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2048

"I am placing a personal bounty on..."

By 2048, in NHL Discussions

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Ogie Oglethorpe    14

Ogie Oglethorpe
Posted
the head of Kevin Kerr. Says Reg Dun...err Steve Shannon

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=1997120

I saw this and mentioned it on the Slapshot thread (as I thought of the same thing

the head of Kevin Kerr. Says Reg Dun...err Steve Shannon

http://sports.espn.go.com/nhl/news/story?id=1997120

I agree with Kerr on criticizing NHL players who play in the UHL.

I sooooo agree with you there. The NHL'rs will ostricize any "scab" who plays as a replacement (and likely come close to killing them on the ice), but it's OK for them to do essentially the same thing in Europe or the minors? So very hypocrytical.

I have curly hair can I be Ogie?

ogie23wl.jpg

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JR Boucicaut    3797

JR Boucicaut
Posted

From the NY Times this morning:

Steve and the Mechanics: Over the Top in the Minors

By JOE LAPOINTE

Published: February 27, 2005

FRASER, Mich., Feb. 26 - Moments before the opening face-off Friday night, some Motor City Mechanics fans threw a dozen rolls of Bounty paper towels on the ice in the Flint Generals' zone.

"Was that hilarious or what?" said Steve Shannon, the suspended coach of the Mechanics, who watched from the owner's box.

The litter was in sympathy for Shannon, who was suspended for the season by the United Hockey League, which said he had offered his players a $200 bounty to injure a Flint player on Feb. 2. Shannon denies the accusation.

That was before Shannon's first game as a professional coach. After eight games, he was removed by Richard Brosal, the president and chief executive of the salary-capped U.H.L.

"This man is a menace," Brosal said in a telephone interview. "He is deplorable. He made a mockery of all coaches. He deserved what he got and then some. This gentleman is a disgrace to hockey."

The alleged bounty, and Shannon's subsequent suspension, were part of a month that will live in infamy for this sport. At the highest level, the National Hockey League canceled its entire schedule during a lockout that began before training camp. The Shannon affair was an indirect result of the lockout.

Shannon, 54, is a retired Detroit police officer who had no professional coaching experience. But he is a dedicated recreational player and an amateur coach who helped recruit several idle N.H.L. players to the Mechanics, a suburban team that works a side street in Hockeytown, home of the revered Red Wings. The first was defenseman Derian Hatcher of the Wings, with whom Shannon had been skating.

While delivering Hatcher, Shannon also convinced Walter Cohen, the first-year owner of the expansion franchise, that he could coach the last-place team better than Garry Unger, a veteran coach and a former N.H.L. star. All parties agree this happened.

After Hatcher and his Detroit teammate Chris Chelios joined the Mechanics with Shannon as coach, Flint's Kevin Kerr - whose 670 goals are a career record for a minor league professional - complained about major league players taking minor league jobs.

"A little whiney," is how Shannon described Kerr. And the Mechanics faced Flint next.

According to the league, Shannon's assistant, John Blum, offered $50 to the first player to deliver a hard check and $100 if the target was Kerr.

"Then Steve Shannon said: 'Forget that. Here's $200 to whoever goes out and takes him out and puts him out of the game,' " Brosal said, citing testimony from 14 players interviewed by Brad Jones, vice president of the league.

Brosal said that when Shannon left the room, Hatcher stood up and told his teammates: "No. This will not be done." When asked about this on Friday, Hatcher winced, shook his head and said: "Everything got blown out of proportion a little bit. I really don't want to talk about it."

Shannon's version is that he told his players: "Play hard. Play tough."

"I never once said, 'Hurt a player,' O.K.?" he added. "I never put a bounty on anybody."

Kerr sustained a broken elbow from a legal check in the game. The league suspended Blum for 10 games.

Shannon said his players testified against him in a conspiracy with Unger, the director of hockey operations, so he could return to the bench. Unger said Friday that many players disliked Shannon and had told him to trade them if Shannon stayed.

Unger said Shannon had ordered him out of the dressing room and had snubbed all players except the four N.H.L. arrivals. (The others are Bryan Smolinski and Sean Avery.)

"He was out of his element," Unger said of Shannon. "He was in over his head."

Shannon said that he had retained a lawyer and that new evidence and testimony would vindicate him.

He spoke in a coffee shop in Birmingham, Mich., north of Detroit, the conversation ambling for an hour. Shannon, who is 5 feet 9 inches, 180 pounds and fit, has a scarred nose and blue-gray eyes. His hair, gray at the sides, is full, bristly and combed back. He said he could coach in the N.H.L. "without a doubt; without question."

Shannon first coached a youth team in 1972, the year he joined the police force. He retired in 1991 on a medical disability pension because of a knee injury. Shannon said he played in seven games a week before he became the Mechanics' coach.

"It's my whole life," he said of hockey. "Literally, my whole life."

On a recent vacation to Minnesota with his girlfriend, Shannon said, he went to a rink by himself for 30 minutes to watch 5-year-olds play. His girlfriend told him, "You're crazy,"' Shannon said with a tight smile that he flashed often.

When he got the Mechanics job, he said, his friends joked, "You don't know what you're doing."

He said he told Blum that he could play on the team as well as coach it. "Blummer thinks I'm crazy," Shannon said. "I've always been a leader. I ran the narcotics crew."

He spoke rapidly, with a frequent staccato laugh that was loud and long. After one burst, his mood shifted suddenly when he told of his former youth players, now adults, who had called him to voice their support. Shannon reached for a napkin to wipe his eyes.

Trying to explain the grip of hockey on him, Shannon said: "This is it. This calls me in." He said coaching a professional team was "a dream come true."

At midweek, Shannon said, "I've been sitting back and taking it and we'll see." He passed time by shopping for new hockey videos, including one by Don Cherry. By Friday, he had called the league to protest the suspension.

He said Brosal responded by threatening to bar him from every building in the U.H.L. and from every other league.

"I don't get it," Shannon said, shaking his head and watching his former team win, 3-2, for Unger before a standing-room-only crowd of 3,110 at the Garage. "I really don't get it."

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enukis    0

enukis
Posted

i love the fact that derian hatcher allegedly stood up and told his teammates not to go after that player.

isnt derian hatcher known for wearing elbow pads with hard caps so that when he elbows people in the head it causes injury?

and dont get me wrong, im a red wings fan and i like derian hatcher. this just seems a little ironic.

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Chadd    916

Chadd
Posted
i love the fact that derian hatcher allegedly stood up and told his teammates not to go after that player.

isnt derian hatcher known for wearing elbow pads with hard caps so that when he elbows people in the head it causes injury?

and dont get me wrong, im a red wings fan and i like derian hatcher. this just seems a little ironic.

It's pretty bad when Derian Hatcher is the voice of reason in your locker room.

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Hipster    5

Hipster
Posted

Wow. That Mechanics coach sounds like a psycho. And how does the owner hand over the head coaching job to some weekend warrior and pull the plug on Gary Unger? Its like a scene from "Slapshot" or something.

With veteran NHL players coming on board, you can't have some knucklehead, tough guy wannabe coach out there. Its like an accident waiting to happen...which it did. Sometimes our sport really gives itself a black eye.

I'm watching the Canada/USA Gold medal game from the last Olympics, now. Its too bad they all can't be good solid games like that one.

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