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Watching a head coach absolutely blow their top while arguing with a referee never really gets old—especially when you’re a fan of the team that was on the end of a questionable call from the official getting chewed out. However, the NHL seems to be going out of its way to cut down on those cathartic moments.
Hockey is known for attracting guys with an uncanny ability to deliver some devastating chirps and fiery tirades built on a foundation of strings of profanity, a reputation that applies to the players on the ice in addition to the coaches who patrol the benches.
The league is currently home to a number of skippers who are known for their short and violent tempers, as it’s not exactly rare to see guys like Rod Brind’Amour, John Tortorella, and Paul Maurice go absolutely nuclear if they feel they’ve been wronged by the refs tasked with keeping order.
According to The Athletic, the NHL held a rare gathering that saw all 32 coaches head to Chicago in September for a preseason meeting that was partially designed to get them up to speed on various rule changes prior to the start of the 2023-24 campaign.
When you consider those tweaks could’ve just as easily been communicated through a memo, many of the men in attendance had a feeling there was an ulterior motive, and those suspicions were eventually confirmed when they were treated to a video montage featuring “roughly 20 clips of the biggest names in the coaching ranks going off on officials.”
According to the people in attendance, that compilation was played before NHL commissioner Gary Bettman took center stage to remind coaches basically every word they utter on camera will be immortalized on the internet and analyzed by the likes of JomBoy and other aspiring lipreaders before asking them to tone things down as the new season approached.
Only time will tell if the message was taken to heart, but I selfishly hope that’s not the case.