Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 8, 1995 TAG: 9510090118
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RALPH BERRIER JR. STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
There were doubts among some media members and league insiders whether Anzalone was the right guy. The Express job was his fourth in as many years. Although he had been a proven winner as a college coach, he hadn't won as a professional coach in two other ECHL stints.
Rumors were flying that Anzalone wasn't even the first choice of team owners. Legend has it that team president John Gagnon wanted Richmond Renegades coach Roy Sommer, a man who had coached the Roanoke Valley Rebels in 1991-92, but that Sommer had turned down the job.
``Two years ago, people said Roanoke made the biggest mistake in the world,'' said Anzalone.
Two years later, those people are harder to find.
These days, instead of justifying why he should be given the chance to be a hockey coach, Anzalone is trying to play down the expectations for his third team. The Hockey News picked the Express to win in the ECHL's East Division, which is the toughest division in the 21-team league.
The Express is picked ahead of Richmond, last year's Riley Cup champion; ahead of the South Carolina Stingrays, who were the best team in the South Division last season before moving to the East this year; ahead of perennial power Hampton Roads.
The choice leaves the usually loquacious Anzalone struggling for words.
``How do they pick that?'' Anzalone asked. ``You can't predict this league because you don't know who's going to be in training camp. It's not like the NHL, where the rosters are 75 percent set in the summer. I mean, this division will not be weak. I don't see how we can be picked ahead of some of these teams. Look at the money and recruiting power some of these other teams have.''
However, being picked first isn't all bad.
``It's great for the media and fans,'' said Anzalone. ``I try to look at it as a fun thing. We can be egotistical for a week and some other team picked below us can put it up on their locker room bulletin board. ... It's all in fun. ... It's better than being picked last.''
Hopefully for Anzalone and his players, the fun will continue this season.
The Express has won 72 games in its first two seasons, including 39 a year ago when it advanced to the second round of the Riley Cup playoffs before losing to the Renegades. Roanoke had a chance to win the East Division last season, but a late slump allowed Richmond to overtake the Express and win the division by one point.It was a race reminiscent of the glory days of Roanoke Valley hockey back in the 1970s and mid-80s. Those days appeared gone forever when the Roanoke Valley Rampage packed up and left the crumbled LancerLot in Vinton a 21/2 years ago.
Then a group led by Gagnon and former Roanoke hockey star Pierre Paiement led the charge to get hockey back in Roanoke and back in the Roanoke Civic Center. Shortly after they succeeded in that mission, they hired Anzalone.
Other teams perhaps have had more talent than the Express the past two seasons, but few have had players that worked harder and got more out of their ability than those with the Express.
That's a testament to those players ... and to their coach.
``... gotta be unselfish''
As an Express player once put it:
``There are hockey players, then there are `Frank Anzalone hockey players.'''
The distinction is not easy to make. There have been good hockey players like Oleg Yashin and Robin Bouchard who did not adapt well to Anzalone's system of hockey, then went on to play well at other places.
Then there are players like Craig Herr, who was not a prominent player at Tallahassee last winter but blossomed when he was traded to Roanoke. Anzalone saw Herr on videotape, saw something that he liked about him and went out and got him.
So, what is it that makes a player a ``Frank Anzalone hockey player?''
``You've gotta be unselfish,'' he said. ``All players should have some selfishness, because they should want to achieve things and reach their own goals. It's an inner selfishness. You've gotta be team-oriented.''
Roanoke's roster is filled with players who aren't necessarily specialists in one specific area. Rather, it's filled with guys who do a little bit of everything.
Herr could be the prototype ``Frank Anzalone hockey player.'' He scores, hustles, mixes it up and plays solid defense. Jeff Jablonski, who has played for Anzalone in college at Lake Superior State, shares those qualities. So does Jeff Jestadt.
Sometimes Anzalone has made surprising moves to get the kind of players he wants. He traded Yashin, who was Roanoke's leading scorer, to Charlotte for Joe Hawley, a gritty center who wasn't a great scorer, but was a worker who played the game fiercely.
``I look for players with work ethic,'' Anzalone said. ``But I don't just look for grinders. There are smooth kids who can play for me, too.''Anzalone's detractors used to say that he could be a hard coach to play for. Although he has a dry wit and is quick with humorous quips, Anzalone is a deadly serious coach who can rain fire and brimstone when he has to.
``He can be intimidating,'' said Express center Marty Schriner, a guy who improved markedly under Anzalone last season. ``But he makes you a better hockey player.''
Dedicated to the game
Anzalone, 39, expects his players to work hard and take the game seriously because that is the only way he knows how to approach his own job. Rarely will Anzalone be outworked as a coach.
Overworked, perhaps.
For three seasons, Anzalone has recruited players to come to Roanoke with virtually no help from the Express' affiliations with higher clubs in the NHL or International Hockey League.
``This is a very hard league,'' he said. ``The league is so large now and it's only getting larger. It's so complex. You have to do so much work over the phone, now. It goes with the turf. ... It's like being an elementary school teacher. Overworked and underpaid.''
Unlike a teacher, Anzalone takes very little time off during the summer. He recruits, he goes to training camps, he works youth clinics.
The reason he works so hard is simple. Nothing is guaranteed in minor-league hockey, especially the length of coaching careers.
Anzalone has seen the best and worst of times in his five years of pro coaching. He came to the pro leagues after eight years at Lake Superior State, a small NCAA Division II Michigan school that plays only hockey at the Division I level.
The Lakers became a national power under Anzalone, who posted a 191-108-22 record there from 1982-90 and won the 1988 NCAA Division I championship.
Anzalone could have used some of those players in his first two professional jobs. In 1990-91 at Cornwall in the American Hockey League, his team was raided all season by the parent club, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and struggled. The next season found him in a dreadful situation at Nashville in the ECHL. The Knights had virtually no players when they hired Anzalone just prior to training camp. He was let go late in the season after never really having a chance to build the team.
He took a job coaching Toms River (N.J.) High School in 1992-93 and won the New Jersey state championship. It appeared that his professional coaching days were behind him, but the Express came calling in 1993.
It has been a peculiar, but near-perfect match: a working-class coach from New Jersey coaching hockey in a working-class town.
``I'm still in Roanoke, because we've won,'' said Anzalone, who was given a contract extension though 1996-97 last summer. ``Maybe five years ago, people didn't think I'd still be coaching. But I love the game and it supports my family. What else am I going to do? It's not like Little Caesar's has come calling with a better job. I mean, what am I going to do? Work in sanitation?''
Once, a friend was chiding Anzalone about the fact that he doesn't smoke or drink. Anzalone, who works out nearly every day in the weight room and is an avid runner, was asked if he ever once - whether as a kid or while in college - took a nip from a bottle or a drag from a cigarette.
``Nope,'' he told the friend. ``I was too dedicated to the game.''
He still is.
by CNB