Mr. Ruff, Mr. Hitchcock has a message for you
So, here we are in the first round of the playoffs and two teams not in them are making news. We’re wondering just how retro they’ll go, because that’s where we’re headed. The Dallas Stars have already rehired Ken Hitchcock as their head coach, and Thursday the Sabres fired GM Tim Murray and head coach Dan Bylsma. Although it will depend upon the Sabres’ new GM, the name which keeps surfacing as Bylsma’s replacement is Lindy Ruff. If that happened, it would put Ruff and Hitchcock back with the same teams they coached during the biggest Stanley Cup fiasco in my memory: the 1999 Brett Hull, foot-in-the-crease Cup-winning goal. You’ll see more about that disgrace, and some of its inner workings, in June, the month it actually happened. But, for purposes of this recollection about 2006, it’s enough to know what the long term fallout of that 1999 final was. Hitchcock was so proud of his aging team for rising to win a long, tough series and thought they should be recognized for that. But Ruff, the Sabres and the media, not to mention the Buffalo fans, had spent the previous seven years talking about a ‘tainted’ Stanley Cup — it’s still regarded that way in some quarters — severely diminishing the Stars’ and Hitchcock’s achievement in the public eye. This story is about the next time Hitch and Lindy met in the post-season. It was April 24, the first round of 2006, the post-lockout season when I think the Sabres would have won the Cup, had they not lost four — count ’em four — starting defencemen for the eastern final against Carolina, and a fifth in the seventh game of that final. Although the series would eventually go six, the Sabres began the 2006 playoffs with two straight wins at home over the Philadelphia Flyers, whom Hitchcock was now coaching. The second game was an 8-2 wipeout in which the Flyers reverted to their Broad Street Bully history, and took 17 penalties to just six for the Sabres. After the second game, at Buffalo’s HSBC Arena, the coaches’ press conferences turned ugly, although that depended upon your point of view. For a hockey writer, they were things of beauty. Ruff and Hitchcock are very different types. Ruff was fairly guarded in those days (although he did take some shots at players like Darcy Tucker), while Hitchcock was always outgoing and full of interesting talking-point theories. Hitch may know how to get your ear, but sportswriters know how to get your goat. First Ruff, as the home coach, was asked pointedly about the game and the Flyers’ tactics. “We just wanted to play,” Ruff said firmly. “The more they acted like idiots, the more we wanted to play.” That was the hard part, getting Lindy to go out on more of a verbal limb than usual, especially with two games in Philly on the horizon. So when it was Hitchcock’s turn to go to the podium, we knew we had the match for his dry powder. Naturally, someone immediately quoted Lindy word for word and Hitchcock’s reaction was even better than anticipated. “That’s Lindy’s opinion,” Hitch fumed, and you could see him getting angrier as he thought abut it more. “I’ve seen his teams do the same thing. He ought to not talk about that.” And then he abruptly cut the press conference short, or so it seemed. “That’s it,” he said and began leaving the podium. Only, that wasn’t it. Hitch paused for a moment then gave us a loud message for his counterpart and our collective memories, “Tell Lindy to F--- off!” You just didn’t hear that kind of thing in major league sport, not in public anyway. Microphones dropped, time seemed to freeze and Hitch began pushing toward the doorway of the media room. As he got to the door, a couple of us mentioned a couple of other Ruff comments to him, and as I recall it, we got another wonderfully rhythmic ‘bleep-bleep-bleep.’ Sometimes it pays to stoke the fire. Eventually, Hitchcock and Ruff came to respect each other, mostly through serving on Mike Babcock’s staff in two gold-medal Olympics and sharing a small room together. Both have intimated, though, that the other is an acquired taste. They faced each other behind the benches of St. Louis and Dallas in round 2 last year, with Hitchcock’s Blues winning the seventh game against Ruff’s Stars, the team Hitchcock coached to its only Stanley Cup. From all accounts, that series was a RuffHitchcock mutual admiration society, but I can guarantee you this: if Ruff gets hired in Buffalo, I’ll be there when Dallas visits for the first time. And I’ll ask Hitch if he has any messages for Lindy. Just in case. Veteran Spectator columnist Steve Milton has pretty much seen it all in his 40 years covering sports around the world and, in Being There, he will relive special moments of those stories, from the inside out, every Friday. If there’s a memorable sporting event you want Steve to write about, let him know at smilton@thespec.com. Chances are he was there.