Coach Cassidy finds a home in Boston
Ottawa native has found a home with contending Bruins
Bruce Cassidy’s playing and coaching career reads like a road map of North America, with a stop or two in Europe along the way for good measure.
Take a close look at the 54-year-old Cassidy’s bio on hockeydb.com and it’s not hard to see that he’s paid his dues to get to where he is today. The Ottawa native is in his fourth season behind the Boston Bruins bench after guiding them to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final in June, only to suffer a tough loss to the eventual champion
St. Louis Blues.
As mostly a minor-league player, he made stops in places like Cape Breton, Saginaw, Mich., and Europe before finishing his career with the Indianapolis
Ice in the defunct International Hockey League. His coaching career includes stints in Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Trenton, N.J., Grand Rapids, Mich., Kingston, Providence, R.I., and a brief run with the Washington Capitals from 2002 to 2004.
Nobody can accuse Cassidy of not doing what it takes and it hasn’t been easy with bumps along the way. But in the midst of his third full season behind the bench in Boston after spending eight seasons with the Bruins’ minor-league affiliate in nearby Providence, he’s now armed with a three-year contract extension and has found a home.
His perseverance came into play in a big way after being let go by the Capitals only 25 games into the 2003-04 campaign. Cassidy learned from the disappointment, moved on and made improvements.
“I ended up in a couple of situations where we didn’t win and some of that was just wanting to get back to work and kind of taking the first thing that came along,” Cassidy told Postmedia in an interview as the Bruins prepared to face the Ottawa Senators Saturday night at TD Garden.
“I probably, in hindsight, should have said, ‘OK, what’s the best fit for you?’” he said. “At the end of the day, Providence was good. It was an (American Hockey League) job (and) even though it was an assistant’s role, that’s where I had done my best work and my goal was to get back to that league where I’m comfortable and then re-establish myself.
“You hope you get another chance, you never know in your career and your personal life and you chip away and here we are.”
Those who know Cassidy believe he’s a student of the game. As a player, he was dynamic offensively because he had good instincts. As a coach, he knows the right buttons to push to get the most out of his players. He’s able to balance that fine line between being in charge and joining the battle with the players on a daily basis.
Not bad for a guy who didn’t really see this as a path he wanted to take when his career came to an end because of a knee injury.
“My best quality was that I had a good hockey IQ and I didn’t want to be a coach — even in the American league when I was finishing up as player,” said Cassidy. “I thought, ‘They’re always in a grumpy mood’ and I got along with everybody. I always woke up in a pretty good place in the morning and I thought it was great you could go to the rink.
“It just seemed a lot of work to keep everyone (on the same page) and I wondered if I would be able to do that. I remember it was (current Anaheim GM) Bob Murray who told me that if I wanted to be a coach, I had to try it and there’s no magic formula on who becomes a good coach. I wanted to stay in the game and I just didn’t know in what capacity.
“He told me I was a smart guy, I had gotten a taste of coaching because I had torn my ACL and I was helping Duane Sutter. He told me to get a feel for it and try it, so I did. I enjoy it because it’s the next best thing to playing. You’re right there in the trenches, you’re there with the players every day and you’re part of the group in a little different way.”
He wants the players he coaches to feel that he’s in it with them and that’s not the approach every coach takes. Cassidy has worked hard with a current roster that includes top players like Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, Zdeno Chara, Tuukka Rask, David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy, Torey Krug and David Krejci, to name a few.
“It’s ‘we’ and it’s ‘our,’ so hopefully they feel with the language you use and how you express yourself gets that point across,” said Cassidy. “I hold myself to be accountable to them as much as I hold the group accountable, so we’ve gone in there and said we’ve made a mistake here, so let’s fix it. I think they believe that. It’s not just ‘I, I, I’ and that’s helped.”
The experience in Washington was difficult, to say the least. The Capitals were a veteran team trying to get to the next level and Cassidy was only 37 years old and attempting to establish himself as a head coach. He made mistakes, it was difficult for him to get his message through and it didn’t end the way he wanted.
“I look back now and it seems like you start and you’re young, you haven’t been there a lot with the media and there’s some scrutiny — right? — (that goes with) that end of it,” he said. “Is this guy ready? Who’s this guy? How did he get here? So you’ve got to prove yourself even more, not only to the players, yourself, the management, the media.
“Whereas this time around, it’s a good story, right? The guy went back, learned some lessons and is better off for it ... so it’s a much better story.”
Cassidy added that last part with a laugh. He has good self-awareness.
“This time around, they can’t say this guy didn’t earn it,” Cassidy said. “It’s a good story and it’s true. I did go back. I had to earn it. Some guys don’t have to, I did.”
It helps that he spent time with Providence.
“Clearly, my first go-around I thought it worked against me because I came from outside the organization, I was young and had never been at that level,” said Cassidy. “You’re proving yourself for those reasons and now you have no relationships with anybody.
“This time around, (it made a difference). Even though I never coached (Chara) and (Bergeron), I knew them from the Black Aces in the final and being around training camp. You’re still a familiar face even though you’re not coaching them. They know who the hell you are.
“Guys come up and they’re going to ask questions right away. ‘What’s this guy all about? He coached (Kevan) Miller, Marchand and Pastrnak.’ They’re key guys and you hope they have your back because we’ve done well together. That helps because you’ve got a good recommendation. Now it’s up to me not to screw it up.”
Cassidy can’t be accused of that at all.
The trip to the Stanley Cup final last spring didn’t leave a sour taste in his mouth because he can look back now and say it was a great experience with memories he’ll cherish.
“I’m not that guy that’s sitting here going home every day wondering what we could have done better,” said Cassidy, whose team is off to a 9-1-2 start this season. “Of course, you go through that stuff, but I’ve honestly moved on from that part. It’ll come back into my head next time we’re close to that situation. If you’re fortunate enough to be, you’ll think, ‘OK, what do I need to do to learn from the last time I was here?’
“It will bother me more in five or 10 years if we never get back there and that’s your only chance. I don’t operate that way. I’m a glass is half-full guy, so we’re back to work and we’ll get back there. This is a good group. I believe with this group we can. That’s the way I’m looking at it.”