The Dramatic Coach or The Don Cherry Orchard
“I can’t stand embellishment,” Canucks coach Rick Tochett
Nikita Zadorov - my fave Russian! A player who inspires opposing players to snap their heads back…
Right before the Canucks-Oilers playoff series began, Canucks coach and likely NHL Coach of the Year winner, Rick Tocchet, repeated his ongoing complaint about player’s faking injuries from hits that never happened. Ya know, acting…
And I thought… I should see if I can dig up a short story I wrote ages ago where I combined my love of theatre and my love of hockey. The story was originally published back in 1995 in “Between the Lines: An Anthology of Hockey Literature” - which felt like both the ultimate Canadian accomplishment and the ultimate Can Con oxymoron.
“I can’t stand embellishment,” Tocchet continued. “I’m not even saying that Edmonton is an embellish team. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that I would be very on guard with the refs this playoff with this embellishment. “Snapping heads, falling down … I think it’s become a lot. I think it’s up to the coaches. I don’t think you can promote that stuff. If not, the NHL has to do something about that stuff with the refs.” From The Province newspaper, May 5, 2024
So I queued this post up before attending game 5 last night. Canucks 3 - Oilers 2.
Yep, I was at the amazing game with my brother when Oilers’ centre, Mattias Janmark, was called for “embellishment” and Connor McDavid proved he has a career in pro soccer for drawing a tripping penalty on Dakota Joshua. Also… Elias Pettersson got a two-minute penalty for not falling down when Warren Foegele ran him so… enjoy…
For a bit of hockey history most of this fiction is fiction. The Billy Smith story from 1983 - paraphrased but real.
My brother David & I in the stands for game 5 - white towels behind us.
The Dramatic Coach or The Don Cherry Orchard
"Have any of you heard of the great Konstantin Stanislavski?" Stephen Thorne surveyed the players like a King addressing his court.
Defenseman, Grant Mutley, raised a gloved hand. "Didn't he play with Tretiak?"
"Yeah," said starting centre, Bobby Green, "he was the Russian goalie during the '72 Canada Cup."
"No stupid," said goalie Trevor Milocik. “That was Tretiak. Stanislavski was a winger."
"He was not," Thorne could barely contain his anger as he spat out the next two words, "a winger."
"Centre?" suggested Bobby Green helpfully.
"He was the greatest director of all time," declaimed Thorne. "The man who discovered naturalism. The man who discovered Chekhov."
"He was a scout," shouted Grant.
"Didn't Chekhov play for the Penguins in the mid-eighties?" asked Green.
Thorne ignored him and continued. "Stanislavski was the first to articulate the truth about theatre, he said pronouncing it “the-at-ah” and sighing for emphasis, “that all good acting comes from within. You must feel it here," said Thorne as he swatted his chest with a closed fist almost knocking himself off his skates and onto the ice. "If we are to ever believe."
The players shuffled uncomfortably. Big Dan Mahoney whispered that he'd like to give Thorne a real hit. Mutley grinned and Thorne shot him a glare as menacing as any look he'd ever seen on Dave Semenko.
"All emotion is real," declared Thorne.
"I don't need you to teach my players about emotion," Red Baxter interrupted.
"Silence," decreed Thorne in the imperious voice he’d last used while understudying the role of Lear. The players shuffled nervously. They expected Green to shout, to rant, to lift the little $%&! off the ice and throw him into the stands like a discarded popcorn tub. Instead, the entire team shared a moment of astonishment as the man with the seventh most penalty minutes in NHL history did exactly as he was told. "If you are to convince these so-called critics."
"Critics," asked Baxter.
"Pardon, said Thorne, "Referees." He cleared his throat theatrically, then continued. "If you are to convince these referees of your sincerity, of course you will need emotion."
"Gretzky didn't need emotion," said Grant. "All Gretzky needed to do to draw a penalty was fall."
"Ah, but Gretzky could dive better than any player since Ned Thomas," said Thorne. And for the first time since that weasel of an owner had brought Thorne in as a "consultant," the players were actually impressed.
Professional athletes don't relate well to civilians at the best of times and effeminate looking male civilians with pencil thin moustaches, too much cologne, fake British accents and pink silk scarves jauntily tossed around their necks would normally command even less respect than a sports journalist. But this man appeared to actually know something about The Game. Besides, he'd scared Baxter.
"Now there was an ac - tore," declared Thorne.
"Thomas never took a dive in his life," said Baxter.
Thorne laughed. It was a forced actor's laugh, but it did the trick. "Do you remember the semi-final game against Detroit when the Wings beat you four to two."
"Of course, I do," growled Baxter. "I was tossed out for high sticking."
"For high sticking," Thorne repeated in almost singsong tones.
"I drew blood," said Baxter, sounding almost too proud of his accomplishment.
"Did you now?" asked Thorne and the question was clearly rhetorical because a moment later there was enough blood pouring down his pale cheek that any casual observer would have assumed he'd just had his dental work rearranged by a Bobby Hull slapshot circa 1975.
Some of the players gasped. "You okay man?" asked Green.
The only one who didn't move was Baxter. "He didn't," Baxter said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. "He wouldn't."
Thorne withdrew a lavender scented silk hanky from his jacket pocket and daintily mopped the stage blood from his chin. "Of course he did."
"I'll kill him," said Baxter. "That asshole made the Hall of Fame last year."
"And what about Billy Smith's performance in the ‘83 Stanley Cup?"
"I remember that," said Milocik. Being a goalie it was hard not to remember one of the few times in NHL history a netminder won the coveted Conn Smythe trophy for Most Valuable Player in the playoffs.” After they won the Cup they were interviewing him on Hockey Night in Canada and I think Gallivan asked him about the injury."
Now it was Baxter's turn to interrupt. “Smith smiled and said, "what injury?" Millions of viewers and he confessed he'd just taken a dive."
"That's right," continued Milocik. "He said he knew he was probably going to be the most hated man in Canada for admitting it, but he was sick of Gretzky taking dives and figured it was his turn. It was brilliant."
Sensing that the other team members were about to accuse him of treason, Milocik quickly added, “but really sleazy."
"Brilliant," said Thorne flatly. "And part of the game."
"But it's unsportsmanlike," said Big Dan Mahoney.
Before anyone had time to consider the irony of the team's designated goon complaining about unsportsmanlike conduct, Thorne was already explaining that it was all just another part of the game. "Don't think if it as unsportsmanlike," explained Thorne with a wry smile. "Think of it as discouraging violence in sport. Now, I'd like you to each take a copy of this scene home with you."
Thorne, skating like a girl, moved from player to player handing them each a copy of The Three Sisters. At last he handed a copy to Baxter as well. Baxter glared at him. Looking like the Devil's insurance salesman, Thorne whispered, "Don Cherry is one of the finest actors in Canada – you know he’s actually a left-wing, bleeding heart anti-war activist -- but he can't do Coach’s Corner forever."
Baxter looked at Thorne with a new-found respect and took the script in his hands as carefully as if it were a multi-million dollar bonus cheque -- or a contract for Coach’s Corner. "If you really think it'll help."
Thorne nodded.
Tomorrow afternoon we'll be working on the final scene so I expect you all to come prepared.
It was the owner's idea to bring in Thorne as a consultant and most of the owner's ideas were pretty dumb. The Hamilton Killer Beavers had just lost their 14th straight road game and it was looking pretty obvious that if something didn't turn around fast they were going to be challenging the Ottawa Senators long-standing futility record for most consecutive losses.
When things were going this badly most teams fired their coach, a few would hire a psychologist, but when Thorne sauntered into the owner's office one afternoon calmly declaring he could turn the Killer Beavers into contenders for less money than they paid the Zamboni driver, the G.M. decided to give it a shot.
The next day -- after being shut out six to nothing by the Anaheim Mighty Ducks -- the team was skating around, scripts in hand moaning unconvincingly about how they would never get to Moscow while Baxter tried not to watch.
“But I don’t wanna go to Moscow,” whined Mahoney. “Remember what Don Cherry says about those Russians.”
“Hey, I played with Ovechkin and he’s a Russian,” said Milocik.
“I dunno,” said Mahoney. “There’s Commies in Moscow.”
“Cut, cut, cut,” said Thorne -- and the players immediately began looking to see who was hurt. “Big Dan has a point.”
“I got three of them,” said Big Dan grinning wide to reveal his six remaining teeth. “One goal and two assists.”
“If you don’t want to go to Moscow imagine something else you want, somewhere else you’d like to go.”
Milocik lit up. “The Stanley Cup Finals,”
“We’ll never go to the Stanley Cup Finals,” shrugged Mahoney.
“Precisely the emotion I’m looking for.”
And for a few brief moments, The Ice Capades merged with Chekhov as the Hamilton Killer Beavers pondered the fact that they would, indeed, never get to the Stanley Cup Finals. “Now that,” declared a jubilant Thorne, is Chekhov.”
Baxter interrupted, “that is the biggest waste of a practice I’ve ever seen.”
“We don’t call it practice,” said Thorne, “we call it a rehearsal. Daniel, over here.”
No one moved.
“Mahoney.”
Mahoney skated over to Thorne, towering over him like an ancient Redwood in a flower pot. Mahoney stared down at the fragile little man, waiting for his next order. “And now, I’m going to hurt you.”
“I doubt it,” grunted Mahoney.
Thorne glared up at the behemoth.
“Oh right,” said Mahoney, “the -at -ah.”
Thorne smiled, threw a fake elbow at Mahoney’s chest and the big man tumbled like he’d been struck by lightning.
“I don’t hear it,” complained Thorne.
Mahoney began to moan.
“Think of the minors,” yelled Thorne.
Suddenly Mahoney’s moans were full of genuine emotion.
“Tonight,” said Thorne, “when Chara takes a run at you I want you to go down.”
Mahoney’s eyes widened. “Can I hit him first?”
Thorne shook his head.
“Just once?”
“Maybe once,” said Thorne, “but something subtle like an elbow -- no cross checking.”
That night when Chara took an early run at Mahoney the big man fell down so hard that Chara skated off to the dressing room tunnel before the ref even had a chance to assess the penalties. The Beavers scored twice during the five minute powerplay and just when it looked as if the game was going into overtime, another player skated a little too close to the Beaver’s crease and Milocik took a fall worthy of Chevy Chase in his prime.
“I don’t like it,” said Baxter after the game, “but it works.”
“Winning isn’t everything,” said Thorne as the players snapped their towels at him, “it’s the only thing.”
“Win one for the Gipper,” shouted Milocik.
“A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” screamed Mahoney.
Timing is everything. Nobody said it, but that was the real factor in The Hamilton Killer Beaver’s miraculous season.
The NHL had a new TV contract and the U.S. network was complaining about the violence. Hockey Commissioner, Mario Lemieux, said that while he wasn’t going to outlaw fights or head hits, all serious injuries would result in five minute major penalties and automatic game misconducts. The Killer Beavers still elbowed, cross-checked and tripped -- but they always looked so angelic when they committed these fouls that they were rarely penalised. Everybody but the stick boy was signed to an endorsement contract and when they won the Stanley Cup, the team engraved the names of two assistant coaches -- “Steven Thorne and Konstantin Stanislavski.”
The following year Baxter signed on to sit across from Don McLean on Coach’s Corner. It seemed Don Cherry was so upset at the NHL turning into “the No Hitting League,” that he took a job as a commentator in Russia where, as he put it, “they still know how to throw a Czech.”
