Whats the biggest difference between coaching those kids and the Columbus Blue Jackets?
Well, when I was coaching midget, I was maybe four or five years older than the players. So there was this emotional connection — I’d be going through the same thing they were every day, up and down. I really felt a part of it, emotionally. Now, with this team today, it’s also a very young team, and it sometimes feels like I’m coaching in midget or junior hockey again, but I can stand back and say, “This is where they’re at, and this is where I need them to go.” Also, when I coached in midget, the only team that I could follow closely was the Edmonton Oilers, and so everything we did was to play their way. It was during their heyday and the whole game was based on offence, full-court pressure, pinching your defencemen all the time. And that’s the way I coached right up until ’96. What happened in ’96? I went to Dallas as head coach and we didn’t have the foot speed to play the way I was used to playing. I tried to put in my system and we got killed some games. I mean, we just got kill
