Capitals fired Cassidy

[Valerie]

After being named coach of the Washington Capitals in 2002, Bruce Cassidy walked into the team's Piney Orchard training facility for his first official address to his new players. Standing in front of the team, he reached into his pocket and, as one player on the squad at the time recounted, pulled out a paper napkin.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54534-2003Dec10.html

[Myers57]

sorry cant read it, it asks personal information before you read the article...

[Valerie]

Oh, sorry. I don't think I'm allowed to post the whole article. But I'll post part of it.

After being named coach of the Washington Capitals in 2002, Bruce Cassidy walked into the team's Piney Orchard training facility for his first official address to his new players. Standing in front of the team, he reached into his pocket and, as one player on the squad at the time recounted, pulled out a paper napkin.

On it were some hand-written notes Cassidy had jotted down before the session.

"It was bad right from the start," this former Capital said. "He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and started writing stuff on the blackboard. Everyone was just kind of looking at each other. We didn't know what was going on. It looked like he was winging it. He had all summer to prepare for this day and it looked like he didn't know what he was doing. Guys started to worry right away."

The meeting proved prophetic. The chasm between Cassidy and his team visible that day grew over the 15 months that followed until the club fired him yesterday, 28 games into his second season. The team named assistant coach Glen Hanlon as Cassidy's replacement.

The firing came less than a week after Cassidy felt moved to apologize to the team's veterans, irate over remarks he had made questioning whether their family lives were affecting their play.

Capitals officials yesterday defended their decision to hire Cassidy, the second-youngest coach in the league who was 37 at the time of his appointment, had no prior NHL experience as a head or assistant coach and had played only 37 games in the league as a defenseman with Chicago. Even so, the choice of Cassidy stands out as another in a series of personnel moves by the club over the past several years that have backfired and led to this woeful season in which the team is tied for the fewest points in the league.

The hiring of Cassidy, which surprised many in the hockey world, was based on his success in the minor leagues. General Manager George McPhee and owner Ted Leonsis praised Cassidy's bright young hockey mind, his ability to relate to players and his instincts for adapting his style of play to his personnel.

"I saw a young guy who came highly recommended by some people I admired," McPhee said, adding that the firing was based only on the team's record and performance. "I talked to a lot of people in the business about him and he had done a nice job at every level and was climbing the ladder and was successful at every level he coached in and he came in here and did a nice job" getting Washington to the playoffs last season.

Cassidy declined to comment on player relations or any other specifics of his coaching tenure last night other than to say, "As a head coach, you're paid to win. And I didn't win enough this year."

Cassidy ended up struggling to communicate with players or get them to embrace his tactics. He was brought in because the players needed a new message after having tuned out Ron Wilson after five years. But a squad filled with multi-millionaires -- including some of the league's biggest stars -- never seemed to tune Cassidy in.

"I don't think the players responded quite as good as we should have with Butch for whatever reason that is," goalie Olaf Kolzig said, using the team's nickname for Cassidy. "Some coaches seem to fit better for a team than others, and there's never a perfect coach out there -- every coach has some fault -- and every player has faults. Nobody is perfect, but for whatever reason he just didn't mesh with our team. . .

Here's the link again. I answered the question and copied the link after it opened. Maybe it will work now.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54534-2003Dec10.html

[JD]

Worked fine for me the first time Jaded.

[Myers57]

thanks for posting the whole article! :D