I was happy for Mike Stothers landing the job as coach of the Moose Jaw Warriors of the Western Hockey League.
Mike made a brief inquiry into the vacant head coaching position with the Owen Sound Attack, but that was the extent of it.
His inquiry was akin to dipping your toes in the water to gauge the temperature, and, the sense I have is, the water wasn’t warm enough for either side.
So be it.
There are those, especially the bozos on Electric Ice, who think Mike Stothers being anywhere but Owen Sound is great news.
Come on…..
First of all, the guy won 158 games over 5 years here. That’s 30+ per season !!
Forgotten is the dreadful mess he, and in fairness, Mike Futa, inherited with the Attack in 2002, and how, in relative short order, they made the club credible and competitive.
Stothers would have won at least two more games if Myles Cope hadn’t started a rumble for no apparent reason at Mississauga one night, which cost the coach a 2 game suspension.
Here’s some other undisputable facts about Mike Stothers as coach….
His teams will be fit. How many Stothers-coached players are in the NHL and stay in the NHL because they learned early what hard work and fitness really are ?
A Mike Stothers team will be mean, but one dimensional thuggery will be non-existent.
Clubs under Mike Stothers limit the opposition to 30 shots per night.
And when they travel, there is zero tolerance for Tom Foolery, especially after a poor performance.
Some will say, ‘ Fred’s just advocating for one of his buddies. ‘
Far from it.
While we know each other well and can talk easily, I doubt that two people in the Attack organization were ever more wary of each other than Mike Stothers & I were of each other.
But the thing of it is, you cannot dispute the winning numbers, the professional approach, nor the revitalization of the Attack fortunes when Mike Stothers was coach in Owen Sound.
I’m Fred Wallace