THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 17, 1995 TAG: 9511170350
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY HARRY MINIUM, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 102 lines
The first first clue to how immensely talented the Hampton Roads Admirals are this season has been coach John Brophy's strangely civilized behavior.
Last season he was his usual self - an angry taskmaster. He skated his players into the ice. He kicked over water coolers and smashed sticks in postgame tongue lashings. He even made his players skate after a shutout loss to Roanoke at Scope as fans hooted.
But so far this season we've seen a kinder, gentler John Brophy. There've been no tirades, not even after the team was beaten by last-place Raleigh Saturday night.
He pushes for perfection in practice, but often in sotto voce. His postgame remarks are generally encouraging and nurturing.
Gadzooks, has Brophy gone soft?
Not hardly. He's as hard as ever, but also smart enough to adjust his coaching style to talented and motivated players.
Last season the Admirals were a blue-collar team with good defenders but not enough skilled sticks or motivation. He pushed his Admirals as hard as possible, almost,and they finished fourth in the East Division.
They were then beaten by expansion Tallahassee 3-1 in the first round of the playoffs. And truth be known, Tallahassee might have been the better team.
That's clearly not the case this season. Thanks to a pair of working agreements signed over the summer, the Admirals have 11 players under contract to clubs from higher leagues.
And the result is a team with championship written all over it.
Said someone close to Brophy: ``He would never admit this in public, but this is the team he's dreamed of coaching here.''
An overstatement? Perhaps not.
The Admirals have managed a 7-1-5 record heading into tonight's game with Birmingham at Scope with several key players out with injuries.
Bob Woods, a veteran defenseman, is among half-a-dozen players hobbled. Most prominent of the walking wounded is David St. Pierre.
If you haven't yet seen St. Pierre, you've missed a gem. He's played in just six games, and he skated in those with two badly pulled groin muscles. Yet he's displayed skills rarely seen at Scope. He's better than John Porco, the team's best player last season, and compares favorably with Victor Gervais, who moved up from Norfolk to star with Cleveland of the International Hockey League.
St. Pierre is one of seven players under contract to Portland of the American Hockey League. Three more came from the NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins and one from Cleveland, the Admirals IHL affiliate.
Moreover, most of the best players are back from last season, including Trevor Halverson and Chris Phelps, who turned down contracts from Portland, and Ron Pascucci and Rick Kowalsky, returning all-ECHL picks.
St. Pierre, Halverson and Dominic Maltais, the leading scorer from Ft. Worth of the Central Hockey League last season, give the Admirals perhaps the best first line in the ECHL.
The second has included Kowalsky, Cleveland signee Sean Selsmer and Serge Aubin, one of the Pittsburgh signees. And did I forget to mention Rod Taylor, one of the franchise's most storied players? He was an All-Star last season. This season, he's a star among many.
The defense, with three contracted players, is so strong that Martin Woods, expected to be one of the ECHL's top rookie defensemen, was sold to Jacksonville.
Said Pascucci, who was sent down from Portland last weekend: ``Last year we were often outgunned. This year, we have the guns.''
Especially at goaltender. Darryl Paquette, one of the jewels mined from the Portland pipeline, is first in the league with a 2.28 goals against average. Brophy said he has NHL potential.
Backing him up is Mark Bernard, who starred with San Antonio of the Central League last season and was MVP of the Admirals last ECHL championship team. Waiting in the wings is Corwin Saurdiff, last year's starter, who's out with colitis.
Talent aside, there's something else Brophy loves about this team.
``They work,'' he said. ``Last year they didn't always want to work. We had to push them more than we wanted to.
``This team is happier. Maybe it's because they're better paid. Most of them are under contract (to other teams) and they're making more money.''
They're making more money because after three straight years of being bounced early in the playoffs, Brophy realized last spring that something had to change for the Admirals to repeat the ECHL championships won in 1991 and 1992.
He and Admirals president Blake Cullen spent much of the spring and summer wooing Portland, Pittsburgh and Cleveland and fashioned working agreements that are the envy of the ECHL. The innovative contracts call for the Admirals and their affiliates to split the salaries of contracted players in Norfolk.
In other words, not only are those clubs stocking the Admirals with first-rate talent, they're paying half the freight.
The agreements also addressed the primary fear of any talented ECHL team - that of massive callups. IHL and AHL teams in need of players daily scan the rosters of ECHL teams, and sometimes pick them clean.
``Because most of our players are under contract, they can be called up by only one of two teams, Portland and Cleveland,'' Brophy said. ``And it's not likely they'll rape us.
``They're our affiliates. They want us to win.''
And winning they are. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Why is this man so relaxed this season? Coach John Brophy has a
talented team that's tearing up the ECHL.
by CNB