Coach raised in State of Hockey rises to peak

Tom Richards starred for the Eveleth High hockey team. When his sons were born, Tom bought small plastic hockey sticks and turned his basement in Crystal into a tiled rink.

"Todd had a favorite aunt from the Range," Tom said Tuesday, just after his son was presented as the second head coach in Wild history. "She came down to visit one weekend, and Todd and I went downstairs to play hockey.

"The games went to 10. Todd would yell up, 'Mimi, I'm up 4-0!' Then he'd yell up, 'Mimi, I'm up 7-0!' Well, he'd get up to nine, and then I would score 10 straight, and he would cry. My wife would get so angry with me, but that's the way we did it."

Tom's wife, Bonnie, nodded and said: "It's really not such a bad philosophy. But sometimes you get tired of hearing the kids cry."

Tom smiled and said, "Those were awesome games."

The concept of coddling kids took a big hit Tuesday when Todd completed his journey from the basement in Crystal to the grandest hockey rink in the country. Wild General Manager Chuck Fletcher introduced Todd as his head coach in the lobby of the Xcel Energy Center while Tom, Bonnie and his sisters, Heidi and Tracy, sat in the front row applauding.

For years the Wild has called Minnesota "The State of Hockey" while ignoring local players. Tuesday, a Crystal native and former Gopher took over a team that had a previous leadership far more likely to pay homage to Rocket Richard than John Mariucci. "We always hoped he'd make it to the bigs," Tom said. "We never thought it could happen in our own backyard. It's the perfect storm, in a good way."

Todd was known as a fun-loving college player. He traipsed all over civilization as a professional player before becoming a coach. When he finally made it to the NHL -- as an assistant coach for the San Jose Sharks last season -- his parents were eager to visit.

"We drove out there in February," Tom said. "We spent three weeks there. Well, it came to be that his two boys were playing in a tournament in Phoenix, so we drove to Phoenix because I had a sister spending the winter there.

"So we drove 700 miles to Phoenix to watch the kids' hockey tournament."

Isn't there something wrong with that? "No," Tom said. "There isn't.

"Hey, we watched Todd's boys in a Mite B state tournament in Wisconsin, and it was awesome. These guys could barely skate, but it was so fun and exciting. It was an awesome weekend."

Tuesday morning, before heading to St. Paul for the news conference, Tom and Bonnie reminisced about their sons.

"I coached Todd at the Squirt and Bantam level," Tom said. "It just so happened that he delivered the Minneapolis Star and Trib in the mornings to earn money.

"Well, there was this expensive hockey stick he wanted, and I was coaching the Bantam team, and we were practicing. He brought his brand-new stick up there and I said, 'Why don't you save that for the games?' He said, 'No.' So, sure enough, during the practice somebody hit his stick and it broke.

"Of course, he was upset with me because I ran a crummy practice, and these were stupid drills, and if I would have run a better practice the stick wouldn't have broken."

Evidently Tom took a lot of grief around the house. Bonnie admits she second-guessed his coaching so much that he bought her a black jersey for Christmas. On the front was printed, "Crystal Coach No. 3."

Todd seems to have recovered from the basement hockey beatings.

"You know what's funny?" he said. "I do the same thing to my kids now.

"When I was coaching in Milwaukee, and my son was 3 or 4, well, I've never seen anger on a little boy's face like I did that day.

"We were playing a game of hockey much like my dad and I did, out in the back, and the score was tied 9-9, and of course I wasn't going to let him score. I took a shot, and it went in. He said it didn't. I said, 'Game over.' He dropped his stick, grabbed the ball and took about four steps at me and was going to throw it as hard as he could.

"I started to laugh a little bit. He broke down crying, dropped the ball and ran into the house. No sooner did he close the door than the window opened, and my wife started yelling at me."