In his Hockey Hall-of-Fame career, legendary defenseman Paul Coffey thrived as an elite offense-minded blueliner. And in this exclusive interview with THN, editor-in-chief Bob McKenzie spoke to Coffey weeks after his final game as an Edmonton Oiler.
Legendary NHL defenseman Paul Coffey jumped back into the NHL scene this season when he joined the Edmonton Oilers as an associate coach. And in this cover story from THN’s September 18, 1987 edition (Vol. 40, Issue 40), editor-in-chief Bob McKenzie travelled to Montreal to speak with Coffey for an exclusive interview.
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Twenty-five years old at the time the story was published, Coffey was already an incredible performer. However, the 1986-87 season would be his final year playing for Edmonton. In November of 1987, he was traded with Dave Hunter and Wayne Van Dorp to the Pittsburgh Penguins for Craig Simpson, Moe Mantha, Dave Hannan and Chris Joseph. There had been rumors of a deal to the Pens well before the trade actually happened, and Coffey understood that being traded came along with pro sports.
“I think I’ve always accepted that (the possibility of a trade) as part of the game,” Coffey said. “I heard the Pittsburgh rumor. My initial reaction was, ‘Oh, boy, I don’t want to go anywhere.’ But then the more you think about it, hey, if my time is up in Edmonton, if I’ve spent seven good years there, but now they don’t want me to play hockey anymore, that’s fine. You treat it as a mature person and realize it’s a business.”
Coffey won his third Stanley Cup as an Oiler in 1987, and he told McKenzie that particular championship was especially important to him.
“It was probably a better feeling than winning the other two Cups,” Coffey said of the 1987 Cup win.” I guess that was because the year was so tough. Just knowing that the year was over, it was May 31 and we’d won another Stanley Cup, it was probably the best one for me. I think a lot of the other guys would say the same thing because it was a tough year for all of us.
The year before, losing to Calgary (in the 1986 playoffs) was a big thing. Then, this past season we lost six, tied one and won one against Calgary. People said if we met them in the playoffs, we’d lose. Well, people will never know what would have happened because we never met them, but we still won the Stanley Cup and that’s the bottom line.”
Coffey retired in 2001 as a clear-cut, first-ballot Hockey Hall-of-Famer. He was fortunate in many respects to play alongside other hockey idols in Edmonton, Pittsburgh and Detroit, but his ability to adapt to new teammates no matter where he played was one of the main reasons he was and is revered in hockey circles. He was humble, but he was also one of the most talented players ever to grace a sheet of ice.
“If I played on a team like Pittsburgh with a great player like Mario Lemieux, I think it would be great,” Coffey told McKenzie in a harbinger-like statement. “Or Detroit with Steve Yzerman or Winnipeg with Dale Hawerchuk. And a lot of times during the year, I don’t play that much with Wayne (Gretzky) anyway. Playing on the Oilers definitely helps me, but it helps everybody.”
COFFEY BREAK
By Bob McKenzie
September 18, 1987
He has won three Stanley Cups, two Norris Trophies, one Canada Cup and was busy shooting for a second in just seven years as a pro. Edmonton Oiler Paul Coffey is not only considered one of the National Hockey League’s premier defensemen, but one of hockey’s all-time offensive stars. He has been touted as a 1980s version of Bobby Orr.
Still, the 26-year-old native of Malton, Ont. (just outside Toronto), heads into the 1987-88 season the subject of much debate and controversy, due largely to an uneasy alliance with Oiler general manager-coach Glen Sather.
THN Editor-in-Chief Bob McKenzie went to Montreal in mid-August, during Team Canada’s Canada Cup training camp, to talk to Coffey about the coming season.
THN: Minutes after winning the Stanley Cup last May, you were heard in the dressing room wondering if that had been your final game as an Edmonton Oiler. Do you think you have a future with the Oilers?
COFFEY: I would like to think so. Last year was a tough year for me, communications-wise, with Glen (Sather), but hopefully that will be water under the bridge come the start of this season. We didn’t really get a chance to talk too much at the end of the season. We’ll set up a meeting at training camp to talk over a few things.
THN: Obviously there is friction between you and Sather. Is it a one-year problem or does it date back further than that?
COFFEY: I don’t know…I mean, everybody has their ideas, you know, that a coach is the boss and he is paid to coach and the player is paid to play. A lot of things were said that hurt me personally, different things that were said in the newspaper.
THN: Only in this past season? ‘
COFFEY: Well, mostly. There was stuff said before, but most of it was justifiable stuff, trying-to-get-a-player-going stuff. Some of the stuff this year, though, I just didn’t really like it. I just wanted to voice my opinion and talk to Glen about it.
THN: What specifically did Sather say that you didn’t like?
COFFEY: I don’t really want to bring it up again. We (Coffey and Sather) both know what it was.
Ed. Note—After the third game of the 198687 season, a 5-3 loss to Winnipeg in which Coffey and defense partner Charlie Huddy were on for three goals against, Sather singled out Coffey for his poor play. Sather told reporters: “Paul isn’t playing as well as he’s capable of…you can’t defend guys when they ‘re playing bad. If he is, he’s got to own up to it. He’s always been a slow starter as long as he’s been here. I told him in Montreal (second game of the season) it would be interesting to see how good he’d be if he played October and November like the rest of the season.”
Coffey, when informed of Sather’s remarks, responded angrily to reporters: “Pointing fingers is a pretty shallow thing to do. I’m getting sick of it. Seven years I’ve been here and it’s the same thing, game in and game out. lean see it if I’m 20 years old but I should be treated differently now. I feel good but this is crap that I don’t need. “
THN: Other than this past season, has your relationship with Sather been good?
COFFEY: Yeah, I have a lot of respect for Glen. I think in the seven years I’ve been there, I’ve definitely learned a lot from him, both on and off the ice. But there are times when in the player-coach relationship you don’t see eye to eye.
THN: Your name has popped up more frequently in trade rumors. For example, there was a report recently out of Pittsburgh that had you going to the Penguins for Doug Bodger and a couple of other players. Is trade talk something you might expect more now than you would have in the past?
COFFEY: I think I’ve always accepted that (the possibility of a trade) as part of the game. I heard the Pittsburgh rumor. My initial reaction was, ‘Oh, boy, I don’t want to go anywhere.’ But then the more you think about it, hey, if my time is up in Edmonton, if I’ve spent seven good years there, but now they don’t want me to play hockey anymore, that’s fine. You treat it as a mature person and realize it’s a business.
THN: It was obviously a tough year for you personally. What about the atmosphere on the team as a whole, was it different than in other years?
COFFEY: I think it was (different). My situation revolved around my back injury. Nothing was said out loud but a few people might have thought it wasn’t as serious as it was and when I was playing I wasn’t putting out 100 per cent.
But we, as a team, have had a tough time, too. In the last four years we’ve won three Stanley Cups, which has been great, but losing to Calgary (in the 1986 playoffs) made it pretty difficult.
That’s why last year we had such a tough year, always trying to prove ourselves. It was a grind at times because no matter what we did, none of it really mattered until we won the Cup.
THN: You mentioned the back injury. Even though you went on to win the Cup, was it the worst year of your career?
COFFEY: Yeah, I played 59 games, ended up with 67 points (including 17 goals), which is better than a point a game, but sitting out was rough. I would get rolling for three or four games, start getting some momentum and then I’d have a bad game because of my back. I should have rested it, but I didn’t want to lose the momentum. I kept on playing. It was stupid. If I had to do it all over again, I would have taken three weeks off in November and really rested it…It got so I couldn’t bend over, put on my socks or shoes. My back would go into spasm and all the muscles in my back would start contracting all at once.
THN: It must have been difficult to deal with.
COFFEY: Yes, it was. My advice to any other player who goes through something like that is that he should just get out of town, get away from hockey completely. If the doctor says it’s going to take two or three weeks, you’re better off going as far away from the game as possible.
THN: Did you ever think it might be a career-threatening injury?
COFFEY: Definitely. All those things went through my mind. It was scary, really scary.
THN: Given all the pain and the ups and downs of the season, how much satisfaction did you derive from the Stanley Cup victory?
COFFEY: It was probably a better feeling than winning the other two Cups. I guess that was because the year was so tough. Just knowing that the year was over, it was May 31 and we’d won another Stanley Cup, it was probably the best one for me. I think a lot of the other guys would say the same thing because it was a tough year for all of us.
The year before, losing to Calgary (in the 1986 playoffs) was a big thing. Then, this past season we lost six, tied one and won one against Calgary. People said if we met them in the playoffs, we’d lose. Well, people will never know what would have happened because we never met them, but we still won the Stanley Cup and that’s the bottom line.
THN: After being eliminated by the Flames in 1986, Sather was very critical of the Oiler players. His refrain at the time was that the coaching staff told the players what to do, but they didn’t follow instructions. One theory is that’s when your problems with Sather really began.
COFFEY: I am a firm believer that you win as a team and lose as a team and every time you point one finger, there are three of them coming back at you. I think we won the Stanley Cup this year as a team and if we had lost it, it would have been as a team, too. That’s what happened against Calgary. They played good, good hockey against us. We just weren’t running on all eight cylinders for some reason, which I still can’t explain. But some days you go to work, you just don’t feel too good. We’re not robots. We picked a bad time to have a slump.
THN: Then came the Sports Illustrated story that, among other things, said unnamed members of the Oilers were using cocaine. Did the story have a big impact on you with your friends and family?
COFFEY: Yeah, it did. First and foremost, I was defensive about it. They (Sports Illustrated) were speculating. To this day, I think it was a crock. I don’t think any of it was true. Here was a guy (co-author Don Ramsay) who was trying to break a big story. It surprises me that a great magazine like Sports Illustrated would get involved in something like that and then not have a follow-up story with all the facts. To me, they just proved it wasn’t true, otherwise they would have had all the facts in the next issue.
THN: It all must have made for a very difficult summer.
COFFEY: Yeah, especially when people said the reason you lost was because members of our team, good friends of mine, were on cocaine. But as a professional athlete, those are things you have to deal with. You can’t run and hide from stuff like that. You do your best to explain things, but if people don’t understand or choose not to believe you, well then that’s tough, too bad for them.
THN: By contrast, this has been a good summer.
COFFEY: Yes, but if we hadn’t won the Cup, I don’t think our team would be the same right now. One of our big gunners would be gone. They (management) would have been forced to make a big move. But knowing that helps us as a team. In big games, we say to each other, ‘Win this one or they’ll be breaking us up.’ We had to win.
Like, Philadelphia, even though they lost, they were well accepted by their fans. If we had lost, we would have had to sneak out of town. And somebody, maybe me, would have been gone by now to another team.
THN: If you were traded, do you think you would be nearly as effective with another team as you are with the Oilers?
COFFEY: It depends on how the team would want you to play. If I played on a team like Pittsburgh with a great player like Mario Lemieux, I think it would be great. Or Detroit with Steve Yzerman or Winnipeg with Dale Hawerchuk. And a lot of times during the year, I don’t play that much with Wayne (Gretzky) anyway. Playing on the Oilers definitely helps me, but it helps everybody. Wayne will tell you that. He’s not going to get 200 points playing with anybody else. He’d get close to it. but…
THN: If you were going to pick your NHL all-star team, a goalie, two defensemen and three forwards, who would they be?
COFFEY: Grant Fuhr in goal, Ray Bourque and Mark Howe on defense, Wayne (Gretzky) at center, Jari Kurri on right wing. Left wing-…hmmmmm…I would take Mark Messier. Is that allowed?
Ed. Note—Messier is ordinarily a center.
THN: It’s your team.
COFFEY: Messier it is then.
THN: At the NHL awards banquet a couple of years ago, you made an interesting remark to describe what kind of person Wayne Gretzky is. Do you remember it?
COFFEY: Yeah. I think a lot of people misunderstand Wayne because a lot of the times he’s nervous in crowds, out in public. There are some people he doesn’t trust for different reasons, not people he knows, but because he’s a figure who people may take potshots at.
I have a simple definition for Wayne: He’s a better person than he is a hockey player.
THN: At what age did you realize you had a shot at playing professional hockey?
COFFEY: I was playing for the Toronto Young Nats in my first year of midget, 15 years old, and I didn’t have a clue about junior hockey or how to get there. I just played. I remember going to a game and someone on the team saying, ‘There are Toronto Marlie scouts in the crowd tonight.’ I still remember to this day saying, ‘Scouts? What do you mean?’ I had no clue about how you got to play junior.
I remember talking to my dad in the car on the way home and trying to find out what went on. At that time, I was a half-decent skater and thought I would have a shot at it if I gave it my all. It turned out I did.
THN: When you played junior hockey in Kitchener and Rod Seiling was the coach, didn’t he once tell you that you would never make it as a pro?
COFFEY: Not exactly. We had a meeting at the end of the year, but it wasn’t as bad as it’s been made out to be in the last couple of years. He just said everything opposite to what I had heard. He said that to be a pro I needed to work on my skating and my shooting and that my defensive play was good enough. I didn’t know what to believe because everybody had always told me the opposite of that. Rod had played 16 years in the NHL, he knew his hockey, so I didn’t know what to think. I wondered if he was talking to the right guy.
THN: How do you spend the off-season?
COFFEY: I do as little as possible. The last few years, the season has been so long. I just go to my cottage (in the Muskoka region north of Toronto) and do absolutely nothing for a month. It takes me that long to unwind, especially this year when it went to seven games in the final and we didn’t finish until May 31. Let me tell you something, you can never, not in a sudden-death Canada Cup final or anything else, experience the pressure of the seventh game of a Stanley Cup final. It takes you a month just to get your appetite back after that.
THN: Are you optimistic you’ll be able to work out your differences with Glen Sather and start the season with a clean slate?
COFFEY: Yeah, we’ll have our little chat and I’m sure we can work things out. I just want to play hockey. I don’t want to be treated any differently than the next guy, no better, no worse. All I want to do is play hockey. That’s it.
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