With the Canucks having officially announced new Canucks Head Coach John Tortorella; the gaze now looks towards firstly the draft, where the Canuck pick 24th. There is still a hue and an outcry from the anti-Torts crowd which was roundly denounced by the informative and genial presser that went on at 1PM this afternoon.
There appears to be a concensus among the anti-Torts crowd that John Tortorella is unable to be flexible, throws his players under the bus and is generally a miserable SOB to be around. The John Tortorella at the press conference couldn't be farther from this portrayal as the Earth is from the Sun. Make no mistake, Torts is a competitor. He will expect 100% from his players. He demands accountability. He will not allow slackers to play. He will bench fan favorites who under-perform and in this market, that will piss off thin-skinned fans like nobody's business. Did he throw his players under the bus during his tenure with the New York Rangers? If they weren't playing up to his high standards, he would call them out. If calling out an underperforming player is what's called "throwing them under the bus" it's no wonder that Torts did not succeed there. Not even Scotty Bowman would have been able to make anything out of that team with that kind of expectation put on them.
With Alain Vigneault's "hands-off" approach, the locker-room had no direction. Player accountability was zero. And when players were confused and looked for direction, the coach was nowhere to be found. Add to that, Coach V was an expert at deflecting the tough questions that really needed to be asked. Most oft-times, his answer was a smug grin and a shrug of the shoulders when he should have answered the question posed. A lot of the Vancouver media is not used to honest opinion nor will they like the fact that Torts is brutally honest. He does not like losing; he even says so "I hate losing. Really, I hate it. If you're a good loser, you're a loser."
The naysayers will spout off, "Well; Alain took us to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final." My answer is: "Where we lost..." Lost by how much? We didn't even score in that game. So what, Pat Quinn took us to Game 7 and didn't get blown out. It was a 3-2 game. The game was so close it could have gone either way in 1994. If Nathan Lafayette had scored it would have been a tied game going to overtime. He was called on the carpet by thin skinned fans in 1994 for breaking a stick during practice because the players weren't performing up to expectation.
Make no mistake. John Tortorella will give you soundbites galore this season, but that is if Vancouver's renowned media keeps asking him stupid questions. When the questions are intelligent and thought out, Torts will give an intelligent and thought out answer. Today's coaching announcement presser was exactly that.
Coach Torts will expect players to play to a higher level than they've ever played before. The reason being is that he has been at that higher level. He knows what it takes to coach at a Stanley Cup Championship winning game level. He is seeking to provide that experience and the coaching ability to enable our players to play to their very best. And it is best that the media remember that at the back of their minds as we go into the 2013-2014 season and remind themselves that they best do not throw John Tortorella under the bus as they have done to so many other fiery coaches who have taken the rein and tried to bring some of their knowledge to the forefront: Crow being a prime example. It is time for the Canucks to turn the corner and develop into Stanley Cup Champions.
And I do have to say that Torts looks better in that Canucks exercise jacket than he did in Rangers blue. Welcome to Vancouver, Torts. I hope you bring a Stanley Cup to this city. 43 years has been a long time to wait.
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