[Official] Canucks coach talk. Keep all talk here.

[a Fool]

Typical

[hd71]

I am a lifelong Canucks fan, Always a fan- win or lose. This is my home team, and I cheer for the home team because they represent me in the league, in the media and around the world. I'm proud of it. That is why it hard to accept this hiring. This guy is

arrogant, abusive, loudmouth, disrespectful and happy to throw players under the bus. He doesn't represent me, my city or my province. Gillis waited and waited til the coaching candidates were picked up and thought he had to take this guy because nobody else wanted to coach under him.

I may just have to cheer for my team from afar this year because I don't think my stomach could take his circus behaviour and seeing him behind the bench.

I think the team needed a new voice, and someone who could light a fire or two but torts is waaayy too over the top.

[Gustavo Fring]

Ed Willes is just scared of torts style media pressers. Thats all.

[Remy]

Hear hear!

Excellent article that sums up my own thoughts perfectly.

[Pears]

He just scared. All of the media are scared.

[J529]

When Torts is introduced the very first question reporter should ask him is "Who will be the new Brooksie?"

[zoner.]

I'm not a fan of Tortorella, but this just sounds like the media is scared sh*tless that they're going to have to deal with him!

[Down by the River]

Vancouver media is scared crapless and are already trying to run Torts out of town so that they don't have to face his wrath.

I can't say whether the hiring will be positive or negative, but at least give it a chance before deciding whether it was successful or not...

[Down by the River]

http://www.theprovin...html?id=8561137

Canucks' hiring of John Tortorella feels an awful lot like Mike Keenan 2.0

When John Tortorella's name first surfaced in connection with the Vancouver Canucks, the response was essentially, "This is a joke, right?"

Tortorella, after all, was the complete antithesis of everything Mike Gillis's administration supposedly represented. Gillis was a man of reason and intellect.

He was a new-age thinker who based organizational decisions on cool logic, metrics and analytics. The Canucks under Gillis were many things. But they were always rational and thoughtful.

Until today.

Tortorella is the kind of knee-jerk decision that other organizations make, not the Canucks. Yes, he represents a personality type diametrically opposed from his predecessor, Alain Vigneault. But he also represents a personality type diametrically opposed to Gillis's core values. He is loud and profane; narcissistic and temperamental. He is emotional to the point of irrationality. Tortorella, in fact, is so far removed from Gillis and his methods that this hire had to come from somewhere else; somewhere, and we're just spitballing here, like Canucks ownership.

And when ownership gets involved in decisions of this magnitude, it's a sure sign the organization is in a state of dysfunction.

The Canucks have built their brand on touchy-feely sentiments like "We Are All Canucks" and "Our Team Our Way." True, those slogans had a Hallmark feel to them but, in good times, they sent the message that the city and the province were all invested in the Canucks, that the team cared about its fans.

Tortorella, without putting too fine an edge on things, basically extends the middle finger to those fans.

That he is obnoxious is a given. And I hope when he lands here, we get the full Tortorella, the vainglorious, I'm-smarter-and-more-imporant-than-everyone-here guy we saw in New York. That way, at least he'd be true to himself. I'm just not sure he can be any other way, which is going to make things very interesting.

Francesco Aquilini, the man presumably behind this decision, is labouring under the misapprehension that the team needs a butt-kicker, a motivator to shake it out of its lethargy. That would be fine if this were 1964. But you don't reach players with the drill-sergeant approach anymore. Today's player has to be self-motivated and maniacally driven or he never reaches the NHL. The thought that players like the Sedins, Alex Burrows and Kevin Bieksa grew fat and lazy under Vigneault's watch is insulting to them and their years of service to the Canucks.

But, in much the way exasperated parents think military school would benefit their wayward teenager, Aquilini thinks Tortorella is just the man to set the Canucks straight. That's fine in theory. But in reality, Tortorella's personality is simply an impossible fit for this organization. If the Canucks were about egos and stars, then maybe this might work. But under Gillis's watch they've been about something else. They've been about the collective. They've policed themselves. Most of those players have also taken substantially less to play in this environment.

How is Tortorella going to go over with them?

If there was a country-club atmosphere with the Canucks, it started with Gillis's vision for the team. He was the GM who was going to make Vancouver a destination franchise for other players. He was the one who was going to provide every conceivable edge -- meals, sleep doctors, mind rooms, sports psychologists -- to the players. The real problem with the Canucks in 2013, of course, had nothing to do with that and everything to do with miscalculations on a number of fronts by Gillis. The ongoing Roberto Luongo soap opera not only cost the team prime assets, it was a distraction throughout the season. Gillis acquisitions like Keith Ballard and David Booth contributed very little. Organizational depth was eradicated by five years of bad drafting. The deadline acquisition of Derek Roy was a bust.

if Aquilini thinks Tortorella is going to fix all that, good luck. But what this feels like is the start of another Mike Keenan era in Vancouver. If you need reminding, that was two years of chaos in the late 1990's, in which the organization completely alienated its fan base; two years in which the Canucks became irrelevant. They came out of that turmoil largely unscathed, mostly because Brian Burke was able to rebuild the team in two short years.

Who knows? Maybe they'll get lucky again. But look at it this way. They're going to need it.

Yeah, Tortorella doesn't give a damn about the fans.....

[Giant Inflatable Beaver]

I am a lifelong Canucks fan, Always a fan- win or lose. This is my home team, and I cheer for the home team because they represent me in the league, in the media and around the world. I'm proud of it. That is why it hard to accept this hiring. This guy is

arrogant, abusive, loudmouth, disrespectful and happy to throw players under the bus. He doesn't represent me, my city or my province. Gillis waited and waited til the coaching candidates were picked up and thought he had to take this guy because nobody else wanted to coach under him.

I may just have to cheer for my team from afar this year because I don't think my stomach could take his circus behaviour and seeing him behind the bench.

I think the team needed a new voice, and someone who could light a fire or two but torts is waaayy too over the top.

what a pansy. as long as torts WINS i could care less about antics.

[OntarioCanucker]

I'm all for this hire, as long as he keeps his rage comments about players suckiness and lazyness in the locker room, have at the media all he wants.

IMO I think Gillis' thinking on this is the team needs a Vocal coach, who holds players accountable, But a guy Like Tort's can really take the media spot light off the players, which some players on this team may have an issue with.

[TOMapleLaughs]

"This guy is arrogant."

"The Canucks represent me in the league"

Lol

[MANGO]

sample sized packs of ez glide to be handed out with press badges now.

[Jaimito]

ed willis is the west coast version of larry brooks. a guy who often gets beat up at the bus stop

[erkayloomeh]

Hear hear!

Excellent article that sums up my own thoughts perfectly.

I agreed with the article as well. The only thing I like about torts is he gives the media ass#####oles crap instead of the other way around and there are to many lousy media people in this town

[El_Capitan]

Our media in Vancouver write pop non-fiction about the Canucks.

We need a revolution. The Province rivals TMZ for editorial style and etiquette.

[Down by the River]

I am a lifelong Canucks fan, Always a fan- win or lose. This is my home team, and I cheer for the home team because they represent me in the league, in the media and around the world. I'm proud of it. That is why it hard to accept this hiring. This guy is

arrogant, abusive, loudmouth, disrespectful and happy to throw players under the bus. He doesn't represent me, my city or my province. Gillis waited and waited til the coaching candidates were picked up and thought he had to take this guy because nobody else wanted to coach under him.

I may just have to cheer for my team from afar this year because I don't think my stomach could take his circus behaviour and seeing him behind the bench.

I think the team needed a new voice, and someone who could light a fire or two but torts is waaayy too over the top.

Oh really? Did the Canucks organization agree to be your representative? That's neat.

[TOMapleLaughs]

So... Is Willes the 'media legend' here that Torts should think twice about before ripping in half?

[Gurn]

People actually think adults are afraid of a possible new coach's words at press confrence?

As to the article I would agree with Ed- this hiring does sound like it comes from the owner. I wonder what Torts thinks of sleep doctors, yoga and all the other new age/analytics and so on.

[Ilya Mikheyev]

I'm not a huge fan of this speculated hiring, but one thing everyone was complaining about with AV was that he never showed enough passion in important games.

Well, Tortorella will show passion for every game.

He probably won't be calling out his goaltender like in T-Bay, since the Canucks have a solid goalie. And if he has a talk with Gillis about throwing individual players under the bus.. this might be an improvement.

My one hope is that if Torts is indeed hired, they hire 'a players coach' as assistant. Somebody like Maurice or Craig Ramsay (who is with FLA), but somebody in that mold.