years.