The NHL / Julie Cart : Webster Gains Early Favor as Newest in a Long Line of Ranger Coaches

OK, so the New York Rangers have dumped Ted Sator and taken on Tom Webster. It’s nothing new, certainly, in New York. Webster is the team’s eighth coach in 10 years. Frank Brown of the New York Daily News took a casual poll of the Ranger veterans. Each was asked to name the best coach for whom he had ever played.

Curt Giles declined to name only one, offering a composite instead. “Combine the enthusiasm of Glen Sonmor with the fundamental strengths of Bill Mahoney, and put a little Lorne Henning in there,” Giles said, referring to two former Minnesota North Stars coaches and the current one.

Tom Laidlaw, like Giles, found a few things to like about some coaches. “The most enjoyable to play for was Craig Patrick, the first time he coached, because he was still acting like he was still a player,” Laidlaw said. “The best X’s and O’s had to be Herbie Brooks and Reg Higgs. Hardest worker? Ted Sator.”

High-scoring center Pierre Larouche did not get along with Sator, but he did mention another victim of a firing this week. “The best coach, not that I was treated well by him, was Scotty Bowman in Montreal,” Larouche said. “He had so many great athletes, he had to keep them all on the edge of hungriness, and he did.”

Bowman was fired Tuesday as General Manager of the Buffalo Sabres.

Webster is getting early high marks for his ability to motivate players--a needed strength among the Rangers.

In Webster’s first two games as coach last weekend, his team gave him matching ties as a present. He said he would take the two points, gratefully.

“One point at a time,” Webster said. “I’m very, very pleased with this hockey club. They’re very determined. They’re talking to one another, complimenting one another and keeping me sharp.”

Webster is a man delighted with his job, thrilled to be coaching in the NHL. That’s easy to figure, considering where he has been.

Webster, 38, coached the Ranger farm club at Tulsa, Okla., in the Central Hockey League for two years. At one point, the team had no home arena and, therefore, played all its games on the road. The Tulsa team often had to drive 2 1/2 hours to Oklahoma City to find practice ice. The dressing room at that rink had just one shower.

And when they couldn’t get that rink, the Oilers practiced at a shopping mall, where, for safety’s sake, they were not allowed to use pucks or sticks. Webster improvised by asking players to throw Nerf balls at one another.

Sometimes the team would arrive at the mall only to find the rink gone, dirt in its place. When that happened, Webster sent all but the goalies home, then worked just with them, hitting tennis balls at them.

John Vanbiesbrouck, now a Ranger, was one of those on the receiving end of the tennis balls.

“He’s the model of how to keep a team together,” the goalie said of Webster. “We could have quit. He could have said, ‘What do I need this for?’ and gone home. But he stayed with us. You don’t forget a thing like that.”

Apparently, Webster has forgotten little of life in the minor leagues.

“Coaching in the NHL is a goal I’ve achieved, one that I set for myself,” he said. “But (the goal) hasn’t been fulfilled. I haven’t won a Stanley Cup.”

NHL Notes Wayne Gretzky needed only to see pictures of the bleeding face of Toronto’s Borje Salming to reconsider using a visor. Salming’s face was severely cut by a skate blade when he fell in a game last week against Detroit. Salming needed more than 200 stitches, many of them beneath the surface of the skin. It convinced Gretzky to try a visor again. “I have a whole new appreciation for face shields,” he said. “The shield has always been too heavy for my light helmet, but they’ve come out with a smaller, thinner one now. I’ll try it in practice for a few weeks. I’ve done it before, but I’ve taken it off.” . . . Many players don’t even wear helmets, let alone visors, in practice or pregame warmups. Oiler Coach Glen Sather thinks more injuries are likely in practice. “(Players) want the pretty girls in the stands to see what they look like,” he said. “I guess there’s still some glamour left in the game.” Ironically, Salming had worn a visor before. Seven years ago he was hit in his eye and began wearing one. Then he stopped. He has also had serious cuts on both eyes, mostly from sticks. Salming said that if he had been wearing the visor, he wouldn’t have suffered the cut.