It’s nice to know John Tortorella doesn’t change.
The coach of Team USA in the World Cup of Hockey was asked about his scratches yesterday and he responded: “I’m not talking about my healthy scratches right now. That’ll be prior to the game.”
Nice to know there some comfort level up there in Toronto.
The coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets did talk in length about what it’s like to coach Team USA, which he said he was looking forward to working with for the past 14 months.
“For this coach, you’re dealing with the best players in the world in all the countries playing, the way we’ve tried to go about it right from the get-go,” he said. “And with (general manger) Dean (Lombardi), the manager of the team, and the scouts, and the 14-month process we went through to pick the team is I think to get your team to play under a team concept and have the identity that everybody buys into and be selfless while you’re doing it as a player, that is the most important thing.
“The X’s and O’s and all that, I think that’ll come into play, but I think how your team is interacting when the tournament starts and when there’s some adversity going on from within the game and game to game, and that’s a team concept. That’s a camaraderie. I think that’s going to be very important.
“We have talked about this from day one, 14 months ago, on how we want to go about our business to give us the best chance.”
Very well. Team USA has a great chance in this tournament and Tortorella is very comfortable with where this team is positioned.
“I think we’ve improved as we’ve gone through the three games and the practices,” Tortorella said. “The biggest battle I think probably for all coaches in the tournament here is how much you give them. You don’t want to paralyze them. It’s their tournament, quite honestly. It’s the players’ tournament. But where we’re at right now with another practice left tomorrow, I feel very comfortable as far as how we’ve gone about our business.”
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