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 Posté le: Jeu Oct 10, 2013 3:34 pm Sujet du message: s wit and wisdom didn&rsquo |
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Larry Brooks Follow Larry on Twitter Blog: Slap Shots He was the quintessential 21st-century coach who came to the NHL way before his time,[url=http://www.toms-shoes-sale.com]Toms Shoes Sale[/url], Fred Shero was. And now, after way too many times in which he was overlooked and downright snubbed by the Hall of Fame’s select voting committee, this utter giant behind the bench finally has gotten his due.Shero, who died in 1990 at age 65,[url=http://www.toms-shoes-sale.com]Toms Shoes Outlet[/url],[url=http://www.toms-shoes-sale.com]Toms Shoes Sale[/url], will be an honored member,[url=http://www.toms-shoes-sale.com]Cheap Toms[/url], elected yesterday with Chris Chelios,[url=http://www.toms-shoes-sale.com]Toms Shoes Outlet[/url], Scott Niedermayer, Brendan Shanahan and Geraldine Heaney. The honor, though, will be the NHL’s and the Hall of Fame’s, when the most brilliant of hockey minds that belonged to this charismatic, mysterious and flawed individual is formally inducted in November. The honor was mine as a journalist to know him when he coached the Rangers and then as colleague working with him when he came to the Devils as a radio commentator — full disclosure: my idea — in our first year in New Jersey in 1982-83, when I did PR for the team.We needed a name in our first year in New Jersey when the games were on WJRZ. Freddie was a name. We needed credibility. Freddie gave us credibility.Truth to be told, Shero’s wit and wisdom didn’t quite translate to the radio audience, the term “audience” used loosely. The ex-coach spent most of his time in the booth taking copious notes and diagramming plays. He would turn over the notes to Devils coach Billy MacMillan, who unfortunately was too threatened to study and learn from them. Unsolicited counsel was unwelcome advice. Shero left New Jersey and the broadcast booth after one season.Shero was a good, kind and generous man, even if, in Philadelphia, his teams were brutish as they swept across the league with a scorched-earth philosophy. The Flyers took no prisoners, only the pair of Stanley Cups in 1974 and ’75 that mark the only championships in franchise history.He was so far ahead of his time, one of the great coaching innovators in sports history. Who else? Casey Stengel? Paul Brown? Tom Landry? Red Auerbach? Shero went behind the Iron Curtain to learn and borrow from the hockey masters in the Soviet Union decades before the NHL incorporated such foreign concepts.He was the first to institute systems, the first to hire an assistant coach. He had his 1974 Flyers dump the puck into Bobby Orr’s corner and he had his 1979 Rangers do the same against Denis Potvin — first the Bruins went down in six in the finals and five years later the Islanders went down in six in the Cup semis.Sonny Werblin — who knew something about bringing marquee names to Broadway — hired Shero to coach the Rangers in 1978-79 in conjunction with signing Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson. The Blueshirts made it to the finals, but Freddie made it to New York too late.All of us who grew up using GO cards to get into the side balcony at the Old Garden before graduating to the blue seats in the new place have love in our hockey hearts for Emile Francis, we do.But The Cat blew it — he did — by not hiring Shero to coach the team in the late ’60s or early ’70s when Freddie was coaching in the system in Buffalo of the AHL and in Omaha of the CHL. Imagine. Just imagine how different Rangers history would be. There never would have been 54 years, that’s for sure.But Freddie had flaws. He had issues. Everyone knew it. Emile wouldn’t bring him to New York. They didn’t stop the Flyers from bringing him to Philadelphia. They didn’t stop him from turning the Flyers into champions. They didn’t stop him from making an indelible mark on the sport. It didn’t stop him from being beloved by those who came to know him.The Flyers won together and they walk together forever. Now Freddie walks into hockey’s forever. Into the Hall of Fame.larry.brooks@nypost.com Follow @NYPostsports
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