One of the more entertaining characters on the popular Canadian sitcom “Letterkenny” is played by actor and comedian Mark Forward and goes simply by the name “Coach,” a hot-tempered hockey coach in the fictional Ontario town.
Coach is known for his profane between-periods assessment of his players, his odd tangents into topics like Oreo cookie flavors, derisively referring to his team as “pheasants” or “dusters,” and his detailed diagrams of the correct way to kick the locker room’s garbage can to punctuate his tirades.
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Among the thousands of men and women who coach this game across the U.S. and Canada, there are surely a few who have taken the Letterkenny coach’s style to heart, but in the high-stakes world of the NHL, the even keel favored by Minnesota Wild coach John Hynes is more traditional.
Minnesota Gophers coach Bob Motzko likes to say that in college hockey, you get three kicks of the garbage can per season. Any more than that and you’re apt to get tuned out by your players.
At the NHL level, you don’t get three.
“I haven’t done that yet,” Hynes said after a recent Wild practice. “I have, but not to this group.”
While he is generally the one defending his team’s on-ice work, when Hynes is displeased with the Wild’s effort, he will say so plainly. On Saturday, following a 5-4 home loss to Calgary which dropped the Wild below .500 at Xcel Energy Center, Hynes had perhaps his most critical assessment of his club this season, talking about their propensity to play on the perimeter and not in the “dirty areas” where goals are scored.
And he did it without raising his voice.
“When I say we play perimeter on offense, your work ethic isn’t hard enough,” Hynes said. “Right now the last two games we don’t wanna fight for inside ice. We wanna extra pass, we don’t wanna trigger, we don’t wanna re-hunt rebounds, we don’t wanna get to the net front.
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“So. it’s always tough when you say their ‘work ethic.’ We work. It’s not like we didn’t show up, and the guys don’t want to try to play to win. But then there’s a specific level of competitiveness and work ethic you need to have, whether that’s at your own net front (or) at the offensive net front. So, we’ve got to get that back.”
That the Wild did get that back, and returned to the winning track one night later in Chicago, is a testament to Hynes’ even-keeled style. Among previous Wild coaches, a calm demeanor has generally been the rule, although Mike Yeo had a much-publicized on-ice meltdown during a practice late in his run in Minnesota (he was fired on Feb. 13, 2016, after the Wild lost 13 of their final 14 games under Yeo).
Before coming to Minnesota, Bruce Boudreau was shown using some intense adult language with his Washington Capitals teams on an all-access HBO show in the run-up to the 2011 NHL Winter Classic.
Bob Gainey, the final Minnesota North Stars coach prior to their relocation to Dallas in 1993, would rarely raise his voice above a whisper, even when speaking to reporters. And he led Minnesota’s first NHL team on the state’s most recent run to the Stanley Cup Final in 1991.
Current Philadelphia Flyers coach John Tortorella is known for his fiery style on the bench, in the locker room and with the media. The fact that he is on his fifth NHL team may be evidence that the antics get tuned out by professional players after a time — although Tortorella does have the 2004 Stanley Cup title he won with the Tampa Bay Lightning on his resume.
So, if you’re entertained by coaches who yell and scream and kick the garbage can, Hynes is definitely not your guy. But every episode of “Letterkenny” is available if you have the right streaming platform.
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