Category Archives: John Tortorella
Best unseen All-Star moments–the wonderful things the players, and especially John Tortorella, did for a Make-A-Wish boy from Chicago.
— james duthie (@tsnjamesduthie) January 29, 2012
“@displacednewfie: What did he do for the little boy?” Torts took him into the rooms and on the bench for Skills. Gave him nite of his life.
— james duthie (@tsnjamesduthie) January 29, 2012
In the NY Post, Justin Terranova asks NBC’s Pierre McGuire five questions about the local teams and the NHL.
On how it is to deal with John Tortorella during those awkard on the bench interviews, McGuire said:
John and I have worked together at TSN in Canada. We coached against each other a lot in the 90’s when we were assistants. He’s been nothing but great to deal with from my perspective, and he’s given me nothing but professional and courteous answers.
This video is from January 16th of this year
On Hockey Night Live this past Saturday, EJ Hradek talked about how John Tortorella has pushed all of the right buttons for the Rangers this season.
Kan Danekyo talked about how Tortorella holds the Rangers to a high standard and how they have responded to that.
Brian Boyle told Katie Strang at ESPN NY, “He pushes us to get out of our comfort zones and become better players. I think that’s a good thing. I think we’ve come a long way with him as our coach. “
While surfing around the NY Post archives recently I came across this quote from Larry Brooks, in 2007, about a soon to be unemployed coach:
Whichever team hires John Tortorella after he, too, is dismissed by the next owner (if not sooner), will be getting one of the elite coaches in all the land
In a recent 30 Thoughts, Elliotte Friedman quoted a GM as saying, “Say what you want, but the Rangers play hard for him.”
Also in his 30 Thoughts column, Friedman writes that the reason John Tortorella has been successful so far is because of his position to treat everyone on the team the same way.
He also writes that Tortorella leaving the locker room to the teams leadership team is another thing that the players like about him.
I thought that was a nice little find about Torts from a column after Tampa started a big change over. I really do think that he is one of the best coaches in the league and that when he gets players to buy in and listen to him, his teams win. I look around the league and there aren’t many coaches I would pick over him.
At ESPN.com, they pick John Tortorella as the top contender for this years Jack Adams Award in their Trophy Tracker.
They look at how the team has dealt with the distractions of going to Europe, playing on the road before MSG was ready, HBO and the injuries to players like Marc Staal.
Other coaches mentioned are Ken Hitchcock and Claude Julien. Tortorella won the award in 2003-04.
I thought he had a shot at being nominated last year, until they started to slide down the stretch, but he will be a lock if the team keeps playing like this. I think that Ken Hitchcock will get a lot of support since he took over a Blues team that was struggled and turned them around.
No Ranger coach has ever won the award.
Darren Dreger tweets that John Tortorella has been fined $30,000 for his comments about the referees after the Winter Classic.
More on his comments here and here.
- Kay says that he thinks Tortorella looks like Fonzie and someone who can do know wrong.
- On his comments, he said that he was too sarcastic and shouldn’t have gone where he did with his comments.
- He emphasizes that it was tongue and cheek and that he didn’t mean to bring the integrity of the game in.
- Torts says “damn right” when asked if he liked that the cameras were out and the Winter Classic was over.
- Tortorella says that his feelings on 24/7 and people in the locker room couldn’t interfere with the organization being in the Winter Classic game. “my stubbornness can’t get in the way of that” He says that it was a great experience
- On the cameras, Torts says the he didn’t censor or limit himself. He says that the cameras really blended in and that he always went about his business. Torts says that he always found out who was mic’d during practice and that he stayed away from them so as not to be on camera.
Update: 5:10PM: Darren Dreger tweets that the fine given to John Tortorella for his comments on the referees following the Winter Classic is “significant”
Update: 12:38PM
Tortorella apologizes for what he thought were tongue in cheek remarks. “I tainted the Classic with my mouth, and I shouldn’t have.”
— Pat Leonard (@NYDNRangers) January 4, 2012
John Tortorella has apologized for his comments about the Winter Classic at practice today. He said he was sarcastic and wrong.#rangers
— Michelle Yu (@MichelleYuSNY) January 4, 2012
Tortorella told Chris Botta and Katie Strang that he spoke with Flyers GM Paul Holmgren about the comments, Colin Campbell and will apologize to the referees in person.
Update: 3:59PM:
No decision expected until tomorrow at earliest on likely NHL punishment for Torts for post-game comments. Thinking fine not suspension.
— Andrew Gross (@AGrossRecord) January 3, 2012
Original Post: Katie Strang of ESPN NY tweets that John Tortorella is expected to be fined for his comments during his post game news conference about the referees.
On the NHL Network, Tortorella said “I’m not sure if NBC got together with the refs or what to turn this into an overtime game. With two good refs I thought the game was reffed horribly. I’m not sure what happened. Maybe they wanted to get into overtime. I’m not sure if they had meetings about that or what. Again they are good guys I just thought tonight it was disgusting in the third period.”
Thought it was obvious Tortorella was kidding about an NBC conspiracy. Officiating was awful. The coach should not be fined.
— Chris Botta (@ChrisBottaNHL) January 3, 2012
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