Hockey coaches come in all shapes, sizes, and styles. One of the most consistently unique is the Philadelphia Flyers bench boss John Tortorella, who has imposed his way of thinking once again.
His most recent crusade has been against the use of iPads on the bench, used by players and coaches to review plays in real-time. iPads and other tablets have become commonplace behind National Hockey League benches, instead of waiting in between periods to do any kind of video analysis.
Their incorporation around the league has received generally positive feedback, but not from Tortorella, who has finally banned them from the Flyers’ bench.
“I think it’s a major problem with us, understanding the momentums of the game,” said Tortorella. “You can’t understand the momentum of the game if you’re looking at the iPad all the time. We took them off and aren’t even going to use them so that they watch the game and see what’s next.”
The decision appears to have helped spark some positive change as Philadelphia have won six of their last seven games. While they still sit in second-to-last place of an extremely competitive Metropolitan Division, this new-found focus has already generated a career year from forward Travis Konecny, who is well known around the club for regularly referring to the devices on the bench.
“Everyone was chirping me because I’m always watching them, but I don’t care.” Konecny joked after a hat trick performance in the Flyers’ 5-3 win over the Washington Capitals.
“He might’ve been upset that the iPads were gone tonight,” forward Scott Laughton said about his teammate. “He’s pretty good at looking at it after every shift.”
The Canadian center has good reason to brush off those comments, scoring nine goals and picking up another five assists during Philadelphia’s run of good form.
There’s no telling whether this could help the Flyers push for a wild-card spot in the second half of the season, but if they continue this run of form, then we could have one of the all-time great turnarounds in recent memory.
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