Navigation

Medicine Hat Minor Hockey

This was not the plan 20 years ago when he was sharpening a teen-aged Mark Messier's skates in the back room of a sporting goods store in Edmonton, Alberta. ... This was not the plan 10 years ago when success for Kamloops' coach was a victory over the Brandon Wheat Kings after a four-hour bus ride.... This was not the plan at the All-Star break even one year ago when he had coached five NHL games without a victory.

Face it. This idea of coaching in the NHL All-Star Game was never in the plans for Ken Hitchcock. But there he was in San Jose in mid-January nonetheless.

He thought back to his days at United Cycle, the sporting goods store that demanded so many of his hours that he coached midget league only in his spare time. "This is a long way from there," he says. "When you come from my background, you pinch yourself. I mean, I'm getting on the bus with all of these All-Stars, and I'm the one telling the bussie it's time to go.

"After practice, we had all these sales reps in the locker room, and I thought, `Now that probably would have been me.'"

But Hitchcock gave up the sales life for a pay cut in 1984, coaching the Kamloops (British Columbia) Blazers in the Western Hockey League at a starting salary of $21,000. This came after he had fashioned a 575-69 record as a midget coach in his off hours. At Kamloops, he had five first-place finishes in six years and was twice named WHL coach of the year.

Still, he insists he gave few thoughts to making Kamloops a steppingstone to the NHL. "I always worked for a living," he says. "Coaching was recreation, what I did in my off-time. I had no aspirations to get into coaching as a full-time career. I did it as a lark. I phoned Kamloops, and I low-balled them to get the job.

"I loved Kamloops. I only left Kamloops to go to Philadelphia (as an assistant) because a guy (former WHL coach and Flyers G.M. Russ Farwell) asked me. I love coaching in Dallas now. But I just like coaching; I like teaching. I love coaching at the NHL level, but if I had to go back to the `I' (International Hockey League), I'd do it just to keep coaching."

Even in the NHL the most what-have-you-done-for-me-lately business among the four major sports leagues, Hitchcock appears to have some staying power.

The league's All-Star Game served to tell two rations' hockey fans about the coach of an overachieving Dallas team that had the best record in the conference in late December, thus earning Hitchcock the All-Star privilege. This was, indeed, big stuff. After all, Hitchcock follows Tom Landry and Barry Switzer as the only Dallas coaches ever to work an All-Star Game. And Hitchcock ate no hot dogs behind the bench.

"My hot-dog days are over," he says.

Actually, it was those hot-dog days that stunted Hitchcock's growth as a coach even while fueling his growth as a human being. Hitchcock weighed upwards of 450 pounds in his days in Kamloops and still topped 300 pounds behind the Kalamazoo bench three years ago.

"I'm not going to sugarcoat it; of course his weight held him back," says former Kings coach Barry Melrose, now with ESPN. "He didn't fit the image of what the NHL wanted.

"But I knew he was a great coach 10 years ago. I coached against him in the Western Hockey League finals when he was at Kamloops and I was at Medicine Hat. Now, Hitch is the right guy at the right time. The Stars went on and got some key players, (Pat) Verbeek and (Dave) Reid, and he's got that team playing at a very high level."

The fact Hitchcock extended his All-Star losing streak to 10 games, including his years in the midget, junior and minor league ranks, hardly dampened his weekend. How bad could it be when the most valuable player was Mark Recchi, who played for Hitchcock at Kamloops? "This was a long time coming for him," Recchi says "He's a good bench coach, and he's done a good job with Dallas. He's paid his dues. An the hard work he put in is being rewarded."

Regardless of the relative unimportance of the All-Star Game, more hockey fans saw Hitchcock coach a game than ever before. Could this lead to a new level of recognition in Dallas, where he manages to travel almost unnoticed? "I hope not," he says.

Even at Starbucks Coffee, one of his regular haunts, they know better than to call him anything but Hitch. "One guy there called me `Coach' the other day," Hitchcock says, "but I straightened him out."

How much more fame does he really need? Hitchcock recently received a marriage proposal from a female prisoner in Virginia.

"I think it was a form letter, though," he says.

"Really, to me, this (All-Star) experience is more about recognition for our team. I get real tired of tasking about myself. But a couple minutes after they ask about me, they all ask about what makes us such a good team about our work ethic. I like that. That's a big part of why we've been winning and why we're going to win."

Maybe being an All-Star doesn't make him a better coach, but Hitchcock acknowledges he is a better coach than he was a year ago. "Better because there's a stronger belief coming from the players now," he says. "When I first came to Dallas, I had confidence in my ability. But I didn't have confidence in dealing with the players there because l didn't know them."

Now there's confidence with maybe even a hint of security that comes from having established All-Star credentials. Then again maybe Hitchcock, who has one more year beyond this remaining on his contract, doesn't even want that security.

"You think about that a little, but I perform better when I'm scared," he says. "I'm better off when there's a threat of losing, that this could be my last game. And I think our team performs better when there's a threat. There has to be a real disgust with losing."

Hitchcock wants only to win, not All Star exhibitions, but the real thing at hockey's highest level. That's why he skipped the postgame party and was up well before the sun for a 6:15 a.m. flight back to Dallas. Practice was at 2 p.m. Time to get back to business.

"I guess I can take stock in all of this (All-Star) stuff later on," Hitchcock said. "Right now I'm just really proud of my team and the way it's played, which is why I'm here."

It's a team that, under his leadership, is just starting to be appreciated in Dallas and discovered in places far beyond.

COPYRIGHT 1997 Sporting News Publishing Co.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group