John Tortorella will coach USA World Cup of Hockey team: Report
John Totorella, last seen collecting a robust salary after coaching the Vancouver Canucks for a single season, will coach the U.S. 2016 World Cup of Hockey team, according to Frank Seravalli of TSN. The formal announcement is scheduled for Monday night on ESPN, following Monday Night Football.
Well, if nothing else, Team USA press conferences just got a whole lot more contentious and a whole lot less time-consuming ...
Please recall that Tortorella, a Boston native, was the presumed front-runner to coach the U.S. Olympic team in Sochi before Dan Bylsma got the gig. Torts was an assistant coach to Ron Wilson in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, and coached the U.S. men’s national team to a sixth-place finish in the 2008 IIHF World Championship.
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Tortorella has a career record of 446-375-78, with 37 ties, in coaching stints with the Tampa Bay Lightning, New York Rangers and Vancouver Canucks. He won the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year in 2004 as well as the Stanley Cup with the Lightning. His teams made the postseason in eight of the last 11 seasons.
He’s the winningest American-born NHL coach with 446 victories, although he’ll be passed by Peter Laviolette (436) this season unless the Nashville Predators go 9-73-0 or something.
Laviolette seemed like the smart money choice to coach this World Cup team, along with Bylsma and maybe Todd Richards of the Columbus Blue Jackets. Instead, it’s Tortorella, which tells you either that (a) other coaches didn’t want the gig or (b) USA Hockey and GM Dean Lombardi made the choice to go with a coach that didn’t have a current NHL gig for the purposes of helping to compile this roster without NHL responsbilities pulling their attention away.
There’s something to be said for Tortorella in a short tournament, burning out before he fades away, wearing his red, white and blue heart on his sleeve. Who among us, fellow Americans, wouldn’t stand up for Torts if he tried to pummel the syrup out of Canada’s coach like he was Bob Hartley?
If nothing else, it’ll be fun to watch the faces of currently employed NHL coaches as they witness their U.S.-born star players drop to the ice and block shots in a September exhibition tournament.
And the Tortorella/Ryan Kesler reunion should be fun. If, you know, he makes the cut.
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