David Pastrnak’s benching recalls an earlier event that didn’t sit well with Cam Neely, and other thoughts - The Boston Globe
Superstars usually don't get benched in other sports. It’s a hockey thing. And it’s usually not a big deal. Except for once around here when it was.
www.bostonglobe.com
Picked-up pieces while calmly reciting Lou Gorman’s mantra: “The sun will rise, the sun will set, and I’ll have lunch” …
▪ Bruins coach Jim Montgomery benched his best player, David Pastrnak, for the third period of a win over the Kraken at the Garden last weekend.
And it was no big deal. After taking responsibility for a bad turnover in the game, Pasta said, “I don’t want to be any distraction to our team,” then two days later led all Bruins forwards with 22:18 of ice time in Toronto.
I don’t remember Manny Ramirez, Tom Brady, or Larry Bird getting benched very often. It’s a hockey thing. And it’s usually not a big deal.
Except for once around here when it was.
In January of 1996, 34-year-old rookie Bruins coach Steve Kasper sat Cam Neely and Kevin Stevens for a game in Toronto that ended in a 4-4 tie. Neely, a nine-year Bruins veteran and alternate captain who was playing in the final year of his career, did not take it well, and neither did Bruins fans.
“That was a pretty bush league way about going to do something,” the 30-year-old Neely said after the benching. “If I have to use that to motivate the way I play, then I’m no better than him.”
It was super awkward. Neely had been Kasper’s Bruin teammate for three seasons (along with defenseman Don Sweeney in 1988-89) before Kasper became coach.
It made me wonder about the chain of command when a hockey superstar is sanctioned. Does a coach have to run it by the bosses upstairs?
“A coach gets to make those decisions,” said Harry Sinden, who coached the likes of Bobby Orr, Phil Esposito, and Derek Sanderson. “But when I was coaching, I didn’t do much of that. I usually weathered the storm when it came to star players, no matter how they were playing.”
After his stint behind the bench, Sinden ultimately became president of the Bruins for decades. He remembers when young Coach Kasper decided to send Neely and Stevens a message in Toronto.
“Kasper checked with me, and I told him he could do it if he wanted to do it,” said Sinden. “I would lose my coach if I denied him that.”
All these years later, Neely is now Bruins team president. I reached out to him to discuss his long-ago benching and he politely declined, noting that his benching and Pastrnak’s were far different situations.
Neely conveyed that Montgomery is empowered to make in-game decisions regarding playing time for superstars. So there was no need for Monty to check upstairs when Pastrnak was benched.
Kasper was fired one year after benching Neely when he failed to get the Bruins into the 1997 playoffs. He never got a second chance to be a head coach in the NHL. A hockey lifer, he has worked as a scout for the Maple Leafs (becoming director of pro scouting) and coached all over the world, including stints in China, Russia, Germany, Hungary, and (at present) Slovakia.
He even spent time delivering mail in Andover.
“I saw him during the pandemic,” remembers WBZ’s Dan Roche, who lives in Andover. “I was taking the dog out one day and noticed that the mailman was at my house, but I wasn’t really paying attention. Then I heard a familiar voice say, ‘Hey, Dan.’ It was Steve Kasper, delivering my mail!
“Great guy. I think he’d just finished coaching in China, he’d been walking a lot, got bored, and saw the help wanted sign at the post office. He seemed happy.”
