John Tortorella, on his way to a Stanley Cup championship eight springs ago with the Lightning, instructed Ken Hitchcock, the Flyers coach at the time, to “shut your yap.” Only two months ago, he told Devils coach Peter DeBoer to “just shut up.”
Instead, it is Tortorella who now shuts his yap and just shuts up whenever the media demands what his paranoia convinces him are deep, dark secrets about his Rangers.
Fine. If that’s the way he chooses to represent his sport and organization, the anti-Messier way, let him. If he gets enjoyment playing the part of the bully, let him.
Just go Win the Cup.
See, he can be Attila The Coach — or the Iceatollah — with the Fourth Estate all he wants and get a free pass from Rangers fans if he delivers them the Holy Grail 18 springs after Mark Messier.
Fortunately for Tortorella, he is good enough to lead his horses to water and make them drink. It is either a testament to the way he leads and the way he motivates, or the talent, especially in goal. Or both. So there has to be more to him than meets the public eye. He can’t be Attila The Coach 24-7. There would be mutiny on that bounty, and he would be man overboard.
The Rangers, seven wins from history heading into today’s Game 3 against the Devils in Newark, have lots of respect for their coach. So go right ahead and shut your yap if you like. Just shut up if you like.
Just go win the Cup.
“He’s a fair, honest guy, and he’s hard-nosed, and he’s not going to beat around the bush,” John Mitchell said. “If you do something good, he’s not going to come and give you a big hug or anything like that. He’ll give you a nod and say, ‘Good job.’ But if you screw up, he’s going to let you know. And he’s going to get right in your face like a bulldog, and bark at you, let you know what’s up.”
It’s tough love, practiced forever by the likes of Bill Parcells and Big Bad Bob Knight, for example. Tortorella chases his second Stanley Cup in a way that certainly Frank Sinatra would understand — his way.
So, he doesn’t want reporters to coach the team?
OK. Then let’s see him coach the team, and be remembered as a New York champion and not as some hockey Richard Nixon with an enemies list.
“He turned me into an NHL player, and made me better than I ever was,” Brian Boyle said.
How did he do that?
“He pushes you outside your comfort zone, starting with training camp, and continuing on throughout the entirety of the season,” Boyle said. “It doesn’t matter who you are or what you make or what you’re doing, he expects everybody’s best, and when you give him your best, he expects more later.”
If you are thin-skinned, fuhgeddaboudit. Ever catch Mount Tortorella’s eruptions behind the bench?
“It’s not always a cakewalk with him, it’s a challenge to get on his good side,” Boyle said. “But if you buy into the system and you do what he asks you to do, he respects you for it. That’s all you can really ask for.”
Cross him and you will sit. Ask Marian Gaborik. Or anyone.
Here is Mike Rupp on Tortorella’s motivational style: “It’s just always keeping you on your toes, always keeping you ready. If you win five in a row, he’s bringing you back to earth. You never get comfortable. We were in first for a while this year, and that’s a tough spot to be in this league. You’re a target for everybody, and a measuring stick for everybody. You see teams that kind of hit a little dry spell for a while and we didn’t because he would be jamming it down our throat how we’re supposed to play. And if we’re getting away from it for one practice, he’s letting you know.”
Tortorella is the anti-Rex Ryan, but there may be a David Letterman itching to be let out of a penalty box somewhere inside him.
“It’s not like he’s going to tell a whole joke or anything like that,” Mitchell said. “He’ll say something, and he’ll crack a quick smile to let you know that he’s joking around or whatever. He does keep it relatively serious. I mean, he should. We’re in the business of winning hockey games, and inevitably winning the whole thing, so it’s important to him.”
The word the players use the most often to describe Tortorella is passionate. It is his blessing and his curse.
“We see a different side of him,” Rupp told The Post. “Obviously you guys see one way. Quite frankly, I don’t think he really cares how people perceive him. He wants to win, and we want to win too.”
Perhaps we should be thankful he isn’t President Tortorella.
Q: Mr. President, did you have sex with Monica Lewinsky?
A: I’m going to keep it in the room.
So go right ahead and shut your yap if you like. Just shut up if you like.
Just go win the Cup.