NASHVILLE — Every time a coach addresses the media, there’s always a little pause while cameras adjust and recorders get set. That space usually lasts until the first question from a reporter breaks the ice, and away we go.
Today in Nashville, however, it was Predators coach Peter Laviolette who pierced the silence as he tried to tackle head on two issues that have come up in relation to him and hockey’s ongoing, rapid reckoning with the relationship between coaches and players.
“The first is that I used my position of power inside of a locker room to bully or ask players or challenge players to go out there and fight,” Laviolette said. “That couldn’t be anything further from truth.”
The suggestion Laviolette directed players to fight came from former NHLer Dan Carcillo, who played under Laviolette for both the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons when the latter was coach of the Philadelphia Flyers. Carcillo, a one-time scrapper who is on the front lines of raising awareness around brain trauma and the overall mental health of players and people, was on a local Nashville radio station on Wednesday when he said of Laviolette: “I mean, he was OK. There were a lot of things that annoyed me about him. He was one of the guys that liked to be the ‘rah rah’ guy, send you out to fight when you know that he never fought.”
The notion he directed or pressured players to go out and drop the gloves was something Laviolette categorically denied.
“Do I want my teams to play hard? Yes,” he said. “Do I want them to be physical? Yes. Is there fighting in the game? Yes, but there’s an insinuation that I would challenge players to go out there and do that — that is not true.”
What cannot be denied, though, is that on Feb. 18, 2011, Laviolette’s fist made contact with the helmet of another Flyers player, Ville Leino, while Leino was seated on the Philadelphia bench. The incident was captured on video and subsequently became an Internet GIF. ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski wrote a column on Friday that featured comments from Leino and the Finn had the following to say about that exchange: “There are lot of emotions in the game. Coaches get fired up and things happen. I don’t think Peter tried to hit me, and it looks worse in the video than it was.”
Laviolette’s explanation of the event went further.
“There’s an article that came out today that was brought to my attention about punching Ville Leino in the head,” he said. “In the scope of where we are right now in today’s world with regard to coaches, I can tell you that physical abuse from me is the furthest thing from the truth. That Ville Leino video clip in the GIF that shows me nicking his helmet and his helmet bobbing up and down over and over again…you can interpret it a whole bunch of different ways. For me, I had called a timeout, I was trying to get my team motivated and I went to punch my fist into my hand, I nicked the back of his helmet and by no means was it meant as any physical abuse nor have I ever had any physical abuse with the players.
“For the longest time I thought it was funny, watching the GIF play over and over again, knowing that [the idea I intentionally tried to hit him was] the furthest thing from the truth.”
Laviolette said what motivated him to speak on Friday was his understanding that hockey is having a moment right now trying to reconcile things coaches have said and done in the past with rapidly changing views on what’s appropriate within that relationship. It’s understood the racist remarks former Calgary Flames coach Bill Peters made to Akim Aliu when both were with the AHL’s Rockford Ice Hogs were awful and hurtful regardless of when they took place. In the aftermath, stories of coaches kicking or punching players have trickled out and Laviolette wished to make a distinction between the nature of some of those allegations and what happened between him and Leino.
“Just today, now that I’ve heard there’s been an article that talks about it and it has kind of been lumped in with what’s going on, I just wanted to get ahead of that,” Laviolette said. “Ville Leino said I apologized to him, I can’t even remember addressing it. If I did, that’s great because it’s something that was accidental.
“Again, I just wanted to get in front of these things because I think both statements are incorrect.”
Surely it won’t be long before we see another coach wearing a grim expression talking about something that’s flared up from the past. For his part, Laviolette just wanted to address those that have surfaced in relation to his name.
“It’s obviously a really hot topic right now,” he said. “I couldn’t even pretend to comment on any situation that I’ve not been a part of. The reason why I’m commenting on these ones is I know myself and I know how I’ve handled myself for almost 20 years as a coach.
“The statement about, kind of using my power to bully somebody into fighting, is simply wrong and false. The one that came out today [regarding Leino], like I said, you can see I nicked the back of his helmet. That’s been out there for a long time. If people really thought I was punching someone in the back of the head, that would have come forward a long time ago. Again, because of [where we’re at today], I’m just getting in front of it because what I’m speaking is from the heart and it’s the truth.”
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