Barry Trotz has won 560 games as an NHL coach, fourth amongst active coaches behind Joel Quenneville (Chicago), Ken Hitchcock (St. Louis) and Lindy Ruff (Dallas), and 13th most in league history but there was a time when Trotz thought he’d be out on the ice in the best league in the world, not behind a bench.
“I can remember my first camp in Washington when I was 19 (a defenceman from the Regina Pats). I saw Jack Button (the Caps’ director of player recruitment and father of TSN commentator Craig) and said ‘Hi, I’m Barry Trotz, thank you for bringing me to camp Mr. Button, I’m going to make it hard for you to send me out of here.’ Jack says ‘I know who the hell you are, I invited you, and you’re only here because you might be a good minor-leaguer or a coach some day.’ I was 19, I’m not sure I wanted to hear that,” said Trotz, now the first-year coming full-circle coach of the Capitals.
Button, who founded the NHL’s Central Scouting Bureau, was half right. Trotz never even played in the minors, only junior and college hockey. But, he became one of the NHL’s best coaches. “Looking back, Jack phoned me one day when I started coaching at the University of Manitoba and they were looking for an area guy to scout, somebody to keep an eye on Manitoba (prospects) and I told him absolutely I could do that,” said Trotz, who played for the Bisons, started as an unpaid assistant to the late Wayne Fleming when he got hurt, and later became head man of the CIS Bisons.
He became a part-time Western scout, then chief Western scout, promoting goalies Olie Kolzig and Byron Dafoe as WHL draft picks in his tenure as a bird-dog. Then, he got a chance to be an assistant coach with their AHL farm team in Baltimore, under current LA Kings’ pro scouting head Rob Laird, until Laird was let go.
“I finished up a season after Rob left and thought I was going too (replaced), but David Poile (who replaced Max McNab as GM) decided to give me a chance, but only on a one-year contract,” said Trotz, who later would be Poile’s first pick to coach the expansion Nashville Predators, staying there for 15 years until Poile decided he had to make a change this summer, bringing in Peter Laviolette.
Wednesday Caps-Oilers’ game will be Trotz’s 1,197th NHL game behind the bench.
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Trotz will be taking his team curling in Calgary Thursday, something he did when he was coaching Nashville, as well. Ruff, who grew up in Warburg and was a very good high-school curler, has done it often as well, when coaching the Sabres. “One of the things you get away from is the team stuff. You take a couple of days off on the road and you get stale. Anything to do to make a long season a little more fun. I’m going to ask where the players are from. If they’re from Saskatchewan or Manitoba, they’re skipping,” laughed Trotz.
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