Caught this the other night just because I happened to look to my left at the television monitor near my press seat at Madison Square Garden. There was veteran center Jason Arnott tugging on coach Bruce Boudreau’s sleeve and – lip-reading here – telling him to settle down in the midst of a heated “debate” with the officials. That outburst came after a tripping call on Washington forward Boyd Gordon with the game tied at 3 and 7:12 left in the game.
Arnott was keeping an eye on the officials, though also said he wasn’t really worried about Boudreau getting a misconduct penalty. It’d take some crazy nonsense for any coach to get a misconduct penalty in a playoff game – though Arnott was on the New Jersey Devils when this happened during a big regular season at Detroit on Jan. 29, 2000. Shocker, but Robbie Ftorek didn’t keep his job much longer after that incident.
“[Boudreau] wants to pump us as well and he played the game before,” Arnott said. “He gets emotional. We all do. If we don’t get a call or things happen in a game, it gets you into the game. That’s the way he is.”
Boudreau is obviously no shrinking violet when it comes to discussions with officials – or anything else, for that matter. The 24/7 HBO series proved that once and for all. It’s part of the deal anyway, especially at this time of year. And, to be honest, kind of entertaining for everyone.
“The heated battles between coaches and refs are great,” Arnott said. “That’s the way it was in the old times before and that’s the way it should be. It’s an emotional game and heated game and the coaches are just as involved as we are. It’s exciting. It gets you energized, gets you into the game.”
So players aren’t opposed to that at all. Lets them know their coach has their best interests at heart. Arnott just wanted to make sure things didn’t go too far. They didn’t.
“Well, [Boudreau] is the type of guy that wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s not a guy to keep his emotions in,” Matt Bradley said. “And when he feels something he lets it out, whether he’s mad or he’s happy. And I think that’s good because you always know what you’re going to get with Bruce. If he’s happy you can tell and if he’s unhappy with something you can tell as well. I like that…It would have to be pretty extreme to get a penalty at that point in the game. You still have to make sure he does calm down a bit, but that’s just the way he is and I think it’s great.”
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