Sporting Madness

I live in Surrey, B.C., and I'm not exactly rich enough to afford Canucks tickets, so most of the hockey I see live is at Abbotsford Heat (AHL) games. It's a good brand of hockey, and there's always potential for some entertaining moments. Unfortunately, I wasn't there in person for what's quite possibly the highlight of the Heat's tenure in Abbotsford so far, head coach Jim Playfair (the former head coach of the Calgary Flames, Abbotsford's parent team) melting down after referee Jamie Koharski (son of former NHL ref Don Koharski , who's of course famous for being involved in another legendary meltdown ) tossed Heat winger J.D. Watt . Here's the video; skip ahead to 2:30 for the start of the play, or 3:20 for the start of the fireworks. This is pretty impressive. Playfair yells at the ref, breaks a stick, takes off his jacket and then breaks another stick before leaving, probably enough to get this up into the pantheon of the top coaching rant...

Yesterday's news that New York Rangers head coach John Tortorella would be suspended by the league for today's Game Six against the Washington Capitals after squirting a fan with water and throwing a water bottle into the crowd [ James Mirtle , From The Rink ] was interesting, but not unique. Of course, Tortorella is famous for his temper; this video of him tearing a strip off Larry Brooks of the New York Post is hilarious, but it shows that he perhaps isn't the most controlled coach in the world. It's also worth noting that this came after he benched Sean Avery for Game Five for his own lack of control. However, the most interesting part about this story is that assistant coach/assistant GM Jim Schoenfeld is going to replace Tortorella behind the bench. Schoenfeld, of course, was famously involved in a similar situation back in the 1988 Prince of Wales Conference Finals when he was coaching the New Jersey Devils: Yep, it's that Jim Schoenfeld who confronted ...