HOMETOWN PRESSURE, YES, BUT NO STRESS
Hitchcock revels in an opportunity with Oilers he never thought he’d have
Ken Hitchcock stood there with his heavy legs emerging from team-issue shorts and stuffed into running shoes, kind of an odd picture combined with his perfectly coiffed white hair framing dancing eyes and playful grin.
When he began answering off-day questions from the media following back-to-back home wins and a 3-1-1 start as the new head coach of the Edmonton Oilers, there was no mistaking it if you were somebody who has spend decades studying the man.
“You look like you’re having the time of your life,” I suggested. “Yeah,” he said, almost quietly. The 66-year-old head coach who retired at the end of last season, never expecting to stand behind a bench again, seldom has trouble finding words for anything. But there was a bit of a pause before he started to put words into what he’s experienced here this week.
“There’s a big difference between stress and pressure. I understand the pressure here. But for me, I don’t feel any of the stress.
“I never would have expected to get this opportunity. I didn’t even think about it. Then the call came and three hours later I’m packing a bag. I never thought this would happen. I know the pressure. And I know the responsibility, having lived in this city for most of my life and what I am up against.
“But I feel like I have an opportunity here and I want to enjoy it. I want to enjoy an opportunity that I didn’t think I would get,’’ he said.
“Obviously my history here goes back to the ’50s. I knew everybody who played in Ponoka and Lacombe and for the Flyers and Nuggets. So this is, to me, home. But it’s also an opportunity in time,” he said of the team he envisions being able to take from crayons to computers.
“I believe this team can get better quicker than even I thought by the way they respect each other and the way the compete against each other in practice. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a team that competes like this against each other in practice.
“We have a lot of things to work on but there are a lot of things, in a very short period of time, that we’ve got a lot better at.
“It gives you a very good feeling that this team is going to improve and be on an upward climb for a long time.”
Suddenly, almost magically, Hitchcock finds himself being the man of the moment in maybe the most important moment in time for this era of Oilers.
And it’s fascinating because, over the years, Edmonton fans have had a love-hate relationship with Ken Hitchcock. The city has celebrated their native son with the incredible backstory of sharpening skates and selling sports equipment for Wilf Brooks at United Cycle and coaching the midget AAA Chain Gang in Sherwood Park before going on to become the third winningest coach in NHL history. But he’s also been Ken #$@%& Hitchcock, the man who coached those Dallas Stars teams to a combined regular season and playoff record of 40-10-3 against the Oilers.
Friday, with his first week as Oilers coach now complete, he explained Edmonton from his perspective.
“People have always asked me ‘What’s Edmonton like?’
“I’ve always felt this is a city with a big soul. It doesn’t have the flash of some other cities but it has this unbelievable soul.
“And I’ve told people. ‘If you go live in Edmonton, Alberta, you’ll never want to leave there.’
“It has a sense of community. It doesn’t feel like a big corporation place. It’s family businesses run by the children. The kids I grew up with are running a lot of the businesses here with the grandchildren. It’s very much a family atmosphere. I can feel the responsibility. I can feel the people in the stands counting on me.”
It’s not easy to explain. To Hitchcock the best explanation is simpy that it’s Edmonton.
“Twenty years ago, it would have been stressful. But now I just feel that pressure and I don’t mind it. But I do feel that responsibility because of how I feel about this city. And this city, to me, has a tremendous soul and vibrant fibre about it.
“In saying that, if you’re going to work for this city in this type of business with the Oilers or the Eskimos, you better be prepared, because people have strong opinions.
“You better be prepared because, in most cases, quite frankly, they’re right.
“That’s what I learned. There’s a knowledge here that you don’t find anywhere else — especially in CFL knowledge and in NHL knowledge.”
That can be a burden too heavy to handle for many a player or coach, but Ken Hitchcock knows what it is, where it comes from and is not only embracing it, but right now, this week, he’s loving every moment of it.