Blues coach takes long-term approach to getting most out of players
St. Louis Blues coach Ken Hitchcock, a former coach of the year in the NHL who has a Stanley Cup ring, is known as a coaching genius and master motivator.
Just don’t call him that, as he hates the word motivation because it infers a short-term fix. He prefers to say he “inspires” his players to be better.
The Star chatted with Hitchcock on Friday, a day before the Blues faced the Leafs, and we asked him about coaching and innovations in hockey.
You don’t allow players to hang their heads on the bench. Why?
We hate that here because there’s body language that the opposition is looking at. You never want the opposition to say you’re discouraged, we don’t put up with it. There are no sloped shoulders.
You speak of ownership from the team’s best players. What does that mean?
I think if the best players aren’t leading it becomes a little bit chaotic, so we ask our top players to lead us, not just in the games but in the practices. The demands we place on them aren’t so much what they say, it’s how they perform everyday when we’re together.
Have you ever been offered a chance to coach the Leafs, and would you if the chance presented itself?
I’m not commenting on that one, they have a coach.
This question comes via Twitter from Stan Butler, head coach and director of hockey operations with the OHL’s North Bay Battalion. In a team-oriented sport, how do you keep the individuals happy and motivate them to play with a team-first approach?
I think you have to change the value system, and the value system has to be based on sacrifice . . . what’s good for the group. It’s easy to say but hard to do. If your value system changes properly, then everyone will buy in to it. If the value system is on the wrong side of the balance between individual and team play, then it becomes a little bit of a me-first attitude and that’s what we try to avoid. We really embrace the sacrifices.
Scotty Bowman said of you that you get the best players to play important roles. Can you explain?
I think that’s critical, because your best players have to be out on the ice as much as possible. If people see your best players killing penalties, and your best players playing against top players and not running and hiding from the matchups, then everybody else embraces their role. It’s hard to do if you’re hiding your best players.
Name three people, alive or dead, that you’d like to have dinner with.
First is obviously Lincoln, the second is Arnold Palmer, and the third one is George Strait.
What’s the most underrated part of analytics?
The most underrated part for me is zone time, quality of zone chances, red-zone opportunities. I think that stuff is really invigorating. I think anytime you can get those they tell you everything about the work ethic of your team, how many chances you’re giving up, how many chances you’re getting and where you’re getting them from. What type of secondeffort chances you’re getting. Those are great analytics to run. To me it’s scoring chances-related, but it’s more quality scoring-chances related.
What’s the most overrated part of analytics?
I think matchups are a little bit over- rated because you can hide players in the matchup and they don’t get the bad ratings that maybe their play dictates.
What’s the most important thing as a coach? Motivating your players or teaching discipline?
Inspiring them, not motivating them. Motivating is short-term. Inspiring a player to play better, you do that by making it bigger than himself, making it more important than him. And that inspires guys.
Name one coaching decision you regret.
Oh, boy, I’ve got a lot of those. The one decision I regret was when we played Prince Albert in the Western Hockey League final (mid-1980s), I went up and visited with the coaches and we talked hockey. I was a firstyear coach and I gave them too much information and they used it against me and beat us four straight. That won’t be happening again. I learned overnight to be an information gatherer, not a giver.