Coach: The Pat Burns Story (30 page)

As time allowed, Burns made guest appearances with the Good Brothers, a bluegrass band founded by twins Bruce and Brian Good. Their relationship with Burns stretched back to the 1991 Canada Cup, when the final games had been played in Hamilton against Team USA. It happened to be Canadian Country Music Week in the Steel City. Burns, Brian Sutter and Mike Keenan were presenters at the musical awards night. Burns ran into Bruce Good later in the evening and they went “suite-hopping” in the hotel. Coach was thrilled to meet Canadian music artists, and in return invited Bruce and his son, Travis, to the final Cup game, which Canada won. Around midnight, the Goods joined up with Burns at Team Canada’s Toronto hotel base. “We partied until daylight in one of the rooms. I think it may have been Keenan’s,” Bruce recalls. Early the next morning, without sleep, everyone gathered for breakfast downstairs. The Canada Cup trophy was used as table centrepiece. When Keenan finally left for some shut-eye, Burns and Bruce took the trophy for a spin, popping into a local country music radio station for an interview.

In Bruce’s version of events, this is what happened next: “We went back to the hotel and put the trophy on the pillow next to Keenan while he was sleeping.” As he remembers it, Keenan never even noticed the Cup when he woke up and checked out. “A maid found it and put the thing in the lost and found.”

Burns comped the Goods for a game in Montreal the next season, and gave them a personal tour of the “cathedral” that was the Canadiens’
dressing room. The acquaintanceship warmed further after Burns moved to the Leafs. He was always keen to play with the band when asked. The Good Brothers had a long relationship with the team. In the late ’70s, they’d played frequently at club parties, usually organized by Ron Ellis. The group’s first album—for which they won a Juno Award—had been financially backed by a Leaf defenceman, Dave Dunn.

“That first summer in Toronto, Pat joined us for benefit shows and some regular gigs,” says Bruce. “He had an excellent singing voice, but I was surprised at how good he was as a guitar player, not playing lead but rhythm. He knew more chords than any of us. It was incredible, really, when you realize that he was self-taught. He loved music. His favourite song was “Margaritaville,” so we played that a lot. He had such stage presence—a natural, loved getting up and performing. Some people thought it was just tokenism because we enjoyed having the Leaf coach up there, but that wasn’t true. Pat was a terrific musician, had a real knack for it. I think he could have made a career out of it if his life had gone in a different direction.”

Burns had a particular fondness for Irish music as well, so he and the Goods formed a separate band called the Butcher Boys, strictly for the purpose. One night, they got together at Travis’s apartment and taped an entire album of Irish music. Burns played and sang on every song. Bruce has since had an engineer transfer that old tape onto a CD. At the very end, a distinct rapping—thump-thump—can be heard. That was Travis’s neighbour knocking on the wall, telling them to knock off the racket already.

In Leaf World, Wendel Clark became the third player in team history to join the million-dollar club, and Burns politely bid for a contract renegotiation. He got it: a $100,000-per-season raise on the two years remaining. By late August, Burns was back at his office, surly over expectations for the ’93–94 season and calling around to make sure his players had been observing their summer fitness regimens. “It seemed like only a few weeks had passed, and there was Pat on the phone,” recalls Gilmour.
The conversation went something like this. Burns: “Whatcha doin’?” Gilmour: “Nothing.” Burns: “Started working out yet?” Gilmour: “Uh, just getting at it.” Burns: “Okay, just checking.” At medicals on day one of camp, Burns scrutinized the fitness test results, clucking and tut-tutting.

Apart from actually winning a Cup, though, what could the Leafs possibly do for an encore? Win ten in a row, for starters.

First, there was the small matter of exporting NHL hockey to Jolly Old England, the Leafs and New York Rangers making the trek to London for a pair of exhibition matches. Naturally, Burns detested the chore. “I really don’t like anything about it, but there’s nothing I can do.” After the seven-hour flight, he was even more disenchanted. “If I have a tourist hat on, I think it’s fantastic. But as a coach I have to say, ‘Geez.’ ” Cliff Fletcher laughs recalling that excursion. “Pat was bitching every day. He’d say, ‘This isn’t a goddamn vacation! We’ve got wives, we’ve got girlfriends. What the hell?’ ”

Players, wives and girlfriends took a cruise along the Thames, were guests of honour at Planet Hollywood, and on an off-night had their choice of either going to the theatre or attending the England–Poland World Cup soccer qualifier at Wembley Stadium.

Mike Keenan’s Rangers won both hockey games.

Quasi-vacation over, Leafs returned to their Gardens HQ. “Pat will be running his usual Hitler-style camp,” moaned Mike Foligno. In truth, the players were restless to get back at it, for real. “There was a feeling when we came back to training camp that we’d fallen short the year before, and we wanted to prove that we were a good team,” says Félix Potvin. “The chemistry we had in the first season all translated to our team the next year.” To Todd Gill, the summer respite had come and gone in the blink of an eye, but he was eager to pick up where the team had left off. “The playoffs had been such a confidence builder for us. Every player was so much better because of what he’d gone through the year before.”

The season opened October 7 with sports fans focused on balls and strikes, the Blue Jays in pursuit of back-to-back World Series titles.
Roberto Alomar dropped the puck for the ceremonial faceoff. Burns always maintained that he dreaded home openers, but there was nothing nerve-wracking about game one on the schedule as Toronto dumped Dallas 6–3. And they’re off.

Game two against Chicago, with hundreds of fans holding radios to their ears as the Jays simultaneously did battle with the White Sox: Leafs won 2–1.

Game three versus Philadelphia: 5–4. A nice little streak to launch the season. “I’m happy the guys played well in these three games, but I’ve still got my two feet planted on the ground,” said Burns. “Now there’s only eighty-one games to go.”

Game four: Leafs barely broke a sweat dumping Washington 7–1. Burns even rested Gilmour for the last seven minutes. “That’ll teach him for making so much money,” the coach fake-growled. Four victories in a row, Burns exhorted the team to reap points while ye may. “We’ve got to be like squirrels and fill our little tummies now, get as much food as we can to put away for winter. It will be a long, cold winter.”

Games five and six: A twin killing over the home-and-home Thanksgiving weekend with Detroit, 6–3 and 2–1.

Half a dozen games into the campaign and Toronto stood atop the league. Perfection. Gilmour was the NHL scoring leader. Forty-nine years earlier, the Leafs had also broken out with a six-pack of Ws. That season, they won the Stanley Cup. And yet these Leafs were still the secondary sports story locally. “I think there’s enough room in the paper for us and the Blue Jays,” shrugged Gill. “We don’t mind page 2 for a while.” Certainly the hockey scribblers had taken note as more and more copy was devoted to The Streak, the Leafs now three wins away from setting a league mark for best start ever by an NHL team. Burns pretended it was much ado about nothing much. “I don’t even look at records. If it’s there, it’s there. We just look at points.”

Game seven: The Leafs crushed Hartford 7–2. Stringbean Potvin boasted a sparkling 2.14 GAA—best in show. Burns, thawing, marvelled at the offensive output from a team that most observers had expected would
encounter scoring issues. “I really don’t know where they’re all coming from, but it’s kind of fun.”

The franchise—and league—record for wins was nine, set sixty-eight years earlier and equalled by the ’75–76 Buffalo Sabres. In this unfolding spectacle, Potvin had been between the posts for every victory.

Game eight: So what did Burns do in Miami, where Toronto was hosted by the Panthers? He started backup Damian Rhodes. “Dusty” Rhodes maintained the string, Toronto edging Florida 4–3 in overtime. And for the umpteenth time, “I don’t care about the record!” As if.

The team swung over to the west side of the Florida panhandle, to face the Tampa Bay Lightning. Gill, in his tenth season as a Leaf, reminisced not so fondly about the bad old days. “Some of the kids on the team now don’t realize how bad it once was in Toronto. My first five years, the Maple Leafs were everybody’s favourite joke. You’d laugh but some days you couldn’t, it hurt too much. No wonder no one wanted to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs and put up with that stuff. Now the jokes have dwindled to nothing. Now people have to take us seriously.” In 2012, Gill looks back in awe. “Mentally, other teams were thinking, ‘Oh God, we’ve got Toronto coming in.’ And how long had it been since anybody had said that?”

Game nine: Mark Osborne notched both goals as Potvin shut out the Lightning 2–0 at the ThunderDome, on the same Saturday night the Jays clinched their second World Series, beating the Phillies. Whoop-de-do all around—baseball championship and streak’s alive, record tied. Oh, except for Burns, who groused: “This is professional sports. You’re supposed to win.” Then he admitted, “We didn’t talk about it much, but it was always in the back of our heads.” He wouldn’t let his players get fat heads about the achievement, though. “Sooner or later, every team goes into slumps. We’ll have our slump, the coach won’t be any good, players won’t be any good and Félix won’t be able to stop a table.”

Could they extend the streak to ten? Going into Chicago Stadium, it didn’t seem likely. Toronto hadn’t prevailed there since December 22, 1989, shut out five times in thirteen losses. The ’Hawks were sharpening
their talons. “If they beat us,” said Burns, “they’ve beaten the hottest team in the NHL.” In a vulnerable moment, Burns did predict Toronto would survive their venture into the sixty-four-year-old Chicago building, with its 17,000 rabid fans and the booming pipes of the Barton organ. “The jinx will be broken.” Nik Borschevsky piped up: “Small rink, crazy peoples.”

There was another bitsy problem: Gilmour had been ejected from the game in Tampa with less than four minutes to play in the third for repeatedly punching defenceman Roman Hamrlik. In the preseason, he’d also received a one-game suspension for head-butting Washington’s Enrico Ciccone. Brian Burke, league vice-president and disciplinarian-in-chief, had reviewed the Tampa video and was considering supplementary punishment. Gilmour was indignant. “It’s a joke. I’m going to get suspended for fighting? If I’m suspended, I’ll be really, really disappointed.”

Burke travelled to the Windy City for the hearing. Burns accompanied Gilmour to the grand inquisition. Judiciously, Burke deferred his decision, ensuring Gilmour would be in the lineup that night against the Blackhawks.

Game ten: Jinx broken, Leafs fearsome in a 4–2 victory. Potvin stopped forty-two shots according to the game sheet. Burns was skeptical. “If a fan gets hit in the head with a puck here, they count it as a shot.” Ten wins and counting, and the beat goes on. Up next: Montreal. The match was weighted with melodrama. Not only was this yet another return of Burns to the city of his debut fame, but Leafs-versus-Habs loomed as the Stanley Cup final Toronto had been denied in the spring, the storybook final that never was. “I helped build that team, though I don’t take credit for them winning the Stanley Cup,” said Burns, sounding as if he was doing exactly that. Jacques Demers could barely contain his excitement, wound up over the showdown between Potvin and Patrick Roy. “It’s like Sandy Koufax versus … versus … versus …” Stumped, his voice trailed off. He switched analogies. “It’s Joe Montana versus Dan Marino. That’s it. Montana versus Marino. It’s the cream of the crop. The best against the best. You can’t ask for better. On national TV! Wow. What a confrontation.”

Demers, who seemed always to be seeking Burns’s approval, no matter how many times smacked down, tried to pay his predecessor a compliment.
“Pat Burns has that team well programmed. There’s no luck involved. They are very, very well coached. He has taught them how to win. He’s one of the elite coaches in the league.” Burns, rudely, rejected the bouquet. “You don’t teach a team how to win. You teach them how to play better. They learn how to win on their own.”

Game eleven: They didn’t. Win, that is. Ex-Leaf Vincent Damphousse scored a hat trick as the Habs whipped the Leafs 5–3. Streak over. Fletcher mischievously reminded his coach about the displeasure he’d expressed over the London sojourn. “Ten-and-oh, Pat. Yup, a terrible training camp. Those wives and girlfriends must have been a real distraction.” Yet Burns was almost relieved when the streak ended. Now he could rightly revert to curmudgeon mode with something to groan about.

The coach was correct to have warned that what goes up inevitably comes down. The Leafs did get slumpish following their extraordinary start. Indeed, they finished the season fourteen games above .500, meaning they’d played only four games above .500 between The Streak and season’s end. Gilmour’s point production dropped drastically. At the trade deadline, Fletcher obtained speedy sharpshooter Mike Gartner from the Rangers for Glenn Anderson, but Toronto still stumbled through the final month. Burns occasionally employed a weird new tactic: perching at the locker stool of an underperforming Leaf. It wasn’t one of his more brilliant ideas. Clark, at least, needed no motivation; he had a career year with 46 goals in only 64 games. He and Dave Andreychuk combined for 99 goals, by far the highest total for any two wingers on one team that year.

Last match of the regular season, Toronto dominated the Blackhawks 6–4 in Chicago, and the Leafs finished second in the Central Division. The game was a playoff preview, as the ’Hawks would be their first-round opponent. In Chicago’s favour was goalie Eddie Belfour, who pretty much owned the Leafs, with a 16–6–4 lifetime record. But Belfour collapsed in the opener, allowing three soft goals as Toronto, as instructed by Burns,
fired a barrage of long-range artillery. Leafs easily pocketed a 5–1 victory. “Because we won 5–1, we should be overconfident?” the coach asked rhetorically, adhering to his underdog theory. It had been a bruising encounter nevertheless. The combined rapsheet read: hooking, hooking, cross-checking, elbowing, tripping, hooking, interference, tripping, roughing, roughing, slashing and roughing, spearing and game misconduct, hooking, fighting, fighting and game misconduct, fighting, fighting and game misconduct, roughing, slashing, cross-checking, interference, roughing.