NHL Hockey: Yotes staying in the Arizona

NHL officially announces sale of the #Coyotes.
— Sarah McLellan (@azc_mclellan) August 5, 2013

Looks like the NHL's Coyotes are going to stay in Phoenix, Arizona. With the approval of the NHL board of Governors, this saga is over. There has been some question over the last few years. Finally, there is an actual deal... Here's the official press release for the sale.

It's official. #Coyotes sale has closed with NHL Board of Governors approval.
— Craig Morgan (@cmorganfoxaz) August 5, 2013

Related articles

• Phoenix Coyotes sale approved, deal finally complete (cbssports.com)

And another NHL Coach bites the Dust... with a pondering (RW77)

New York Rangers logo (used 1935–48) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ok, this is just a musing type post so I'll put it down and see what develops in the comment section.

Today marked the end of Tortorella's coaching tenure with the New York Rangers.  It was marked with ups (like his record 171-144 in the regular season) and downs (holy crap bad offense and terrible power play).  He was a tough cookie both on his players and to the media.

I am no fan of the Rangers.  But I got to thinking:  What makes a good pro head coach?

A few months ago I was listening to a Vikings postgame show where they lost and callers were ranting on how the Vikings needed a coach who was "in your face" and "showed more emotion on the sidelines."  Here in Nebraska, after every Husker game, fans (and detractors alike) rant on how Head Coach Bo Pelini is a hot head and needs to butt out of his players' and media's faces (aside for the typical if the Huskers win, Bo rules.  If they lose, fire his backside).  Here's the same issue.  You have previous head coach Renney barely at .500 over his tenure (something like 164-163 as a head coach) and he's drummed out.  To me, he seemed like a tacit kind of coach.  And here's the abrasive Tortorella getting shown the door after being the exact opposite and finishing with a better overall record.

I'm not going to debate whether or not the dismissal was the right or wrong answer.  Like I said, I don't give a rip about the Rangers.  But I do wonder what makes a good coach a good coach?

Nowadays, more and more players (especially in basketball and football) are immature, hot-headed egotists that cannot handle criticism and tough love.  But when they are listened to by owners and GMs, giving the player a "player friendly" coach, it doesn't always mean positive results either.  So what makes a great head coach?

I want to be careful about this not turning into a Hakstol Hate Festival (like every time Brad says his name in an article on his own blog's comment section), so I'm not really interested in college-centric thought.  I do believe that a college head coach and a pro head coach are very different.

So I'm curious what are the intangibles of a great coach, in your eyes?  How do you judge a coach's effectiveness?  Which coach (of any sport) do you think more coaches should model themselves after?

I have a lot of favorite coaches, but my opinion is you can never go wrong with Scotty Bowman.  His attitude and the way he coached was simply top notch.

Thoughts?

P.S.  Dave Tippett is rumored to be among the coaches the Rangers are considering.  I bet, however, they go with Alain Vignault if they don't go with Mark Messier. (others mentioned are Lindy Ruff and Paul Maurice)

NHL looks at Obstruction

I am sure that my buddy Redwing77 will give his spin later on this subject.

According to NHL.COM, the NHL is having a two day summit to discuss the NHL current standard of rule enforcement.

Translation, the National Hockey League is looking into whether there too much obstruction in the NHL right now, especially after they had players sounding off on the leagues officials during the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The following people listed in the Paragraph below are part of the discussion.

If you need refreshing here are some examples about players being upset with the reffing during last season's NHL playoffs... [example one] and [exmaple two]

While they’re at it, I would like them to look at the diving and flailing about on the ice that some like to use to draw penalties.

Tim Campbell, Winnipeg Free Press --- Players present for the meeting were Mike Cammalleri of the Calgary Flames, Jason Spezza of the Ottawa Senators, Steven Stamkos of the Tampa Bay Lightning, John-Michael Liles of the Toronto Maple Leafs, James Neal of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Kevin Bieksa of the Vancouver Canucks.

The coaching roster included five NHL bench bosses -- Chicago's Joel Quenneville, Nashville's Barry Trotz, Phoenix's Dave Tippett, Boston's Claude Julien and Washington's Adam Oates -- as well as three active referees, Stephen Walkom, Brad Watson and Wes McCauley.

Also attending were five NHL GM's -- Pittsburgh's Ray Shero, Tampa Bay's Steve Yzerman, Buffalo's Darcy Regier, New Jersey's Lou Lamoriello and Vancouver's Mike Gillis.

After reading some of the tweets that Paul from Kuklas Korner posted on line it appears that the NHL is going to tighten up the calls if the NHL ever plays a game this season.

#NHL met today to discuss rules, namely obstruction. Looks like they’re going to tighten things up a bit for next season. — George Popalis (@SNGeorgePopalis) August 22, 2012

For fans that want to watch a more wide open game I think that this is really good news – I don’t know anyone that wants to watch the players hanging all over each other like groupies at a hockey party.

I also think that if the league cracks down on the obstruction they also need to crack down on the poor sports that like to embellish to draw penalties – you know the frauds like Ryan Kesslers (video evidence) and Alex Burrows (video evidence) that skate up and down the ice flailing around and snapping their heads back.

Lastly, It will be interesting to see if anything actually comes out of this or will they call it tight for a few months and go back to the horrible job of officiating we saw last spring during the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Hump day Links

The summer is really winding down… If my math is correct there are roughly 45 days until UND plays it’s first exhibition game on October 6th, 2012. There are also roughly 23 left for the NHL and the NHLPA to come to an agreement on the CBA without delaying the start of the NHL preseason. If there is no agreement between the NHL owners and the NHL, the league will go from being the National Hockey League to the No Hockey League.

From the Penn State front : Lawyers for Graham Spanier, former Penn State president ousted after Jerry Sandusky scandal, plan to rebut Freeh report

Former KFAN PA and Dubay host Jeff Dubay has resurfaced on the radio this past week. Jeff was on KTWINS for the last two days. [Pioneer Press]

Former Fighting Sioux and two-time all-Western Collegiate Hockey Association goaltender Brad Eidsness has decided to fore go the professional hockey route and go to law school in British Columbia. Here are two articles on this story ‘He’s not your typical kid’ and Eidsness Exercises His Option

The NHL is looking at obstruction – I think this is a bit over-due, especially, after watching all of the obstruction, hooking and holding that has been allowed during the past two NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs. There seems to be two different standards – there seems to be stricter standard during the regular season and then a more relaxed standard for the playoffs.

THE CANADIAN PRESS --- There should be a healthy exchange of ideas with five general managers (Darcy Regier, Lou Lamoriello, Ray Shero, Steve Yzerman, Mike Gillis) and four head coaches (Joel Quenneville, Barry Trotz, Dave Tippett, Adam Oates) in a room with players, referees and members of the league's hockey operations department.

Campbell labelled it a "think-tank for hockey."

The idea came out of the GM meetings in March, when a number of managers expressed frustration with what they believed to be a slip in standard for the way penalties were called. Campbell invited them to submit video of specific incidents, which will be looked at this week.

"Personally, I don't think the hooking and holding has slipped," said Campbell. "I think we have to find out what we want with intereference on the forechecking and interference off the faceoff."

The league's former disciplinarian thinks the discussion might branch off to other rules like slashing.

"Anything that stops a player from scoring," he said.

This will be the first exercise of its kind since the NHL held a major crackdown on obstruction coming out of the 2004-05 lockout. However, Campbell doesn't expect it to have nearly the same impact on the sport in terms of the number of penalties called.

I know this about 12 days old, but according to Shooter from the Pioneer Press, former North Stars radio voice Doug McLeod is a strong candidate for the Gophers men's hockey play-by-play TV job on FSN. I personally, would like to see Kevin Gorg from FSN fill that role.

Former Wisconsin Badgers and current Minnesota Wild forward Dany Heatley has sued his former agent for $11 million dollars. [TSN.CA]

Here is some interesting news. Current ECAC Hockey Director of Officiating and former National Hockey League (NHL) referee Paul Stewart is going to join the Russian Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) as a consultant, where he will be an advisor to KHL president Alexander Medvedev on judicial matters. According to Ken Schott he will also continue working for the ECAC.

Chris Peters from the United States of Hockey, has a good story on Georges Laraque and “it appears” that he is going to be the new head of the CHLPA. [United States of Hockey]