When the firing of Pete DeBoer came down in Dallas today, it gave me a flashback to 28 years ago in Philly. We were down to the Detroit Red Wings in the Stanley Cup Final, three games to zero. Our head coach, Terry Murray said our team was in a “choking situation.”
It didn’t really bother me that much. Murph wasn’t wrong. The Red Wings were a better team than the Philadelphia Flyers. Were they THAT much better than us? No. It should have been a much more competitive series. Woulda, coulda,shoulda. It doesn’t matter. We got swept and deserved to get swept. We didn’t play well in three of the four games.
Murph was a good coach: one of the best I ever played for. Certainly one of the best teaching coaches I ever had. Our Flyers teams had pretty success under Terry. He’s also a good person. None of it matter. The “choking” comment cost Murray his job.
The reaction in our room after Terry’s comments was one of shock. Not anger, really. But it flopped as a motivation tactic. It was kind of demotivation, as it turned out.
Flash forward to 2025. Pete DeBoer is a really good coach. The Dallas Stars have had good overall success with him b’t tehind the bench. He seems like a decent enough guy, too. (I don’t know him well personally but colleagues who do say he’s a good, solid person). But now he’s out of a job. Why? Because of one ill-considered comment in a playoff series that was lost.
I gotta tell you: I’d never want to be a professional coach. It’s tough enough at the grassroots level. At the pro level, everyone is hired to be fired. What’s more, it doesn’t take much to go from “safe” to fired. It can happen in an instant. Pete DeBoer just learned that lesson the hard way, the same as Murph nearly 30 years ago.
