Enter Laughing: Ducks’ Wilson Can Take a Joke

A sense of humor might be one of the most crucial qualifications for the coach of an NHL expansion team that could lose 60 games in its first season.

And Ron Wilson, introduced as the first coach of the Mighty Ducks at a news conference Wednesday, seems to have one.

“We’re going to be the butt of a lot of jokes, I imagine. I hope it won’t be for our performance on the ice,” said Wilson, 38, a Vancouver Canuck assistant coach who admits his first reaction to the team’s nickname was “How can they do this in the National Hockey League?”

Wilson appeared in an Anaheim Arena conference room wearing the same Donald Duck tie he wore to his first interview with General Manager Jack Ferreira and to the NHL entry draft. He swears he’s owned it since Christmas.

“You probably think, ‘No way. He bought that tie last week,’ ” Wilson said. “I have about five of these Disney ties. At least I don’t have to change my wardrobe.”

Wilson, who agreed to a multiyear contract, was chosen to head the Walt Disney Co. hockey team from a group of about seven candidates, including former King coach Mike Murphy and Al Sims of the minor league Ft. Wayne Komets.

“He’s quick, he’s got a quick wit and he’s a bright guy,” Ferreira said. “He’s an upbeat person, and he’ll transfer that to the team. I didn’t want anyone who would dwell on the negative. We’re going to have enough negatives.”

With his razor-short blond hair and reputation as a family-oriented coach, Wilson seems a natural fit for Disney. In hockey circles, he is recognized as an innovative coach--one of a group who would favor eliminating ties and ending overtime periods in shootouts.

With Vancouver, Wilson worked extensively with computer analysis of players--one of his idols is Oakland Athletics Manager Tony LaRussa--and also created motivational videos for the team. By splicing together game film with Bruce Springsteen music and clips from movies such as “Animal House” or war films, he creates homemade movies meant to stir the team.

“You can tweak emotions by showing things from movies. It gets a response,” Wilson said. “Some people don’t know what it means, but their teammates can explain it to them.”

He discussed his unusual use of videos when he interviewed with Disney Chairman Michael Eisner.

“I told Michael Eisner I’d teach him how to coach hockey so he could coach his kids’ team if he’d teach me how to make movies,” Wilson said. “But I wasn’t bringing any of my videos to the interview. I didn’t want to show him one of my Mickey Mouse videos.”

Ferreira said Wilson came highly recommended by Pat Quinn, president, general manager and coach of the Canucks, who at first refused him permission to speak to Wilson because Quinn considered him a candidate to coach the Canucks if he decides later this summer to step down. New Jersey General Manager Lou Lamoriello, who coached Wilson at Providence College, and Hartford General Manager Brian Burke, a co-captain with Wilson on the Friar hockey team, also recommended him.

“Brian Burke was just adamant that he was the guy for me to hire,” Ferreira said.

Lamoriello called Wilson an “honest, direct, sincere person,” and praised him for what he described as an intuitive feel for the game.

A former NHL defenseman who also played professionally in Switzerland, Wilson is the son of one former NHL coach and the nephew of another. His father, the late Larry Wilson, coached the Detroit Red Wings briefly during the 1970s. His uncle, John Wilson, was briefly the coach of the Kings during the 1969-70 season and also coached the Red Wings, the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Colorado Rockies.

Some hockey observers didn’t think a coach with virtually no experience as a head coach would be hired to head an NHL team. The only time Wilson has run a team was during the 1989-90 season, when he took over the minor league Milwaukee Admirals while the late Ron Lapointe was undergoing treatment for cancer. The team was 9-10 under Wilson.

“That’s an old hockey sort of thing, that you have to have been a head coach somewhere along the way,” Wilson said. “Look at other sports--football, basketball, baseball--they hire people who have never been head coaches all the time. I’m glad Jack is setting this precedent in the National Hockey League.”

Ferreira said he wasn’t concerned.

“The decision came down to I thought Ron was the most knowledgeable and most prepared to run and expansion franchise on the West Coast,” he said. “Running a team on the West Coast is totally different as far as training and travel. He’s done a lot of this with Vancouver.”

Said Lamoriello: “I don’t worry at all about the question of inexperience. With his father being a coach, he had the benefit of his observations and experience since he was 7, 8, 9 years old, more than most people do in a lifetime.”

Wilson promised a Duck team that will be aggressive but eventually emphasize skill--especially with No. 4 overall draft pick Paul Kariya expected to join the team late next season or in the second year. Wilson was no fighter, compiling only 68 penalty minutes in seven NHL seasons. Even his two teen-age daughters make fun of him for talking to the goaltender instead of participating in fights.

“I’m not particularly in favor of fighting for fighting’s sake, but if a team is getting carried away, you have to have people to respond,” Wilson said. “Not a soul in our division or the league is going to touch Paul Kariya. We’ll get that taken care of right from the get-go.”

Ducks Notes

Defensemen Bobby Dollas and Bill Houlder have agreed to contract terms, General Manager Jack Ferreira said. Both players were taken in the expansion draft but are restricted free agents. The Ducks also met Wednesday’s deadline to submit a qualifying offer to their only other restricted free agent, forward Steven King. Negotiations will continue and the Ducks have the right to retain him by matching his highest offer. . . . Forward Tim Sweeney and defenseman David Williams, two other players taken in the expansion draft, were on hand for the introduction of Coach Ron Wilson. Sweeney and Williams are working at a Costa Mesa hockey camp run by Boston goaltender John Blue of Lake Forest. . . . Season ticket sales have passed 11,500 with the team hoping to sell 15,000 of the 17,250 seats. The remaining seats are on the upper level, club level and in the luxury suites.