Quorum in the Forum : New Coach Barry Melrose Has the Vote That Counts Now as Kings Start Over Again

For better or worse, the walkway immediately behind the Kings’ bench in the Forum is Barry Melrose’s stage now.

That place, and that arena, have gobbled up all of Melrose’s predecessors and left the team without a Stanley Cup championship.

His immediate predecessor, Tom Webster, arrived in Los Angeles in 1989, possessing a calm, mild-mannered demeanor. He had followed an intense young coach named Robbie Ftorek, who couldn’t get along with an important core group of star players. Webster seemed an ideal replacement.

But by the end, the pressures of the job drove Webster to distraction. He rarely conducted practices, leaving that to his assistants, and earned the distinction of a stick-throwing eccentric.

Yet the failures of Ftorek, Webster and those before them seem to provide a special motivation for the 36-year-old Melrose, a rookie NHL coach.

“It’s time to start proving what I’ve been saying,” said Melrose, whose team opens training camp today at Lake Arrowhead.

“A lot of things I believe in are going to be tested. People have said that you can’t win in L.A. Proving it wrong, that’s what I live for. I thrive on that stuff.”

Melrose is reminded that the Kings did win a regular-season division title in 1990-91. He seems unimpressed.

“I’m not here to make the playoffs,” Melrose said.

Melrose has a diverse resume, varying in success greatly from coach to player.

In five years of coaching, he has won two championships. His Medicine Hat Tigers won Canada’s premier major junior title, the Memorial Cup Championship, in the 1987-88 season. Then, last spring, he led the Adirondack Red Wings to the American Hockey League’s Calder Cup title.

In 11 years as a player, he survived with savvy and hard work, rather than talent and skill. He played 300 NHL games with Winnipeg, Toronto and Detroit, recording 10 goals and 33 points. He also played three seasons for Cincinnati in the World Hockey Assn.

Jimmy Devellano, then Detroit’s general manager, signed Melrose as a player and then made him a player-assistant coach to Bill Dineen at Adirondack in 1986. Melrose retired as a player and went to Medicine Hat in 1987.

“He does everything the hard way,” said Devellano, now the Red Wings’ senior vice president. “Barry was determined he wanted to be a coach. He really took a good approach. He wasn’t scared to get his hands dirty and start at the bottom at Medicine Hat.

“Hey, that’s the fact of Barry Melrose’s life. The superstars just walk in and take over and they’ve got so much talent and so much ability, everything just happens for them.”

Said Melrose: “I wasn’t a star. When I did something on the ice, or didn’t do something, I knew why. A star, sometimes they don’t have a clue. With a borderline player, everything is thought out. Most good coaches were borderline. Very rarely is a star a good coach. Look at Bill Russell (of the Celtics). A guy who is a star doesn’t know how the lesser lights feel.”

In 1983, Devellano had two future NHL coaches among his six defensemen. One was Melrose, the other was Brad Park, who went on to coach the Red Wings in 1985-86.

“Now, Barry Melrose had a tough, tough time playing,” Devellano said. “Brad Park was a star. But Brad Park cannot coach. He cannot coach his way out of a wet paper bag. And you can quote me.

“And here we’ve got Barry coaching the Los Angeles Kings.”

Melrose’s development as a coach was helped along by several key figures. There was Devellano, of course, who gave Melrose his start. And Dineen, now the Flyers’ coach, who was almost a father figure. He taught Melrose the benefits of flexibility at Adirondack.

“I learned a lot from him,” Melrose said. “Bill showed me you don’t have to be a (jerk) to be a good coach.”

Said Dineen: “He does an extremely good job of communicating. He can read players--he’s made a study of it. I think he wanted to coach all along. He took bits and pieces from everywhere.”

Melrose continued to put the puzzle together when he made his coaching debut at Medicine Hat.

Russ Farwell, now Philadelphia’s general manager, who worked with Melrose when they were both in Medicine Hat and later with the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League, told a story about Melrose’s first meeting with his players at Medicine Hat.

“We had a function with the players, a barbecue,” said Farwell, who was general manager in both places while Melrose coached. “He got there and looked around and realized he had longer hair than all the players. The next day, he cut it.”

The youngsters weren’t an easy group to reach, according to Farwell. Medicine Hat had won the national title the year before Melrose arrived and egos were running wild. More than a dozen of those players went on to play in the NHL.

Naturally, they tested Melrose.

“The first three months there did not go real well, but that helped him,” Farwell said. “For a young coach out of the pros, it was quite a challenge. They were pretty cocky, a tough group. He responded, made some decisions and even sent a couple of them home.”

For Melrose, the season in Seattle was initially tougher to handle. He and Farwell entered a longtime losing situation.

“I think I was the only one on the bench who expected to win,” Melrose said. “They were used to losing. It was a mental thing. Things turned around after Christmas.”

Farwell helped him communicate better with players by urging Melrose to use different methods of motivation. Melrose, an avid reader of history, took his suggestion and began an intense study of self-help books.

Four years ago, he discovered a book by Anthony Robbins called, “Unlimited Power.”

“It changed my life,” Melrose said. “Before, when I had a problem, we’d all complain about the problem. Now, I don’t spend two days complaining about the problem. Now, nobody controls my life but me.”