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Post by Disgruntled70sHab on May 19, 2020 10:33:46 GMT -5
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Post by CentreHice on May 20, 2020 7:03:08 GMT -5
A scathing article from two days after the firing. Hartford CourantMCGUIRE'S TENURE A BAD SITUATION
Jeff Jacobs; Courant columnist
THE HARTFORD COURANT
With one brush of his newly recovered powers Thursday, general manager Paul Holmgren did more to unify the Whalers than anybody in recent team history.
Holmgren fired coach Pierre McGuire after six months.
It was more than a great idea.
It was justice.
In 15 years of covering the NHL, we had never seen a coach so universally disrespected and disliked within his own organization.
McGuire fancied himself two parts Scotty Bowman and one part Bob Johnson. It turned out to be a superhuman leap of faith on his part.
At 32, McGuire was the youngest head coach in the NHL. He never had been a head coach at any level. And it showed. He is book smart and X's and O's smart, but often not people smart.
When a young man is so headstrong, so emotional, so calculating, such a control freak, so full of ambition and so full of himself, he will either rocket to the top or crash.
Maybe McGuire will rebound. Maybe Quebec will hire him as head coach or Bowman will make him an assistant in Detroit. It is difficult to believe McGuire, who has one year and about $200,000 left on his contract, can remain with the Whalers in any official capacity.
It also is quite evident McGuire's joint Bowman-Johnson modus operandi was in itself problematic. Bowman's instincts are to be cold, calculating, sometimes dictatorial. Johnson was optimistic, shepherding, encouraging. McGuire tried to be simultaneously distant and close to his players. It didn't work.
In a blistering post-mortem, captain Pat Verbeek called McGuire's firing the best thing that could have happened to the Whalers. He said other teams mocked their coach. He said his own teammates had no respect for McGuire. He said a number of players wouldn't have wanted to play in Hartford anymore.
Is Verbeek telling the truth?
It sure looks that way.
Every player and every non-skating member of the Whalers does not have the financial luxury or the courage to speak on the record as Verbeek and Sean Burke have. But in the past six weeks, we spoke to no fewer than 20 people --from all areas of the organization. The support for McGuire was almost nonexistent. It turns out that it wasn't only the players. It was almost everybody. And once owner Richard Gordon was convinced of the facts, McGuire was out.
We said he was headstrong.
McGuire has insisted that if he had pulled a few different strings during the Buffalo nightclub mess -- such as making it clear about a disputed curfew -- there would have been no problems. But Verbeek and Holmgren say the Buffalo affair merely was the cap on a bubbling bottle of discontent.
In a May 3 meeting with Holmgren, it was made clear to McGuire that he must talk to a number of players to clear up obvious problems. But in two weeks, McGuire spoke only to Sean Burke.
We said McGuire was overemotional.
When the hallway curtain opened after a loss in Boston, McGuire was found by the media wildly smashing sticks against the wall. When the door opened after a loss in Pittsburgh, McGuire was seen knocking furniture around the coach's room.
We said he was full of himself.
Many times he privately said after a game how he outcoached the other guy. But it was something never really made public until May 3, when McGuire proclaimed that no coach in the NHL "can outwit me." That quote ran in The Hockey News and raised eyebrows all over the NHL.
His fascination with trying to outwit the other coach may hurt the Whalers in the long run. Instead of playing kids such as Robert Petrovicky or Kevin Smyth long after it was apparent the team was out of the playoff race, McGuire would fastidiously match lines, go with aging veterans and make sure certain faceoff alignments were always followed. Instead of development, he seemed just to want to squeeze out two points.
Once when he was an assistant coach, McGuire bragged about his strategy to shut down Mario Lemieux. This was after a 7-3 loss and four goals by Kevin Stevens.
On the bench, players said McGuire would taunt the other team, saying he couldn't believe the opposing coach was allowing him certain line matchups. This braggadocio led Pittsburgh's Jaromir Jagr to mock McGuire in December. McGuire got Jagr for an illegal stick, and after Jagr jumped out of the penalty box, he scored on a breakaway. Although he had scored big goals in two Stanley Cup championships, Jagr called this overtime goal the biggest of his life because he humbled "that know-it-all."
We said McGuire is calculating and lost the respect of his team.
Consider the Michael Nylander situation. McGuire would throw his arm around the young Swede and tell him he loved him like a son. He told him they would lead the Whalers to great heights. But after a humiliating 9-2 loss in Montreal -- a humiliation that should have shared by 20 players -- McGuire embarrassed Nylander by insisting he be sent to Springfield. Then McGuire told some people, including Gordon, that four or five players were tired of Nylander not playing defense and were prepared to beat him up if he weren't demoted. There's no truth to that, Burke and Verbeek said.
On April 15, it looked as if Holmgren, who had gone to the Betty Ford Center, would be out as GM. There was talk Bowman might be lured to Hartford as some sort of management Svengali for McGuire. But Holmgren staged perhaps the greatest comeback in Whalers history.
Our biggest second-guess of Holmgren now is why he stepped aside and hired McGuire as coach in the first place on Nov. 16.
Our conclusion is that Holmgren did it for self-preservation. Gordon had initially wanted to make McGuire GM when Brian Burke left to work for the NHL. If Holmgren hadn't pushed McGuire, an assistant GM at the time, into the coaching spot, McGuire might be GM and coach today. Holmgren might have been fired by Jan. 1.
Gordon allowed Holmgren to serve justice Thursday. Now, he must learn to stay away from becoming too close to the daily hockey operations and the coach. This is not to say he should shrivel up and leave. The owner should deal with the GM. The owner should worry about the purse strings. But the coach should not be calling the owner every night like McGuire did. It's not healthy for the coach to be telling the owner how he outcoached Ed Johnston or Brian Sutter. It also isn't smart. |
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Post by CentreHice on May 20, 2020 7:38:20 GMT -5
Follow-up...September 4, 1994. McGuire "gets even"? From the Courant
WE'RE WITNESSING ANOTHER CASE OF MCGUIRE AT WORK
THE HARTFORD COURANT
The Whalers enter the 1994-95 season with new ownership, an infusion of money, a mandate to win now and a renewed hope the franchise can gain stability and respectability.
The nightmare that was the 1993- 94 season is over, an inglorious past no doubt everybody would like to forget.
Everybody, it seems, except Pierre McGuire.
Fired as coach of the Whalers in May after a near insurrection by his players, McGuire apparently couldn't take his $200,000 salary, walk away quietly and let his disastrous reign end without fanfare. Whatever his motivation, McGuire got back at his former employer.
The Whalers had signed free agent right wing Steve Rice off Edmonton's roster and the Oilers were seeking defenseman Bryan Marchment as compensation. The Whalers offered forwards Robert Kron and Robert Petrovicky.
Edmonton general manager Glen Sather, known for his savvy and moxie, found the perfect witness.
So there was McGuire in New York last Monday, by Edmonton's invitation, willing to testify on the Oilers' behalf in the arbitration hearing against the Whalers to decide compensation.
McGuire apparently saw no conflict of interest in this despite the fact he is being paid by the Whalers for this season and the fact he has been hired by Northeast Division foe Ottawa as a part-time scout.
One can imagine the Senators would love to see Marchment, the kind of player who could bury Ottawa's talented young forwards into the boards with a body check, out of the division and in an Edmonton uniform. Still, McGuire didn't deem his appearance on Edmonton's behalf inappropriate.
"All I was asked to do -- I was called by Glen Sather -- was just talk about the four players that were involved," McGuire said.
McGuire did more than talk. He showed up with confidential coaches evaluations prepared after last season. The evaluations were used with his testimony.
Arbitrator George Nicolau allowed their use over Whalers protests. According to arbitration rules, Edmonton has a right to access to those reports and can demand they be produced for evidence.
"We did ask them if they had anything and they told us they didn't have anything," Sather said. "Then Pierre showed up in New York with these coaching reports and showed them to our lawyers."
The Whalers claim that, during the turnover of ownership from Richard Gordon to the Compuware group and subsequent transition period, the new management was not made aware of the existence of those evaluations.
Although that explanation might be a little too convenient for some, the Whalers say McGuire may have breached his contract by removing them from the Whalers offices and allowing another team access to that confidential information. If they are right, the Whalers potentially could refuse to pay McGuire for the final year of the contract and possibly recover punitive damages.
Sather was quick to come to McGuire's defense.
"I think the Whalers are crazy trying to stiff this guy," Sather said. "This guy wasn't the turning point in this thing."
Perhaps not. The Whalers are not appealing the ruling and Marchment, who figured heavily in their plans, was expected to arrive in Edmonton this weekend to begin camp.
So Sather got what he wanted in Marchment. And whatever McGuire's goal in participating in the arbitration -- be it vengeance or loyalty to Ottawa or the knowledge a powerful GM such as Sather will owe him a favor -- he got what he wanted, too.
Word has it the Whalers have fielded calls from around the league expressing shock and disbelief at McGuire's actions. Legal or not, it was the kind of act many who worked with McGuire have come to expect.
And McGuire, who managed to lose the respect of most in the Whalers organization in a very short period, has revealed himself to everybody. Only time will tell how much damage he has done to a once promising career.
Now he has landed in Ottawa, where the Senators have established themselves as one of the all- time worst teams in the league at 24- 131-13 in two years in the league, while other expansion franchises have quickly become competitive.
McGuire is a longtime friend of Ottawa GM Randy Sexton going back to their days in college hockey.
With McGuire contractually tied to the Whalers, the Senators needed permission to hire him. The Whalers gave it, though McGuire, as part of his duties, will no doubt be asked to prepare scouting reports of the Whalers for the Senators. This while collecting more than $190,000 from the Whalers and $10,000 Canadian from the Senators. Asked why the Whalers would allow McGuire to do that, one insider said they are "not concerned about his scouting reports and opinions."
Meanwhile, Sexton announced last week the Senators' goals for the season are to slash 100 goals from their league-worst total of 397 against, play .500 hockey at home and challenge for a playoff berth. The Senators, 8-30-4 at home last season, finished 47 points out of a playoff berth.
With such expectations, Sexton has set up coach Rick Bowness for a fall -- already there is speculation he won't last until Christmas. And guess who will have angled himself brilliantly to take over?
Lemieux: other reasons?
Fatigue was cited as the reason Mario Lemieux, the best player in the NHL, will not play the 1994-95 seasonso he can rest.
Frustration might be part of it, though. Some say Lemieux is fed up with the hooking and holding often allowed by officials.
"It's unbelievable the amount of stuff he has to put up with on the ice because he's so talented," teammate Ron Francis said. "It's ludicrous the league allows the stars to be treated in that sense. You look at the guys who didn't play last year because of injuries like Lemieux, [Pat] LaFontaine, [Steve] Yzerman. Those are the stars of the game.
"If the things that happen to our players happened to [Michael] Jordan or Shaquille O'Neal, or any of the guys in basketball, the NBA I'm sure would step in and do stuff. Hockey, for some reason, doesn't do that. You have to protect the future of the sport."
No doubt the loss of Lemieux for at least a season won't help a league eager to build on the interest generated from the playoffs last season, when the Rangers won the Cup.
"It hurts the visibility of the league," Whalers GM Jim Rutherford said. "When we have those nationally televised games, when the Pittsburgh Penguins come into diferent cities, a lot of people want to see Mario Lemieux play."
The Penguins hope John Cullen can take up some of the scoring. Cullen was signed after being released by Toronto. In Pittsburgh, he is reunited with Ed Johnston, the Penguins coach. When Johnston was general manager of the Whalers, he traded Francis, Ulf Samuelsson and Grant Jennings to Pittsburgh for Cullen, Zarley Zalapski and Jeff Parker.
Asked if it were strange to have Cullen as a teammate, Francis said, "It was nothing between John Cullen and myself. I got to meet John a few times and we talked about the trade, talked about Hartford, talked about Pittsburgh. Hopefully he can stay healthy for us and pick up some of the slack with Mario out."
A lockout ahead?
The NHL has put off a lockout of its players until Oct. 1, the start of the season. If a collective bargaining agreement isn't complete by then, the season apparently will not start.
According to many reports, the original plan was to lock out players at the start of camp this weekend. The NHL couldn't do that in all 26 cities, though.
Labor laws in Alberta and Ontario require cooling off periods before such a lockout can take place. Had commissioner Gary Bettman decided to begin the lockout at the start of camp, Edmonton, Calgary, Toronto and Ottawa would have been legally required to open camps anyway.
For now, those laws won't allow the league to impose its 16 cutbacks in benefits from the previous collective bargaining agreement against those teams. So players in those cities will continue to have all the benefits under the old CBA, including paid travel to camp and meal allowances, as well as paid life, health and pension plans.
By Sept. 16, when the cooling off periods are over in both provinces of Canada, the league will be able to impose those cutbacks and lock out the players.
It remains to be seen if an Oct. 1 lockout date will motivate both sides to get a deal done. But with talk the baseball season could be finished because of a players strike, and fans seemingly fed up to the point of disinterest, Bettman and NHL players association executive director Bob Goodenow better realize they can't let the same thing happen in hockey. If those two have to sit locked in the same room for a month, so be it. . . . Whalers defensive prospect Marek Malik, who first said he would not attend camp because the league take-backs forbid teams from paying players travel allowances,is expected in town tonight, when the Whalers hold their first formal meeting. |
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Post by folatre on May 20, 2020 10:46:14 GMT -5
It is not really my intention to defend McGuire because he is not really santo de mi devoción, though it seems likely that being quite young and not a former NHL player made him overcompensate so to speak. In other words, McGuire probably wanted to show that he was not a push-over and that he was more knowledgeable about the game.
I am not saying that his personality and man management skills were not part of the problem, but being young and trying too hard to prove that he belonged could have had something to do with the way things worked out.
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Post by CentreHice on May 20, 2020 18:28:30 GMT -5
McGuire and Bowman were very close, as reported in this Dan Marrazza piece in The Hockey News. From the article: It’s also worth noting that Bowman not only hired McGuire, they actually lived together in a three bedroom apartment in the shadow of the old Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. It was there that the two men – McGuire then in his 30s, Bowman his 60s – spent almost every waking moment together, sharing meals and watching hockey until all hours of the night, with Bowman relying on his expert knowledge of satellite angles and local sports bars to locate every game in the league, in an era before the Internet and NHL Center Ice.
With McGuire at Bowman’s side, the Penguins won the Stanley Cup in 1991-92. After all these years, based on hundreds of conversations and thousands of hours picking each other’s brains, if Bowman still says McGuire should be in a front office, doesn’t it at least make it worth considering? After all, there might not be a man in the sport that Bowman knows better.McGuire went to Hartford the very next season...a lateral move--as assistant coach to Paul Holmgren. If he was so valuable, why didn't Bowman hang on to him for another Cup run with that superstar team? Perhaps Scotty told Pierre there was more opportunity with the Whalers' organization. Or...maybe some of the Pens' players had already started complaining--see the Jaromir Jagr anecdote in this thread's first article--and Bowman didn't stand in McGuire's way, so to speak. I looked up the Jagr story's box score and found the OT goal on YouTube. Dec. 4, 1993. Whalers and Penguins were tied at 6 in Hartford. The Whalers had roared back from a 3-6 third period deficit. McGuire nabbed Jagr for an illegal stick with 5 seconds left in the third. Smart move, but Hartford didn't score on the PP. Jagr jumped out of the box and scored 9 seconds later. According to the article: Although he had scored big goals in two Stanley Cup championships, Jagr called this overtime goal the biggest of his life because he humbled "that know-it-all." McGuire's act certainly wore thin quickly in Hartford. |
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Post by GNick99 on May 21, 2020 6:32:34 GMT -5
McGuire not one of my favorite personalities. I usually turn 690 off when he comes on. His ideas generally end up wrong. Hope he is never Habs GM
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Post by The Habitual Fan on May 21, 2020 7:47:27 GMT -5
I agree. McGuire is a good pitch man for the US television markets because he has lots of energy but keep him away from any team management, especially in Montreal.
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Post by CentreHice on May 21, 2020 11:22:29 GMT -5
I agree. McGuire is a good pitch man for the US television markets because he has lots of energy but keep him away from any team management, especially in Montreal. Agreed. McGuire's hockey knowledge and gift of gab is best utilized as a color analyst. Some of his player interviews, however...  |
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Post by Scotty D on Jul 20, 2020 14:48:42 GMT -5
McGuire not one of my favorite personalities. I usually turn 690 off when he comes on. His ideas generally end up wrong. Hope he is never Habs GM That right there might be the final straw breaking this camels back. If he ends up GM in Montreal it could push me over the edge completely, I'll have to move to Columbus and cheer for the jackets with my Nephew. |
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Post by GNick99 on Aug 1, 2020 6:07:47 GMT -5
McGuire not one of my favorite personalities. I usually turn 690 off when he comes on. His ideas generally end up wrong. Hope he is never Habs GM That right there might be the final straw breaking this camels back. If he ends up GM in Montreal it could push me over the edge completely, I'll have to move to Columbus and cheer for the jackets with my Nephew. I can't see McGuire ever being GM. Many other candidates better suited for the job |
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