The New Sheriff in Town

It was just over a month ago when former assistant Greg Ireland was handed the reins as the Griffins’ head coach. With his retooled and re-energized team in full gallop for the playoffs, the man they call “G.I.” sat down for a lengthy chat this week to discuss life as the team’s new trail boss.


Griff Notes: Describe what life has been like for you since Feb. 10, from the emotions of that day to everything that’s happened since.

Ireland: That day was mostly about being taken aback and surprised - certainly feeling for Danton, and obviously trying to regroup my thoughts and see what direction we were going to go. The next few days were spent formulating a plan and getting over the emotions, coming to grips with the fact that we had two short months to really get going and put the team where we wanted it to be.

We didn’t have time to think about emotions or a timeline to get ready; we just had to jump in and stabilize. There were a lot of things that we really wanted to make sure our guys were paying attention to. I think, more than anything, it was reining in where we were at, making it really simple and showing the players that I wasn’t going to be much different than I had been in the role of the assistant. But I was going to hold everyone accountable within the framework of what we were trying to accomplish.

Griff Notes: The roster since then has changed pretty dramatically, with a lot of guys – Eric Manlow chief among them - coming back from injuries and the additions of Mark Eaton and Jeff Panzer. What impact has this influx had on the team and what you’ve been able to do as a coaching staff?

Ireland: It’s been great. Number one, it creates some competition for jobs. When you have a bare-bones roster or have guys out, I think some people get really comfortable in terms of their role and how they’re playing. You know, you can preach to guys that you want them to do certain things, but at the end of the day – when they’re cutting corners or don’t get it done, or they’re trying and it just doesn’t work – you don’t have a lot of options. You can’t go to Plan B.

I think, deep down, players realize that and get into a comfort zone. Having guys come back has created that competition. One of the things is, I feel for them too. I’m a fan, and I know fans get attached to players. They see them, they’re good guys, and they see them out of the lineup and want them in there. They don’t always see the behind-the-scenes things. We as a coaching staff and management have to make decisions based on what’s best for the team.

Having a few extra bodies has been a real plus for us. Obviously we’re better rested, we have some competition for jobs, and certainly it makes guys go that much harder.

Griff Notes: Outside of personnel, what kind of changes have you implemented as a head coach?

Ireland: It’s a little bit different going from being the assistant of a team to being the head coach. It’s very easy to be the assistant. You’re the good guy all the time and you play that role. You’re not seen as a decision maker, even though you are. Danton was very good at making me a part of everything and giving a lot of responsibility, but it’s the perception [people have]. If you all of a sudden turn over and become a tyrant, players can see through it. You have to be yourself. I’m the type of guy who’s very intense, yet I like to enjoy the game. It’s a lot of fun, but we have to pick our spots. I want guys to realize that there’s a time to have fun and a time to bear down and get going. When you’re winning and you’re working hard, that makes the game fun. You can enjoy those times.

One of the things we’ve tried to implement – we did tweak the system at the edges. We tried [the system], we thought it was a good plan, but it just wasn’t working. So we tweaked a little bit there, that’s been a change, number one. Number two is accountability. Having more guys back has allowed us to set the standard and say that there’s a certain work ethic, a certain structure of things that we are willing to accept.

I’ve tried to be really consistent in terms of making people accountable. We’ve really hammered on guys in terms of the discipline on the ice, not taking the extra slash – we’re still dealing with that. Not yapping at referees. Our work ethic in terms of practice. We’ve really tried to create a situation in practice where there are a lot more battle drills down low. Guys are learning that what we do all week will dictate what we do in game situations on the weekend.

Griff Notes: How did you get into coaching?

Ireland: My first experience was after playing midget hockey in my hometown. My friend’s dad owned the local junior team. He approached a few of us who had played together and said they needed some guys to coach their atom or squirt-level teams. We didn’t know what we were doing. We just jumped in, but we enjoyed it. My friend and I actually won the championship that first year, and we were maybe five years older than the guys that we coached.

We had a lot of fun. We just kind of dabbled. There weren’t enough coaches in town who could help out, so they wanted to get some of the guys who were still playing involved and repay the system. When I went to university I sustained an injury, and I jumped in as a coach at the high school level. That was it - I fell in love with it. There’s a lot of satisfaction in watching players develop, and the ups and downs of the wins fed my competitive spirit. I looked in the mirror and said I’m not the biggest guy but I do have a good understanding of the game, and this was the direction I wanted to go.

I never thought I’d be coaching in the AHL, but as the years wore on I had some success.

Griff Notes: You’re the first Griffins head coach who has not played the game professionally. Certainly that’s not a prerequisite – there’s a guy named Scotty Bowman who did pretty well – but has that made any difference in your career, either how you approach the game or how you’re viewed by players?

Ireland: I think it has, both positively and negatively. There are a lot of us – Mike Keenan, Bowman, Dick Todd, Ken Hitchcock, some great guys. Roger Nielson is [another]. You try to look up to them, learn from them and emulate them as you’re coming up the ladder. Yet there are also a lot of great coaches that have played the game, and so what I think I’ve learned more than anything is that I don’t think there’s any one path.

Everyone’s path is different. I don’t think there’s a right way or a wrong way for ownership to look at a guy. Just because you played doesn’t make you a good coach. I think you’ve got to look at the individual and their track record and where they’re going. What I’ve realized is that to overcome that label, I’d better be the hardest working guy. I’d better know my Xs and Os inside and out, and I have to do things that much better and that much harder than the guy that has played. I’ve always tried to realize that it’s not a stigma, it’s just the way things are - and I understand that. I’ve tried to make sure that I’ve not left any stone unturned as a coach. Maybe that’s fighting the odds, but that’s what’s gotten me to this point.

Another thing is that I’m not an “ego” guy. There’s really no reason to be one. I’m very proud of the coaching record I’ve had, but I also realize a large part of it is because of the players I’ve been able to get. I’ve been a very good recruiter and have been able to get in very good situations. Yet on the other side, I’ve worked hard to make sure I’ve taken advantage of those situations.

Griff Notes: The Greg Ireland that many fans see now behind the bench, or whom they’ve seen over the past year and a half, could almost be described as mild-mannered. But obviously, there’s a fierce passion that you have that you don’t always wear on your sleeve. What should Griffins fans know about your personality?

Ireland: I’m kind of glad to hear that people look at me as mild-mannered. Looking in the mirror and trying to get better and emulate people that I respect—the Ken Hitchcocks, Roger Neilsons, Scotty Bowmans of the world—I used to be known as a bit of a firecracker. I wore my intensity and my emotions too much on my sleeve.

I remember putting out a little survey to my team anonymously at the end of one year, and I asked them what they thought my strengths and weaknesses as a coach were. Both of them came back as my intensity. I’ve worked really hard at reining my emotions in and being calm and cool on the exterior, while trying to keep that intensity level.

I think I’ve come a long way and I’m working at it, but I’m a very fiery, passionate guy. I’ve always said that it’s because I have a lot of passion in what I believe in, and I want that to translate into how the team plays. I think teams take on the persona of their coach, and I want us to be an intense, hard-playing, in-your-face type team. Yet I don’t want to be a team that gets rattled by a bad call from a ref, by a missed opportunity, or a bad bounce.

I want us to be a team that’s able to come back and be cool and calm and be able to react and work our way out of that situation. That’s the persona, as a coach, that I’m trying to put out there for people. If I look mild-mannered, believe me, underneath it all the fire burns bright and I will accept nothing short of a win.

Griff Notes: How would you describe your strengths, your style, and your philosophy as coach?

Ireland: My philosophy in terms of how the game plays out…I’m a believer that your team should be a mix of high-end skill with some guys - a lot of guys - that are willing to pay the price, whether it’s laying down and blocking a shot, sticking up for a teammate, driving to the net or taking a hard slash.

I believe this is a game that is meant to be played at a high energy level. I’m not a believer in the trap, yet I’m a believer that defense does win games. If you’re a team that comes back and plays hard on defense and you transition quickly, you can be very entertaining offensively, too. That’s what we’re trying to become as a team. As a coach, I really believe that that’s how the game should be played.

I’m not a believer in wide-open hockey, but I do believe that when you get the puck, if you put it on net and you drive hard to the net and you work hard on the cycle, you can be very, very stingy. You can lead the league in goals and you can lead the league in goals against. I really believe that.

What we’re demanding here is that everyone is willing to lay down and pay the price for each other, finish hits, be very physical, and be a really gritty, pesky, in-your-face team that teams don’t want to play against.

Griff Notes: Who has had the greatest influence on you personally as far as your coaching career goes? Outside the names you mentioned before, who are some of the NHL coaches that you try to emulate?

Ireland: I probably learned more about the game from my father than anybody. We had a policy driving to the rink when I was younger that we wouldn’t talk about the game unless I asked, because my dad didn’t want to always be preaching and make me sick of the game. As a result, we ended up having some very good lengthy discussions, and I think that created my interest in understanding the game. I was a very good positional player; I was very good away from the puck. That transpired from those conversations. I think the hard work and the ability to realize that you never accept “no” for an answer, but to realize that there’s always a way to get something done, came from my mother. So they had a very good influence.

In terms of whom I’ve tried to emulate in the game, I’m a really big fan of guys like Jacques Lemaire and Roger Neilson. I really felt Roger was an innovator and he always enjoyed getting up in the morning and coming to the rink. That’s a very good influence that a coach can have over his team. A guy that we haven’t talked about in a long time - Bob Johnson - was a real student of the game, as was Herb Brooks. Those types of guys were always looking for ways to be innovative and play the game the way it was meant to be played.

Griff Notes: What brings you your greatest happiness and satisfaction as a coach?

Ireland: Winning. There are two sides to that. In this business, especially at the American League level, there are two distinct paths that we try to take as coaches. I think they should both give you equal enjoyment. One, maybe more than the other, is development. I think we’re here to develop. We push and we ride guys, coddle and cajole them, whatever it takes to get the most out of a player. When you see them get to the next level and they’re able to stick there, have some success and become NHLers, I think that’s probably the biggest enjoyment I’ve had as a coach.

But I also take a lot of pride in winning. I’ve always been a believer that if you can teach players and develop them in a winning environment, that’s better than developing them in an up-and-down, noncompetitive environment. I think you learn more from winning. So I think both of those give me equal amounts of enjoyment.

Griff Notes: Away from hockey, and with the obvious exception of your family (wife Erin and sons Jake and Brennan), what are your passions and interests?

Ireland: I’m a sports nut. I like to follow sports quite a bit. I’m not a great golfer, but I’ve kind of gotten some passion for it the last few years. I never had a lot of time before to do it. I tried and we didn’t get out enough, but I’m really enjoying that. I’ve also coached some other sports, so I have a lot of passion for different sports. I think we can take and learn from other sports.

I’m a big reader. I like to read a lot, whether it be biographies or something that’s very motivational, I’m really big on that.

Griff Notes: Let’s talk about one of those other sports: lacrosse. What’s your background in that sport?

Ireland: I played varsity lacrosse up until college, and I played both versions. The indoor, called box lacrosse, we take the ice out. In the good old days, we just played on the cement. Now they put a little turf down, much like what arena football plays on.

I also played field lacrosse at university. I was a young coach in hockey, and I wanted to get over that age and inexperience by coaching two sports to get more bench management skills. I started coaching lacrosse and I had a ton of success there, developing a lot of players and sending many on to U.S. colleges. I had the opportunity to go down and teach a couple summers at Cornell lacrosse camps, and I almost had the opportunity to coach Team Canada at the World Championships. I decided that I couldn’t do both. There were three seasons and three different sports: field lacrosse, box lacrosse, and hockey. Coaching at a high level, I couldn’t start a family and do them all, so I chose hockey as my number one passion.

I still follow [lacrosse]. A number of guys that coached me from my town are professional coaches in the National Lacrosse League, and a number of my players are captains in that league. So I still follow it very closely, and I have a lot of passion. I’ve come to Grand Rapids and noticed that they have a great passion for field lacrosse here as well. I’ve been asked to get involved, and I think I’m going to with the youngsters. I’d like to see the kids between the second and the fifth grades get introduced, so we’re looking this spring at starting a first or second to fifth grade introduction to lacrosse program locally. Maybe that’s something that, when I move on, we can leave a little stamp and it just maintains itself.

Griff Notes: Turning back to the team, how has the extended absence of Travis Richards impacted everything?

Ireland: A lot. Travis, as you know, is one of the best, if not the best, defenseman in the league. He’s a tremendous - the best - penalty killer in the league, and our penalty kill really went for a dip when he went down. When I took over as head coach, I really felt that it’d be great having him on the ice, but if we couldn’t, we needed his leadership. It’s very tough when a player is out of the lineup to go in the locker room and say a lot, and Travis was a leader by example.

But we’ve gotten him involved, and I just saw lately how much he’s really enjoyed being around the guys and being a part. We’ve gotten him involved working with the defensemen, helping with the penalty kill, becoming more involved on the coaching side. Now, all of a sudden, you have that voice of experience, you have that leadership coming out in another way, albeit not on the ice. We’re starting to see it in another direction. It’s not as effective as having him on the ice, but his leadership skills have really helped us the last few weeks.

Griff Notes: Describe what Chris Cichocki has brought to this team and how the first month working side-by-side has gone.

Ireland: I think it’s good that we had a working relationship before and had coached against each other in the East Coast League. We spent a lot of time just trading ideas and talking about our teams and, looking over the course of our transactions, we obviously did a lot of deals together.

Chris and I have a similar view on the game, and Chris is a student of the game through Ron Smith. He played a number of years for Ron, who with Roger Neilson were two of the biggest influences on Canadian hockey and Canadian coaching. They helped start up the national coaching certification program, which all coaches must have to coach at any level. I have a level four; I went through that program at a very young age and became a student of the game through that program, which was very much affected by Ron and Roger Neilson. So our ideas on the game are very similar.

Chris has come in and brought those influences. He helps with the video quite a bit, which I’m a big believer in. He’s helped reinforce the beliefs and ideas that we have. Hearing another voice - and a guy that’s been a head coach before - allows him to step up. I don’t think players tune out, but when they hear one guy preaching the same thing all the time, it can be a little bit repetitive. When you have somebody else that has the ability to get up in front of a room or get out on the ice and take over, I think that helps a lot.

Chris has got great experience. He played the game and played within the (Detroit) organization, so that helps lend some credence to what he does. I think for me, having been a guy that hasn’t come through pro, having a guy to bounce things off is a smart play. Chris is a good hockey man, he’s a good person, and he’s a hard worker. So I think, more than anything, he brings those attributes to the table.

Griff Notes: There’s one month left in the regular season and you’re six points out of a playoff spot. What needs to be done in order to get it?

Ireland: We have to keep on our mission. What a great challenge, though. I wouldn’t have it any other way – us coming in, being a little bit of an underdog at this point and proving some people wrong, people that maybe wrote this team off. Danton and I said all along that we have a tremendous group of leaders and a great group of people in the room. We’ve had some people that we’ve had to get on board, and some have really jumped on board these last couple of weeks and are buying in.

There’s nothing more satisfying than doing something that no one else expects you to do. What we have to do to get there is continue the process that we’ve built over the last few weeks of hard work and playing the game the way it should be, being a gritty, up-tempo, in-your-face team. We have to continue to work on our special teams, get them better. Those are the things that will allow us the opportunity to get into the playoffs.

Griff Notes: By what criteria will you measure success at the conclusion of the season, whenever that may be?

Ireland: I think that as a coach, you always want to leave something better than you found it. Unfortunately, a lot of that is based on the fact that when the coaching change happened, we were short-rostered for a substantial period of time, so it was no reflection on Danton at all. But I’d like us to be a better team than the day I took over. I’d like us to be the team that we thought we could be with the players we have in our locker room. More than anything, personally, I’m a big believer in wins and losses. But I’m also a believer that if you sit there and just say “we have to win” and “we can’t lose,” I think you’re going to end up losing more than you win.

I’m a process guy. I think you take care of the processes and focus on them. We set team goals: we want so many finished hits, we want to minimize our turnovers, we want to be so successful on our power play and penalty kill. I think if you take care of those processes that, in the end, the wins and losses will take care of themselves. You’ll be more on the positive side than on the negative. I really want us to be a team that does the little things well, night-in and night-out.