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Home | Sports | Minnesota Wild

Wild Insider: 'Fired' a foreign word to Lemaire

Throughout his coaching career, Jacques Lemaire has been able to leave any job he has had on his own terms.

By Michael Russo, Star Tribune

Last update: December 23, 2007 - 8:55 PM

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WILD WEEK IN REVIEW

Record: 2-1

• Tuesday, the Wild rallied from 2-0 down in the third period, and Brian Rolston scored with 68 seconds left to hand Jacques Lemaire a 3-2 victory over Nashville in his 1,000th regular-season game as coach. Then, in a 6-3 victory over the Rangers Thursday, Marian Gaborik registered the first five-goal game in the NHL in more than a decade. The Red Wings ended the fun with a 4-1 victory Saturday.

STAR TRIBUNE'S STAR OF THE WEEK: Marian Gaborik, Wild

• Nine of the Wild's 13 all-time hat tricks now belong to Gaborik, who entering Saturday's game had 17 goals in 19 games. Gaborik's five-goal game Thursday was simply magical and even more dramatically came on the same day he watched Pavel Bure's five-goal 1998 Olympic semifinal game for Russia.

THIS WEEK: Three games

Wednesday: at Dallas, 7:30 p.m.; Thursday: at Phoenix, 8 p.m.; Saturday: vs. Edmonton, 7 p.m.

• This could be a tough week. Because of NHL rules, the Wild can't practice over the Christmas holiday and is not permitted to fly to Dallas until 7 a.m. Wednesday. So after three days of no practice, the Wild has to play back-to-back road games.

THE QUOTE

"My God, he was doing it every which way tonight." -- Wild captain Mark Parrish on Gaborik's five-goal game.

MICHAEL RUSSO

More from Minnesota Wild

Sit down with Wild coach Jacques Lemaire, he's one of the most fascinating men to shmooze with.

Besides his sharp wit (he's good for a few good one-liners a day), he can make the complex game of hockey simple to understand.

But the most fascinating thing about Lemaire is the fact he's coached 1,147 (regular season and playoff) games without being fired. Remember, every coach in pro sports knows there likely will be two news conferences -- one when he's hired and one when he's inevitably fired.

Even before Lemaire's Hall of Fame playing career began, Lemaire says, he was never pulled into an office to hear those famous Donald Trump words, "You're fired."

"I've quit a few though," said Lemaire, who along with quitting a car dealership job that paid 50 cents an hour as a teenager also resigned from head coaching jobs with the Montreal Canadiens and New Jersey Devils.

Lemaire said, laughing: "I probably would have been fired if I would have stayed. I just decided to go before they fired me."

Lemaire, an assistant with the Canadiens in 1983, wanted to stay an assistant. But in 1984, General Manager Serge Savard fired Bob Berry and "said you've got the whistle" until Lemaire begged himself into the front office in 1985.

Lemaire never wanted a head coaching job again until Devils GM Lou Lamoriello called Savard umpteen times in 1993.

"I said, 'I don't want to coach. I'm happy here,'" Lemaire said. "But Serge said, 'Lou's still calling me. He wants to talk to you.' After a month, I said, 'OK, I'll go.' I went there and there was something that lit it up because I took the job."

Lemaire coached the Devils to a Stanley Cup in 1995 before eventually leaving -- on his own -- after a 107-point season, the best regular season in Devils' history at that time, in 1998, because "it was time for somebody else."

The Wild coach says he's only survived in the day and age of recycled coaches because he's always had the support of his GMs -- Savard, Lamoriello and now Doug Risebrough.

"That's why I always wanted to work for a GM that knows me. He knows what I'm trying to do, he knows my character, he knows how I do things," Lemaire said.

In fact, Lemaire turned down one job before coming to the Wild. "I told [the GM], 'I have no interest at all. I don't know you enough and you don't know me enough.' "

Asked how many coaches that team has hired and fired since, Lemaire said, "They've had a few."

Predators coach Barry Trotz is the only coach David Poile has ever hired in Nashville.

"It baffles me when there's a separation from management and coaching because you've got to have the same vision," Trotz said. "To me, it's like a marriage. If you're not on the same page, it doesn't work.

"And the players see that. The coach has to have the backing of management. There's no hidden agendas. Players aren't going above the coach to management because it's not allowed. That's something that wouldn't happen in Minnesota or New Jersey, where Jacques coached."

And when Lemaire eventually leaves the Wild, it's hard to imagine it won't be when he's ready.

"I know that I couldn't do this if I would feel that our team should be better. If we should be one of the elite teams and we wouldn't make the playoffs as an example, then I couldn't take that," he said. "I would think I'm not doing a pretty good job here."

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