When Capitals general manager George McPhee changed coaches last month, he knew exactly what his team was getting in Dale Hunter.
Hired to replace Bruce Boudreau on Nov. 28, Hunter is almost the polar opposite of his chatty predecessor. His demeanor rarely changes behind the bench. Up 5-1 or down 5-1, his message remains the same, according to several Washington players.
But make no mistake — Hunter is no wallflower. While he won’t destroy a locker room in a fit of rage, according to former teammates, he has long had a knack for getting players to give more of themselves on the ice. That was his style as a captain with the Caps and later during 11 seasons coaching a junior team in the Ontario Hockey League.
“[Hunter] knows two things: farming and hockey,” McPhee said the day he hired Hunter. “He’s really got them both.”
That’s not unexpected for a 51-year-old from Petrolia, Ontario, a rural oil town of 5,200 people about 85 miles from Detroit. When he finally finished his 19-year NHL career, Hunter and his brother Mark bought the junior team in London, Ontario, about an hour east of their hometown. It was a nice life and a lucrative venture. But Hunter was ready for more. One nagging question, though: How, exactly, would Hunter demand a higher level of accountability from NHL players if yelling and screaming weren’t part of his repertoire?
“You wanted to match his intensity,” said Caps television analyst Craig Laughlin, a former teammate. “We always called him the junkyard dog. He was our guy that any time we needed it made a big play, scored a big goal, would make a big hit or he’d punch someone in the head or spear a guy or chop a guy. Whatever it took. Didn’t matter.”
Hunter, who served as Washington’s captain from 1994 until he retired after the 1999 season, still leads the franchise in penalty minutes (2,003) and ranks second in games played (872) and third in assists (375).
He is one of just four players in the Caps’ 37-season history to have his uniform number (No. 32) retired after a notorious career in which he sometimes crossed the line of fair play.
“I don’t know how tall [Hunter] is, but he played like a 6-foot-5 player night in and night out,” former teammate Peter Bondra said. “No matter who he played against, he played the same way. His brother was no brother. His friend was no friend.”
Several former teammates noted Hunter’s playful side. He never met a practical joke he wouldn’t pull. Washington associate goalie coach Olie Kolzig remembers a group of Caps players putting Hunter’s pickup truck on blocks so that when the team returned in the wee hours from a road trip he couldn’t drive home.
“[Hunter] seemed to bring everybody along for the ride by the way he elevated his game, his tenacity, his play right through the whistle — even though he maybe didn’t hear the whistle,” Kolzig said. “That’s him. First guy at the rink every morning. I think that more than anything showed the young guys what it took to be a pro.”
