Patience Pays for Wilson

The Mighty Ducks spent some money the other day.

Honest.

They spent it on the hockey team.

No lie.

They spent it on the man who coaches the hockey team, giving Ron Wilson a contract extension through the end of the 1996-97 season, which doesn’t quite take Wilson to the culmination of the Ducks’ grand “five-year plan,” but gets him at least within telescopic range.

It’s the best investment Disney has made this fiscal year.

Think about the assignment Wilson has accepted, and accepted willingly:

Start up a hockey team from scratch; start it up with a bunch of guys named Mark Ferner and Robin Bawa; keep it running with only minimal financial assistance from ownership; keep it focused while the Iceman cometh and goeth, while Wild Wing crashes and burns; keep it competitive against teams willing to sign Joel Otto and capable of trading for Brendan Shanahan; play the young guys, because that is the mantra of the “five-year plan,” even if it means absorbing many defeats in the process; but be careful--don’t absorb too many defeats, lest you plan on watching the young guys make the Stanley Cup playoffs from the living room recliner, instead of from behind the bench.

Who needs this kind of headache, 365 days a year, for three years, plus an extension?

Yet Wilson relishes it, even with his team 3-8-0 and the league legislating against the Ducks’ two chief winning strategies--A) clutch; B) grab--and his best new player, Chad Kilger, being younger than the senior starters on Mater Dei’s football team (counting the redshirt year, of course).

To Wilson, his contract extension “was a definite relief,” not a denial of parole.

“I was starting to worry a little bit,” he said Tuesday. “I know [the Ducks] have other priorities, but we had discussed an extension before the season, in a loose sense. We’re sticking with the program, we’re playing the young guys, but we’re 2-8 and I’m not hearing anything about my contract and people are asking negative questions and beating the drum in the background.”

You mean that rim shot in the Sunday edition of the Toronto Sun, under the big black headline: “Mighty Ax Might Fall On Ron”? Bang the drum slowly. The Sun story put the whispers and speculation out in the open, in black and white: “There’s trouble brewing in Anaheim and, as usual, there are suggestions that the coach will eventually pay the price.”

Hours after that story hit porch steps in Ontario, Duck General Manager Jack Ferreira informed Wilson that he and his assistants, Tim Army and Al Sims, would be extended through the ‘96-97 season, which is one way to defuse an unsightly rumor.

“This isn’t about saving my neck,” Wilson said. “This is about doing the job right. If you’ve got plans, you’ve got to stick to them. That’s the toughest part--sticking to your guns. You have to be stubborn about it. You have to have vision. The trouble is, too many teams aren’t strong enough to see the plan all the way through.”

Wilson cited the New York Islanders as a glowing example.

“The Islanders did it the right way,” he said. “Go with the same coach and young players and grow together . . . The Buffalo Sabres (in the early 1970s) did the same thing. They played the young people, struggled for a few years and then, boom!, they rocketed past Vancouver, which started the same year they did, but went with more veterans. The Sabres were in the finals in their fifth year.”

In Year 3, the Ducks get pressed into the boards by Philadelphia and Vancouver, have their moments against Calgary and Winnipeg, but mostly apply ice to their bruises and sit idly by while division rival San Jose trades for Owen Nolan and Ray Sheppard within the same week.

“The Sharks got Owen Nolan, but they had to give up their best defenseman [Sandis Ozolinsh],” Wilson said. “We could have done the same thing, but do you really want to give up Oleg Tverdovsky?

“Ray Sheppard cost the Sharks Igor Larionov. We do not have a Larionov. . . . People keep getting on us--’Why don’t you go out and get somebody?’ But the guys other teams always ask for are Chad, Oleg, Paul Kariya and maybe Guy Hebert. No offense to our other guys, but those are the only players [other teams] regard as having a big upside.”

Wilson asks, “What are you supposed to work with in your first two, three years? Of course, I’d like to have better players, but with an expansion team, this is reality. I’m pleased with what I do have. But it’s a slow, painful process.

“You’re not a miracle worker. You don’t take guys who were struggling just to play on other teams and win a Stanley Cup with them. Anyone who thinks you can is a fool. With an expansion team, you’re patching holes all the time . . . It’s a matter of being patient.”

But the patience has to work both ways--the coach’s patience in his players and management’s patience in its coach. Wilson is taking care of his end; by signing off on the contract extension in the face of predictable 5-2 defeats, Ferreira and Duck president Tony Tavares are holding up theirs.

When Wilson was hired by the Ducks in the summer of 1993, no expansion hockey coach had lasted more than 2 1/2 seasons. Since then, two have made it past three seasons--Ottawa’s Rick Bowness and Tampa Bay’s Terry Crisp. Wilson stands to be the third, despite what close friends warned him when he interviewed for the Ducks’ job.

“Pat Quinn [then Vancouver’s head coach] asked me, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ ” Wilson recalled. “He said, ‘It’s a minefield, a potential disaster. You’re interviewing for a job to coach players you don’t even know.’ At that point, the Ducks didn’t have any players yet. Not one. Pat told me, ‘You know, Ron, if you take this job, it could be your last job.’ ”

Today, Wilson is well into his third season as the Ducks’ head coach. With the extension, it was suggested Tuesday, he seems a safe bet to make it to four.

“A hundred and four,” Wilson corrected.

His last job? The way Wilson looks at it, that is precisely the idea.