The Best of Down Goes Brown (2 page)

 

Thanks to my wife, Marcie, for her love and support, and for allowing me to watch hockey every single night for the last four years “because it's for work” without ever once pointing out that I watched hockey every single night for the twelve years before that too.

Thanks to my parents, Bob and Judi McIndoe, for believing I could be a writer someday even when I'd given up on the idea for the better part of a decade.

Thanks to my daughter Erica and my son Douglas, for being the two funniest people I've ever met.

Additional thanks to Bruce Arthur, Jim Bray, and Guy Spurrier at the
National Post
; to Bob McKenzie for being nice to people he does not recognize; and to the many others who have supported me in various ways over the course of this project, including James Duthie, Greg Wyshynski, Allan Walsh, Katie Baker, Sean Pronger, Dan Murphy, Dave Naylor, Tim Micallef, Jim Lang, Jeff Marek, and Ian Mendes.

Thanks to Karen Milner, Lindsay Humphreys, Kim Rossetti, and Heather Ball at Wiley, and especially to my agent Brian Wood, whose heroic and tireless work on this project included inserting this line when I wasn't looking.

And finally, a special thank you to the readers who've been with me over the past five years as a completely unknown blog grew and grew until it became a mostly unknown blog. If you've ever posted a comment, clicked a Like button, retweeted a joke, or forwarded a link to a friend, you've helped me more than you know. My sincere thanks. I owe you a beer.

 

Voice-over:
Welcome to tonight's coverage of every NHL game ever broadcast. Here's a montage of slow motion highlights set to non-threatening rock music. Now over to our in-studio host for tonight's game.

 

Host:
Hello, everyone. I'm a little too excited to be here. With me is our panel of experts.

 

Management
: I'm the former coach and/or front-office executive. Everything I say will be driven by grudges I still hold from my failed career.

 

Player
: I'm the recently retired player. I'm still friends with most of these guys, so I'll never say anything interesting.

 

Media
: And I'm the media guy. I will take every moment of the game and force it into a larger narrative for storytelling purposes.

 

Host
: Who are you picking to win tonight?

 

Management
: I'm picking the home team, because the visiting team fired me in 1983.

 

Player
: I'm taking both teams, because I don't see why everyone can't be a winner.

 

Media
: I'm taking the visitors, because I'm working on a story about concussions.

 

Host
: Makes sense. Let's send it up to the play-by-play announcer and the analyst.

 

Play-by-play
: Good evening. I'm a shameless homer, but will make a half-hearted attempt to disguise that if this is a national broadcast.

 

Analyst
: And I will say things you already know, five seconds after you yell them at your television.

 

Play-by-play
: We will now show you shots of both goaltenders, followed by a slow zoom on the referee with his hand in the air.

 

Analyst
: Don't forget the shot of a coach staring into space.

 

Play-by-play:
Something interesting has happened right off the bat, although you didn't see it because you were trying to read the line combinations that we flash on the screen in three-point font. Let's go down to the guy we've stuck between the benches. What did you think of that play?

 

Bench:
I have no idea. You can't see anything down here and I'm terrified of being hit with a slap shot.

 

Play-by-play:
Well, thanks anyway.

 

Bench:
I will now go silent just in time for the players around me to teach your children some new swearwords.

 

Play-by-play
: Very educational. Let's send it back to the panel for the first intermission show.

 

Host
: Welcome to the first intermission show, where we ignore everything that's happened in the game so far and instead have the discussion we'd already prepared in advance. The home team has recently lost two games in a row. What fatal flaw would you randomly attribute those losses to?

 

Management
: I'm going to say a complete lack of intelligence on the part of everyone who has ever been employed by the franchise.

 

Media
: I'm going to attribute it to a lack of character, brought on by the disintegration of the traditional nuclear family.

 

Player
: I'm going to chalk it up to small sample size.

 

Horrified silence.

 

Player:
Just kidding. Let's go with character.

 

Host
: Now over to the highlights guy, who is in the same studio but has to stand ten feet away from us for some reason.

 

Highlights
: I resent you all terribly.

 

Host
: Back to you guys in the booth!

 

Play-by-play
: Welcome back. Here's a scoring chance … He scores! While we show you a close-up of a random defenseman in a passive-aggressive attempt to assign blame, let's bring in the former goaltender that we're legally obligated to include on every broadcast.

 

Ex-goalie
: That one was totally not the goaltender's fault; it was deflected in off a stick.

 

Play-by-play
: The goal came on a breakaway.

 

Ex-goalie
: Exactly. The shooter deflected it into the net using his own stick.

 

Play-by-play
: …

 

Ex-goalie
: Those are the hardest kinds to stop.

 

Play-by-play
: Have you ever seen a goal that was the goalie's fault?

 

Ex-goalie
: Not yet, no.

 

Play-by-play
: Let's send it back to the panel for the second intermission.

 

Host
: When you last saw us, we were telling you how terrible the home team was. Now that they've had one good period, let's pretend that never happened and instead go overboard in praising how well they're playing.

 

Management
: Here's a play from that last period, filmed from 15,000 feet above the ice. I will now scribble randomly on the screen with a Magic Marker.

 

Player
: Everyone tried really hard on that play and seemed to have fun.

 

Media
: Global warming!

 

Host
: Highlights guy?

 

Highlights
: (
sniffle
)

 

Host
: Back to the action!

 

Play-by-play
: It's a 1–0 game, which means you're in for twenty minutes of plodding defensive trapping that we'll pretend is entertaining.

 

Analyst:
I will make vague references to a defensive “system” without ever explaining what that actually means.

 

Play-by-play
: And now a fight has broken out. I will attempt to win a Gemini by pretending to be completely horrified.

 

Analyst
: This is an overwrought comment about how nobody likes fighting, which you are unable to hear because the fans are cheering so loudly.

 

Play-by-play
: And there's the final buzzer.

 

Analyst
: This game went much faster than usual.

 

Play-by-play
: Shut up.

 

Analyst
: Here are tonight's three stars, which don't make any sense since we had to pick them with twelve minutes left in the second period.

 

Play-by-play
: And now let's send it back to the studio for the post-game.

 

Host
: Panel, before the game we all unanimously agreed that the home team would never win another game. Now that they've won, is it fair to say that it is in fact the visiting team that will never win again?

 

Management
: Not unless they hire some new blood to the front office. Hint hint.

 

Player
: I brought orange slices for everyone.

 

Media
: Trapped miners!

 

Host
: Highlights guy?

 

Highlights
: Die. All of you.

 

Host
: Thanks for watching, everyone. Stay tuned to watch anchors narrate highlights of the game you just saw!

 

The life of an NHL coach is a tough one. Win, and the players get most of the credit. Lose, and the fingers always seem to point at you. And as fans of struggling teams know, the old adage “it's easier to fire the coach than the players” usually holds true.

But every now and then a coach emerges who manages to stick around long enough to craft a legacy. And those few who manage to win year after year, and sometimes even decade after decade, may eventually see themselves earn a place in the ranks of coaching immortality.

So let's pay tribute to some of those all-time greats. Here's a look at the ten winningest coaches in NHL history.