Broad Street Bully? Tortorella insists he's tamed in Philly
PHILADELPHIA » John Tortorella coaches the kind of Philadelphia Flyers team that can drive their fans to drink.
Maybe the players, too. Feisty enough to try and fight his way into a visiting team's locker room, Tortorella is poised enough to send his team a mission statement not through a heated diatribe, but with a handwritten letter.
Tortorella also builds team chemistry the old-fashioned way — especially when that team is projected to be among the worst in the NHL — by urging his players to go out and have a good time. It's one reason why Tortorella hates traveling the night after a game to the next city. Tortorella wants to trade a silent bus ride or flight full of players with their heads buried in mobile devices for a team willing to spend a night out on the town out for a team meal, perhaps even a bit of carousing.
“Maybe have a few beers together,” Tortorella said “Maybe even have a few too many beers. I think you should go out together and maybe even get into a little bit of innocent trouble. Not bad trouble, innocent trouble along the way. I think that's good for the camaraderie of the team.”
The Flyers, who last won a Stanley Cup in 1975, will try about anything to raise the bar for a franchise that once bullied its way into the heart of the Philly sports scene and now sits in irrelevancy.
They turned to the 64-year-old Tortorella, hoping his demanding, no-nonsense coaching style can lift the Flyers out of the NHL abyss and into, well, what exactly? The playoffs? Tortorella is sensible enough to soften expectations for a team without a true star, a true bona fide prospect on the roster and without a solid reason for hope.
But as Tortorella, who inherited a team that won just 25 games last season, scans the city landscape and sees the Phillies in the playoffs, the Eagles are undefeated the Union hailed as one of the top teams in MLS and the 76ers with championship aspirations — and all playing in front of rowdy, packed houses — their successes make him only more determined to add his team to the collection of winners.
“I don't want to slide under the radar. I want us to fill the building,” said Tortorella, whose team is shockingly off to a 2-0 start. “I want us to get to where the other teams are in this city . ... That's what excites me about having the opportunity.”
Some $16 million in salary over the next four seasons is a sweet incentive to return to the bench. But Tortorella could have coasted into retirement or continued to enjoy his broadcasting gig. His resume was about as good as it gets in the NHL: a Stanley Cup winner with Tampa Bay in 2004; a conference final in 2012 with the Rangers; the master motivator who lifted the Columbus Blue Jackets from perennial losers before he was hired into four straight seasons in the playoffs.
“(The players) all super excited to have Torts,” said Flyers forward Cam Atkinson, who played for Tortorella in Columbus. “At the same time, nervous because they know what to expect out of him. I keep telling them he's a guy that's going to change the whole dynamic of this organization, just like he did for Columbus.”
The warts dot Tortorella's resume, too, and he doesn't dodge his reputation. He's lost his cool with fans. He confronts the media. He pushes his players — from fourth liners to high-priced stars — to their breaking points, sometimes to the point of broken relationships.
Tortorella survived. And thrived. Torts won. He wore out his welcome. He comes back for more.
Tortorella, 673-541-37-132 over almost 20 seasons, feels he has changed.
“I think where I'm trying to evolve is, I think with today's athlete, you need to let (players) speak,” Tortorella said. “You need to let them have a piece of it, also, in how we're going about it. I think that's so important now as a coach, it's communication with them and allowing them to have a stand also, to speak with you. That's where I think I've made a big change.”
Tortorella still communicates with four-letter words and, let's call it a spirit, responsible for the YouTube video, “6 minutes of John Tortorella Angry Moments.” But he put pen to paper for a note on what it takes to be pro in the NHL that was sealed in an envelope and delivered to each Flyer's mailbox.
“We believe John Tortorella is going to help bring a harder-to-play-against mentality for our group,” GM Chuck Fletcher said.