Makes sense. I’m just telling you what I heard from a close source.While these anecdotes point towards a woeful lack of teaching skills, I think the concept that Gretzky couldn't comprehend his players' limitations is somewhat overblown. I'm sure he could figure out that he wasn't coaching a roster full of 200-point players
But I have said before that the NHL coaching doesn't seem to be very professional. To become a coach in European football, even superstars need to obtain a license, and a Pro license requires coaching experience in minor leagues. Even Zidane worked for Real Madrid for several years as the team's sporting director before becoming an assistant to a great manager Ancelotti, then coaching their minor team and eventually becoming the big team coach. Gretzky just stepped into the head coach role right away with no training (and, I suspect, having experienced little coaching as a player).
I think there's more to it. Tampa's players doesn't seem to be bothered that Cooper wasn't even a pro player.
Maybe the reason for star players rarely becoming great coaches isn't the matter of them not being able to do so, but rather not having a need or desire to be a great coach. Stars are wealthy, successful and have a great reputation. Why would they keep making sacrifices for a new career that is stressful and very likely to tarnish their image?
Gretzky as the Coyotes' Coach 2005-2009
- Thread starter The Panther
- Start date
When he came back as an assistant in 2001-02 that was super weird. But you’re right, maybe that was just a better role for Big Bird.
- Nov 24, 2006
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bleedgreen
Registered User
Coaches can’t really make a roster better than what it is other than employing a system. They weren’t a very good team in my memory. I never felt like it had anything to do with Gretzky.
A good coach can take a roster and at least make the sum greater than its parts. Look what happened when Dave Tippett came.
Gretzky did the opposite.
Bubbles
Die Hard for Bedard 2023
I remember the Sjostrom fiasco. Andy Murray would have called it in-game had Freddy scored, but the Kings staff tipped off the refs. Would have gone viral had it happened now.
mouser
Business of Hockey
Gretzky was a lot more than just a head coach. He was hired as Managing Partner of the Coyotes and also in charge of Hockey Operations. Further, Gretzky hired his former agent Mike Barnett to be the team GM with no prior experience in a role like that.
Dingo
Registered User
- Jul 13, 2018
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brind'amour and St. louis are both great examples of guys who experienced every role. Who had to fight their way to the top. Star players, for sure, but the gritty kind, who flew under radars for a long time.
Roy pulls his goalie in the wrong end, shorthanded, lol.
Larry Robinson was a great coach and player, as has been brought up, and the closest to 'superstar' status of the ones mentioned. I would still argue that he is of the grit, toughness, determination side of the superstar coin, though.
This is the real answer. The ones who had the skills to transcend the game are never going to know as much, in terms of deep knowledge and attention to detail, as the guys who were just barely hanging on and fighting for their career with every shift.
You see it in every sport. The superstars do not turn in to superstar coaches. It’s the washouts or the pluggers who end up in the HOF for their coaching abilities. The ones who were FORCED to learn every nook and cranny of advantage in order to survive. To see it from above as a game of chess instead of enforcing their physical will on others, exploiting their natural talent or advantage.
Arguably there is also the charisma element, which is also unrelated to being a superstar talent, but I think that’s tremendously horrendously overrated. You need the respect of your locker room, but that ultimately does NOT come from rah-rah speeches like a lot of people think. Speeches get old REAL fast no matter how good when you’re losing. Respect comes from winning and winning alone. And for that, you need someone who was forced by necessity of circumstances to study every angle of the game.
Not just strong, Toe Blake is a very reasonable candidate for the GOAT coach, along with Arbour and Shero.
This idea that great players cant coach in hockey doesnt hold water for me, pre-expansion coaching is actually littered with significant playing stars like Blake, Hap Day, Jack Adams, Joe Primeau, Dick Irvin, Frank Boucher, and Art Ross becoming some the most successful coaches of the era. Its almost weirder to find a major coach 1930-1960 that wasnt a star player before becoming a coach.
Milt Schmidt was a superstar as a player with the Bruins and as a coach is commonly credited with creating the Espo line and defining the new style of the Big Bad Bruins. Sinden coached the 70s cup champions, but most of the groundwork came from Schmidt.
Even King Clancy was wildly successful in his brief period behind the bench for the 1967 leafs while Imlach was in the hospital after his january heart attack. Imlach simply rolled with his lines combinations for the rest of the year into the playoffs.
IMO the 'cant teach greatness' excuse is a lazy argument, the real reason why superstars coaching now is so rare is because the money and the lifestyle is too little and too harsh for a multimillionaire to bother with in the modern era.
The one detail everybody seems to gloss over with the "why didnt you hit the trailer?" story, is that it wasnt like Gretzky was pulling aside Laracque or Sean O'Donnell to have that conversation, it was Olli Jokinen, a totally reasonable player to grill over making a hockey sense related mistake and not taking the game to a higher level. They might not be capable of making plays on that level, but Olli should have been.While these anecdotes point towards a woeful lack of teaching skills, I think the concept that Gretzky couldn't comprehend his players' limitations is somewhat overblown. I'm sure he could figure out that he wasn't coaching a roster full of 200-point players
Id feel very confident saying that wasnt the only time a coach had a conversation like that with Jokinen.
RickyLafleur
Fall of Pierre
Voight
#winning
In what way? RBA was a first round draft pick and then had a big role his rookie year in St Louis at age 19.
The Panther
Registered User
I started a thread on this topic four or five years ago, as I knew basically nothing about it:
Gretzky as the Coyotes' Coach 2005-2009
Gretzky as the Coyotes' Coach 2005-2009
MadLuke
Registered User
- Jan 18, 2011
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Patrick Roy reached superstar status or really close to.
1994 season highest paid
Eric Lindros (Philadelphia Flyers) US$3.35 million (equivalent to $7.1 million in 2024)Steve Yzerman (Detroit Red Wings) $3.2 million ($6.8 million in 2024)
(tie) Mario Lemieux (Pittsburgh Penguins) $3 million ($6.4 million in 2024)
(tie) Wayne Gretzky (Los Angeles Kings) $3 million ($6.4 million in 2024)
Patrick Roy (Montreal Canadiens) $2.659 million ($5.6 million in 2024)
Roy Signs a $16-Million Deal With Canadiens
Goaltender Patrick Roy, who led the Montreal Canadiens to the Stanley Cup last June, signed a four-year contract worth $16 million Monday to become one of the NHL's highest-paid players.
www.latimes.com
When he signed (Gretzky was about to sign a new one) he was the third highest paid NHLer:
The contract makes Roy the third-highest paid player in the league behind Mario Lemieux of the Pittsburgh Penguins and Eric Lindros of the Philadelphia Flyers.
