Behind the Bench: Inside the Minds of Hockey's Greatest Coaches

by Craig Custance

They are motivators, key strategists, tough bosses, and choreographers. They can be branded as heroes, ousted as scapegoats, quietly valued as friends, and everything in between. It's all in the job description for an NHL head coach. In Behind the Bench , ESPN's Craig Custance sits down for film sessions and candid conversations with some of the game's most notable modern luminaries-names like Mike Babcock, Joel Quenneville, Dan Bylsma, Todd McLellan, Ken Hitchcock, and Claude Julien-all of whom share their singular views on topics ranging from leadership secrets to on-ice game plans. Dissect some of hockey's greatest moments with the men who set the pieces in motion. Go straight to the source on what it's like to manage a dressing room full of the league's top stars or execute line changes with everything at stake. Signature games, including Stanley Cup finals, Olympic gold medal clashes, and World Championship contests-both wins and losses-are reflected upon and broken down in detail, making this essential reading for current and aspiring coaches, players, and hockey fans alike.

Genres: Sports, Hockey, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Leadership

332 pages, ebook

Published October 1, 2017

About the author

Craig Custance is the author of The Franchise: The Business of Building Winning Teams (2024) and also Behind the Bench: Inside the Minds of Hockey's Greatest Coaches (2017). He is currently the Head of Creative Development at The Athletic, a New York Times company, and was the host of the popular interview podcast The Full 60. He joined The Athletic after nearly a decade covering the NHL as a national hockey writer, the last six as a senior writer for ESPN.com. Before covering the NHL, he was an award-winning journalist with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the onset of COVID-19, people reacted in many different ways; some isolating while others found new and exciting ways to handle the lull. For many fans of professional hockey, it was a gut punch, exacerbated by the fact that the excitement of the upcoming NHL playoffs were iced, pardon the pun. When I stumbled upon this book by Craig Custance, I saw a glimmer of hope to revive my feelings about the grit and determination of hockey in its truest form. Custance chose ten men who manned the benches of NHL teams and took a look at the electricity of a championship game, reliving it with them and learning more about their backstories. Nine of these NHL coaches were victorious in their games, while one—Ron Wilson—came up on the losing end (interestingly enough, the winning coach, Mike Babcock, reviewed the same game on the other side). Custance offers up a wonderful narrative about arriving to see these coaches, a breakdown from the coach about their sentiments throughout the game, and some biographical backstories about the men, including their rise in the coaching ranks. From Dan Bylsma’s hiring as a new NHL coach that led to a championship in 2009 a few months later; to Todd McLellan taking Canada to a gold medal at the World Championships in 2015 while between coaching gigs; and even Mike Babcock—seen by many as one of the great coaches of the modern game—behind the bench in one of Canada’s most revered hockey moments, the gold medal victory at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. These men came across as professionals, but also down to earth and lovers of the game. Their approaches, much different from one another, all centred on a desire to taste victory with the collection of men they led. Custance pulls no punches and provides the reader with a great look into some of the fun that comes with coaching, as well as the constant changes to line-ups, front office drama, and personal struggles that fans rarely see and media outlets do not cover. A great look at the game from a new perspective for fans and those who love the inner workings of an NHL system. Recommended to those who enjoy the other side of hockey’s fine-tuned machine, as well as those who need a little pick-me-up as hockey is still in its lull.

Die-hard fans like me can sometimes find it hard when there are no games to watch and little discussion to fuel the fire. Turning to a book like this, the reader is able to relive some of the great NHL moments of the past few decades and see how the coaches handled the pressure, the superstars, and the media dissection of their teams. Custance comes across as a fairly affable guy who is not out to tighten the thumbscrews, but does want some of those undocumented stories to come out for the reader’s pleasure. The light banter surround the games at hand is balanced out with memories of missed calls, great chances, and the taste of victory. The reader is able to learn of the humble beginnings that many of these men had: roofers, sports equipment salesmen, factory workers who coached in the evenings. Custance humanises these men and show that their love of the game and unique style to leading helped propel them to victory, even when the league and its fans left them hangout out to dry after mediocre results by teams on the ice. This is a wonderful book with strong chapters and an easy to digest narrative that leads the reader through ten stories that all differ from one another, with a common thread of a passion for all things hockey. Custance uses his experience as a hockey writer to pull out great stories without turning things into a microscopic dissection. This was the perfect book to tide me over as I wait for the post-COVID 19 resumption of the NHL and its 2019-20 playoffs. Now, if only my team could take it all. But, that’s a story for another time!

Kudos, Mr. Custance, for a great book that offers NHL fans a positive dose of what it’s like to live through the high stakes of victory (and sometimes loss). I could not have asked for a better piece to buoy my spirits.

Love/hate the review? An ever-growing collection of others appears at:
http://pecheyponderings.wordpress.com/

A Book for All Seasons, a different sort of Book Challenge: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/...

[Brandon St. Croix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting to hear the perspectives and would recommend for anyone wanting learn more of the inside game.

[William · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to really enjoy this book but Craig Custance just isn't good at writing a book. He's a sports writer and it shows. The book is filled with awkward sentences, cliches, and hero worship. It's a typical hockey writer with a typical take on current coaches. There are some pretty funny stories in it, but that's about it. A great sports book examines how the sport or sporting event impacted culture, it's not listening to coaches watch hockey and shoot the shit about the game.

[Molli B. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars.

This was good! Ten coaches, ten games covered. A little bit of everything—NHL (mostly), Olympics, World Championships. I enjoyed Craig's conversational writing style—very accessible, worked well with the stories he was telling. A few weird quirks of tense, a few typos but nothing huge.

I was already a fan of Babcock and Sullivan, so it was extra fun to read about them; I think Babcock's chapter was my favorite. I don't think I'll ever like Torts, no matter what, but his viewpoint was still interesting. I enjoyed reading about Quenneville—I don't know much about him. And I love all of the behind-the-scenes team and coaching stuff.

Fun read! Definitely worth the time if you're a hockey fan and interested in what goes on behind the bench.

(And as a bonus, it was good for NaNoWriMo research, too!)

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great example of hard work and sacrifice

I enjoyed the well written accounts of each of these coaches. As a fan we think in terms of wins and losses but for these men it’s their livelihood. The bounce of a puck or an inch of a puck from hitting a post can make or break a career. The chapter on Mike Babcock was one of the best reads on leadership for those in and out of Hockey. Well worth the read!

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd heard Custance talk about his book on a couple of my favorite hockey podcasts (Hockey PDOcast and Japers Rink Radio) but I was still intrigued by the book. It didn't disappoint and in fact was better than expected. I loved how Custance linked in his own story and what he's learned from these famous coaches for his own career trajectory. And, as a huge hockey fan, I loved hearing the inside stories from famous games. As the chapters unfolded, I found myself reliving the highs (the Avs 2001 Stanley Cup victory) and the lows (Team USA's OT loss in the 2010 Vancouver Gold Medal game) and gaining more insight. It also made me realize that too often we denigrate and criticize coaches (and GMs) rather than focusing on their achievements: it takes a lot to be a NHL coach. I liked hearing about different coaches' approaches. Surprisingly, I found myself enjoying the chapter on John Tortorella -- he often comes across as 1-dimensional (and he does recount his fight in Vancouver) but he's far more complex and nuanced than he seems. My one criticism was that Custance was very accepting at what each coach offered: he did not challenge any of their assumptions and he was very positive. He stopped well-short of being a "brown noser," but was definitely a bit of an apologist. Now whether that's just because Custance seems like the nicest guy ever or because that was the price of entree to do these interviews, I'm not sure, but I found the chapter where the coach was most open to criticism (Tortorella) to be the most interesting. But this is a must read for hockey fans and I would recommend it to anyone interested in coaching.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Being the self-proclaimed hockey nerd that I am, I couldn’t help grabbing a copy of Craig’s book. Most of the time, you have no issues hearing from players and getting their perspectives about the game, but this one was different. This one dives into the mind of an NHL coach – maybe one of the most scrutinized jobs in the sport.

I’ve got to admire the work and time that Craig put in to crafting this book. It wasn’t as simple as writing his thoughts our about the coaches and their successes. He took the time to travel to them, spend hours with them, and watch a hockey game that has defined their career. That takes effort, commitment, and passion for the work. That shows through in the quality of writing.

If you are also a hockey fan (which, I couldn’t really imagine a non fan picking up a book all about the sport) then you will probably fly through this one like I did. The writing is crisp and to the point while allowing each coach’s personality to come through. Quotes, descriptions . . . he’s got it all.

I’ll admit my bias and say I was most interested in read Joel Quenneville’s chapter since I’m a Blackhawks fan. But, I think it says a lot about the book that it wasn’t even my favorite interview or the one that stood out the most. That award would probably go to Tortorella/Sullivan or Hitchock.

Behind the Bench is a great read, and I highly recommend it to any fan of the sport.

5/5 Stars

[Melanie Ting · Rating 5 out of 5]

The hook for this book is that Custance watches championship games with the coaches who won them and writes about the experiences. He had access to many of the best NHL coaches. The book is strongest where he gets additional insights into the coaches through background interviews with players and friends.

Sports writers have a tricky balancing act because they risk offending the coaches and players that they have to see over and over again. As a result, we rarely get to read critical analysis or inside scoops. However, Custance describes in detail how each coach reacts to the game and the reader gets to contrast those reactions and draw our own conclusions. Joel Quenneville is a player's coach and praises the players as he watches. Mike Babcock is a competitive perfectionist who fine-tunes the player deployment on a game that's already over. And while Custance excuses some of John Tortorella's behaviour, the number of controversial incidents in his career pile up in a pretty damning way.

As a Canucks fan, I was unable to read the whole Claude Julien chapter (apparently six years is still too soon, ack!) but one insight that paranoid Vancouverites will enjoy was that there actually was some conspiring behind the loss: Julien was getting tons of unsolicited advice on how to beat the despised Canucks.

A very easy read and lots of insights into the mysteries of coaching.

[David Fitzpatrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting anecdotes throughout, but one can't help but leave thinking there is so much more that could have been included from these coaches.

[Katelyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a new hockey fan, I appreciated the chance to learn a bit about some recent hockey history. The author did a good job of interesting me in these personalities and highlighting an overarching theme of the razor thin border between glory and obscurity in sport. There was a weird emphasis on the author getting to appointments with the coaches which jarred a little, but otherwise it was well written and enjoyable.

[James Perpich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspired greatness

Custance gets to the bottom of what it takes to win as a team...that there are many paths to success. The common denominator is solid, committed leadership that inspires.

[Natalie V · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty decent book if you’re a hockey nerd. Some things I liked: lots of good hockey stories. Some good Xs and Os when reviewing the games. Good discussions on leadership. I like the premise of asking an NHL coach to review the biggest game of their career. Some things I didn’t like: there was a bit too much “fluff” in the sense that Custance would talk about how he arrived to the coach’s house, the practice facility, etc. Talks of driving in his car, leaving the hotel/airport and whatnot. I honestly skipped some of that stuff since I only wanted to read about the coach’s insight. I think there was a little too much “glazing” of each coach. I get these are some great coaches, but I think it needed to be dialed down. I wish they would’ve gone a little bit more in depth to the games, but I understand that some people might get a bit lost with that.

Overall, solid hockey book. Reading it in 2024 is pretty interesting. Some of the coaches in the book would never be thought of today as elite coaches, as evidenced how many of them don’t currently have NHL jobs. Mike Babcock and Joel Quenneville certainly are not looked at in a good light today. (There also was the unfortunate mention by Quenneville of their former video coach). For me, 3.5 stars since I think you could cut a lot out and spend some more focus on the hockey strategies. I’m rounding up to four because I appreciate the effort Custance put into writing this book.

[Simon Winquist · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a new hockey coach, i wanted to read this book to get some insight on pro coaches and their mindsets.

The author had a cool way of interviewing them, by watching an important game involved in their careers usually a Stanley cup win or Olympic gold. It was cool to see the struggles, perseverance and hard work of these coaches to make it through to coaching ranks. They each have their own style, but they all work extreme hard and are well prepared.

For example Byslam took notes of every drill, Wilson used hi sense of humour, Babcock get uncomfortable learn everyday and steal from others haha. Tells players to bring value whether it’s the pk or any role. Julien a humble man from humble roots. Reading on torts was cool too. All these coaches care about their players even though they might be hard on them.

Great book! Great coaches that were interviewed and enjoyed every chapter. Great read!!

[Willa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I struggled with my rating on this one—from a recent hockey history perspective, it’s fascinating. Recounting vividly the small plays that changed the fates of franchises, players, coaches. However, Custance only gets at the perimeter of what I feel should be his central thesis. What makes these coaches great? NHL coaches have remarkably short shelf lives (most of the ones in this book were eventually fired from their championship teams). While the anecdotes are interesting, a lot of it feels like wasted opportunity. Custance lets the coaches reminisce without much in the way of guiding questions. It’s a rarely candid window into this world, though, so I’m willing to give that a pass. However, if your team was on the losing end of any of these finals you should probably skip that chapter.

[Sean Mceachin · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's hard to believe this book was written by a fellow Michigander. Having the first two chapters detail the Wing's 09 loss to Pens and 2010's Gold Medal loss to Team Canada, I was forced to relive the two most heartbreaking games I've ever witnessed as an American from Detroit. Damn you Sidney Crosby. And just when I thought I was out of the woods, chapter 3 looks at the USA loss again from the other coach's perspective lol. Sprinkle in some Blackhawks and Avalanche Stanley cups, and I should have hated this book. But I couldn't put it down. It was such a fun and educational read, and the overall message throughout was great. Highly recommend.

[Jack B · Rating 5 out of 5]

My book January reading book was Behind The Bench: Inside the Minds of Hockey’s Greatest Coaches by Craig Custance. The author, who is also an NHL journalist sets up individual meetings with 11 of hockey’s best coaches and watches some of their old games that they coached with him and discuss what was going through their head and what makes them such good leaders. This book was great and gave very good insight into how coaches make their teams so successful with multiple strategies.

[Daniel Lambert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book about an important group in hockey gets overlooked...the coaches. Custance worked hard on this book and it shows. The stories he captures from these great hockey minds is awesome to listen to. It puts you in the moments and lives of so many great hockey players and coaches. Not only is the first hand accounts great the stories and perspectives of players who played for these guys adds so much.

Great read for any hockey fan!

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't read a lot of sports books, but this one was well worth the venture outside my normal genres. Well-written and engaging, it helped me understand the game, the strategy, and some of its best leaders better, and I had fun along the way. It did turn into a little too much of a Sidney Crosby love fest at times, but I guess that's what you have to deal with in hockey these days.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Custance wrote a pretty good podcast, complete with slightly too much navel-gazing. Joe Rogan and Chris Hardwick would be proud. Also, if you want to remove the mythos that surrounds coaching, this will help a great deal. He focuses so much on the mindset of these coaches that you lose most of the personalities, so they all come across as athletes who discovered how to motivate others.

[Jen FitzGerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed all the stories although I skipped Babcock and Quennville.

As a Dallas Stars fan, I found the Hitchcock entry especially enlightening. I’m fairly new to hockey so the explanation regarding the skate in the crease was super helpful.

The Claude Julien entry was moving to me for some reason.

Great read!!

[Fletcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Behind the Bench by Craig Custance is a great book for any hockey fan who wants a closer, behind the scenes, look at the game. Custance gives an inside view of the NHL’s top coaches, showing how coaches like Mike Babcock and Joel Quenneville think, motivate, and lead their teams to success. Some parts are a bit technical, but overall, it’s an engaging and entertaining look into the minds that have achieved greatness.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting premise and an enjoyable read - more entertaining than educational. Would prefer more about the coaches themselves than the cliches like "always learning", or "hardest worker" - although they are clearly all true for these coaches.

[Valeria · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best insights into the game that I've had the pleasure of reading. You can clearly see that Craig put in a ton of effort and loved writing this book! If you're a hockey fan its a must read.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Reads like a long winded newspaper article. Wish there was just a collection of stories rather than the random ramblings of the author wondering if he has wifi to be able to run the tape during his interviews.

[Davis Dunkleberger · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great insight into how coaches see the game and how they see their players. Custance does a great job humanizing them and what they stand for. You see a side of Torts that you never see and it puts so many other things in context. A great read for hockey fans and is such an easy read.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting learned a lot.

[Bauer's Bookshelf]

Content Notes: sports, hockey, interviews

Additional Notes: contains section on Babcock who has been revealed to have been abusive to his players

[Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the premise and there are were some really interesting passages in here. I could’ve done with fewer descriptions of the route and vehicles the author used to get to the meetings.

[N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exciting book that helped me understand the game a little more!! Excellent sports writing that made me feel like I was interviewing too haha

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you’re a hockey fan, this has to be on your bookshelf. A great study in what makes coaches tick.