NHL’S COACHING FRATERNITY UNDER SCRUTINY
Allegations against Peters tip of the iceberg as players start pushing back against abuse
While we’re waiting for the Calgary Flames to fire Bill Peters, more stories keep coming out about the disgraced head coach.
At first, it was the decade-ago allegation that he hurled racial slurs toward a black player as a minor-league coach in Illinois. Then, while with the Carolina Hurricanes, it was how he allegedly kicked a player on the bench during a game and punched another’s helmeted head. It sounds like those allegations of physical abuse might be the tip of the iceberg.
Welcome to the early stages of the NHL’s #MeToo movement.
If you thought Mike Babcock asking a rookie to rank his teammates from hardest working to laziest — and then sharing that list with the rest of the team — was an example of bullying, just wait a couple of days. Every coach likely has skeletons buried in his closet. Sooner or later, they’re all going to come out.
As retired NHL coach Ken Hitchcock told Postmedia in a phone interview on Wednesday, “They’re coming for everyone.”
This is both good and bad for the NHL. While these allegations obviously put a stain on the sport, the more players who come forward will hopefully make the workplace safer for everyone involved. Behaviour of the kind that Babcock and Peters are both accused of has no place in the NHL. At least, not anymore.
There was a time — and it wasn’t that long ago — when abusing players through mental and physical means was the hallmark of being a hard-ass coach.
It’s why Hitchcock, who at one time was a hard-ass who ruled with an iron fist, has spent the last 48 hours trying to replay how he spent his time behind the bench. Chances are he isn’t the only one.
“For me, it’s not 10 years. It’s 40 years,” said Hitchcock. “That’s a long time. It’s a lifetime. I’m like any coach. I was demanding, but all coaches are demanding. It’s a really emotional game. Being able to control your emotions is hard. The way you go about it has to change. That’s the good that can come from it.
“I think any time you have a look-in-the-mirror type of situation, it does nothing but good. Everybody’s watching. Everybody’s accountable.”
Accountability has been missing from the NHL. The old mantra of what happens in the dressing room stays in the dressing room has effectively allowed coaches’ behaviour to go unchecked for years. It wasn’t until Akim Aliu and Michal Jordan both came forward via Twitter on the alleged past abuses of their former head coach that Peters was finally exposed.
It was a watershed moment for the NHL and hockey culture as a whole. How the Flames and the rest of the league handles this will determine if it’s something that leaves the game for good.
After all, if Peters did in fact physically abuse a player, he certainly isn’t the first — or the last — to do so.
“I don’t know that (kicking a player on the bench) is common practice, but the players bench is such an emotional place,” said Hitchcock. “We’ve all gotten angry and we’ve all gotten mad. When a team scores a goal in the NHL, they don’t show the coach of the team that scored. They show the other coach, the one whose team got scored on.”
Hitchcock, who became an NHL head coach in 1995 and replaced Todd McLellan as the Edmonton Oilers’ head coach for the remainder of last season, spent 1,598 regular season games as the main man behind an NHL bench. During that time, he said he never physically abused a player. But he admitted that he was forced to evolve his coaching philosophy.
In the past, Hitchcock could scream his message to the team and expect to see results. But today’s player no longer responds the same way to scare tactics.
Back then it was called coaching. Now it’s bullying.
And yet, it’s still a coach’s job to push players to heights they didn’t believe were possible and to win games. The difference is that it now needs to be done respectfully — and with a clear reason why it’s good for the player.
“That’s gone now. That left five or 10 years ago,” Hitchcock said of ruling with an iron fist. “It’s a changing world. You’re coaching on selling. You’re selling what’s good for the team and what’s good for the individual. You better be able to sell them on why it’s good for them.”
Not every coach is a good salesman. And not every coach has changed.
There might be fewer Mike Keenans and Darryl Sutters working in the NHL today, but the old-school coach hasn’t quite gone extinct. John Tortorella and Joel Quenneville are demanding. So, too, are McLellan and Dallas Eakins. They may not have kicked or punched a player, but you can bet that they didn’t spend their coaching careers patting every player on the back.
One by one, stories are bound to come out. Stories that are more repulsive than the ones we’ve already heard. Because if you think the allegations against Peters are an outlier, then you’ve never spent any time in a hockey dressing room.
“Emotionally, for me, this hurts,” said Hitchcock. “I’m feeling uncomfortable for everybody: players, coaches, everyone associated with hockey. It’s hard to read these stories and hear what’s being said.
“And I’m on the sidelines.”