COACHES MELTING DOWN...MILBURY STYLE.
Sometimes, coaches don't like taking the blame. They freak out when bad things happen and then take it out on poor unsuspecting folks like referees, fans and even the media. Just once can't we hear a coach say, in the words of Robert Plant "Nobody's fault but mine"? 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh is the latest coach to point the finger of blame at the officials, when he really should've looked in the mirror. His play calling at the end of the game was atrocious, and because of that, his team lost.
As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I covered the 1990 Stanley Cup finals, and the opening game in Boston was a triple overtime, blackout-delayed affair that ended around 1:30 in the morning when Edmonton's Petr Klima scored. The second game wasn't until three days later, and Boston rookie coach Mike Milbury was assuring the fans and the media that his team would be up for the challenge and would definitely put the disappointment of Game One behind them. Milbury had a particular arrogance about him that worked fine with the Boston media, but rubbed me the wrong way. Of course, I happened to be a somewhat controversial TV host/reporter who rubbed some people the wrong way, so a showdown was inevitable.
Milbury was a rookie coach with the Bruins that year and led them to 101 points and the President's Trophy. He was beloved in Beantown, and had been ever since, as a Bruins player, he climbed the glass after a game at Madison Square Garden and beat a New York Rangers fan with his shoe (the fan's, not Milbury's). His temper was legendary, and on display many times during that rookie season behind the bench. We used to regularly run highlights on "Sportsline" of Milbury screaming at the officials, throwing his gum in disgust, and generally acting like a spoiled kid. The fans loved it because the Bruins were winning. They hadn't won a Stanley Cup since the Orr-Esposito days of 1972, yet had been to the finals 4 times since then, losing to Philly, Montreal twice, and Edmonton in 1988. It appeared that THIS was their year, as the Oilers no longer had Gretzky or Paul Coffey. Edmonton only had 90 points that year with John Muckler behind the bench.
And so it was that the Bruins trailed the finals 0-1, with Game 2 in Boston. It did not go well. Despite having the likes of Cam Neely, Craig Janney, Ray Bourque, Dave Poulin, Brian Propp, Bobby Carpenter, Randy Burridge, Glen Wesley, Don Sweeney, Gary Galley and Andy Moog, they were blown out of their own rink on this night. The final score was 7-2 Oilers, and the Boston fans, many of whom had sat through three overtimes and a power failure a few nights earlier, were enraged. Many of them ushered the Bruins off the ice at games end with boos and jeers. As a TV reporter, my job was to get dressing room comments from the players, but first of all, to record the coaches comments. The NHL had set up a small area just off the Boston dressing room which normally would accommodate 10 or 15 media members. On this night, there must've been 8 or 10 TV cameras (a lot in those days) in addition to 40 radio, print and TV reporters and still cameramen. No such thing as a blogger back then. As we all packed into the corridor, I could hear rumblings from the Bruins dressing room. Obviously the players were upset. They had laid an egg in front of their home crowd, and now were down 0-2 with the series heading back to Edmonton. They were steamed.
At this point, it was about 10:30 p.m., which meant I had less than an hour to accumulate the interviews, record a reporter "stand up" (to show the audience I was actually there), edit the comments into a package, and then send it out on the satellite back to Toronto for the 11:30 airing of "Sportsline". This is called a "hard" deadline. You MUST get your story to air. No excuses. So, when Milbury came out of the dressing room and sat down at a makeshift table that had 20 microphones on it, I had to make sure I got a good question in. The first question came from the local Boston affiliate WBZ. A female reporter asked a softball question about it being a shame that Andy Moog had no support, blah, blah, blah. Now, I'm thinking I'd better get the next question in, but another Boston reporter tossed an easy question Milbury's way, because, let's face it, you don't want to piss off the coach you have to cover every day. I had no such worries, so I blurted out this gem: "Mike, is your team humiliated in there?" And that's when it happened. Milbury looked straight at me, shook his head from side to side and said "F**K OFF! We take dumb penalty, they score a couple of cheap goals...that's a stupid f**kin' question and you're a stupid f**kin' reporter". Silence. Everybody is looking at me. "Well" I said, somewhat humiliated myself, "You're a stupid f**kin' coach". My heart was beating like a rabbit. Here I had just been verbally abused, in front of several media members, by a petulant hockey coach who didn't like my question and decided to berate me. The next day, the headline in the Edmonton Sun read: "He said WHAT?" .
Afterwards, Milbury complained to the NHL, who sent PR Director Gerry Helper to see me. I was told that my employer, Global TV, would have their press credentials taken away for the rest of the Stanley Cup unless I apologized. I asked other media members if they thought I had done anything wrong. All the Boston media thought I was trying to embarrass Milbury (maybe, but I don't think so. I had a job to do.) A lot of my colleagues in the Canadian media didn't see anything wrong with the question, and admitted they didn't have the guts (or stupidity) to ask it. It's something I agonized over for a long time. When the series came back to Boston the following week, the Oilers led 3 games to one, and ended up clinching the Stanley Cup at the Garden. I never did see Milbury that night. He was in no mood to talk, and certainly didn't want to see me. A short time later, he was upset in the Jack Adams Trophy voting by Winnipeg's Bob Murdoch, despite the fact that his Bruins had 101 points to 85 for the Jets. Ironically, both men lasted just one more year before being fired.
I saw Milbury a few seasons later, when he was with the Islanders. He had long forgotten about the incident, and didn't hold any grudges. I had hoped to do the same, but in recent years Milbury had thrust himself into the spotlight by making foolish comments on TV about the "pansification of hockey". He also called Sidney Crosby a "punk" and a "goody two shoes". And let's not forget the incident when he allegedly grabbed a 12 year old hockey player and was arrested for assault and battery. He was not prosecuted, but his employer, NBC, took him off the air while the allegations were being investigated.
The reason for this post wasn't to point out Milbury's shortcomings (or my own, for that matter). Instead, it's a recollection of days gone by, when your humble reporter was a not-so-humble reporter who ran into a coach who was having a bad day. The result was explosive, to say the least. On the bright side, since that day, I can't recall another coach verbally abusing a reporter in public. And for that I am happy. Lesson learned.
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