Honest-to-Goodness : Robinson Is a Coach Kings Can Count On

An impeccable resume--seven Stanley Cups, 20 seasons in the playoffs, two Norris trophies in Montreal as the NHL’s top defenseman, master of the breakout pass and so much more--may very well illuminate Larry Clark Robinson, the hockey player.

Although impressive, cold hard facts are, well, cold, and fall far short of telling a more complete story of the 44-year-old Robinson, who will be inducted tonight here into the Hockey Hall of Fame. Sometimes a seemingly minor story behind the scenes, a passing turn of phrase can prove infinitely more revelatory than any staged moment.

Robinson had come off yet another big night in what has been a year of epic evenings, winning in his NHL head-coaching debut against Colorado on Oct. 7, a 4-2 victory by the Kings. Hours later, his packed car started to wheel out of the Forum parking lot when he came upon a trio of reporters.

“Are you OK? Do you need a ride?” he asked.

It was explained that they were merely watching a friend--from a distance--making sure the colleague reached her car safely. “I’ll make sure she’s OK,” said Robinson, before driving over and waiting.

The impression was that Robinson would have made separate trips to Santa Monica, Long Beach and Orange County, if asked. What made the gesture more telling was that reporters had somewhat differing experiences with previous King coaches and mass transportation.

Stick-throwing Tom Webster, feeling the playoff pressures, once careened down an alley and came within a couple of feet of mowing down a writer outside the team’s practice facility. Then there was the quixotic Robbie Ftorek, who, at a Hockey In Harlem event in New York, abandoned a couple of journalists in the dead of winter, only for them to be rescued by a concerned policeman.

Concern for others is deeply grounded in Robinson, so automatic he didn’t think he had done anything special. But it’s his nature even during high-pressure situations. When the New Jersey Devils were on the verge of clinching the Stanley Cup in June, Robinson, then an assistant coach, became aware that a 15-year-old Devil fan from North Carolina had traveled to the morning skate to watch the players.

The skate had been called off, but Robinson found out the youngster’s name and secured an autographed stick from goaltender Martin Brodeur by mid-afternoon.

“I don’t think he’s changed in all the years I’ve known him,” said Steve Shutt, a close friend and teammate in Montreal. “Probably one of his greatest strengths is that he can make everyone feel comfortable around him. He’s not intimidating to be around. When someone is as big as Larry, people have a tendency to be intimidated.”

Says writer Michael Farber, who covered Robinson as a columnist in Montreal: “Larry’s the type of guy you want as your next-door neighbor. When your mower comes back, it’s nicer than when you gave it to him.”

That’s the way it was done on the farm next door. Robinson grew up on a dairy farm in Marvelville about 30 minutes from Ottawa, spending his summers helping clear about 12,000 bales of hay for the animals’ consumption and honing his skating skills on the ponds and nearby creeks in the winter.

“He came from a humble background, and he never forgot where he came from,” said Detroit’s Scotty Bowman, who coached Robinson in Montreal. “I never really had to challenge him. I had a good relationship with him.

“You could always count on him.”

Robinson’s parents, Les and Isabel, helped instill values at an early age.

“It’s sort of inbred, coming from a farming community,” Robinson said. “Everything you do there--everything was done on a handshake and a promise, which is kind of unheard in today’s businesses.

“I got burned a couple of times because of that. You grew up and you learned to trust people. Their word is the almighty gospel.”

Actually Robinson’s road to Los Angeles was paved, in part, when he was victimized in a bad business deal, which he speaks about candidly. In trying to protect his son’s interests, Robinson invested about $250,000 in a business in Montreal. Funds were shifted among the owners’ various companies and he lost money and found himself in court when the individuals pulled the plug and declared bankruptcy.

“There’s nothing more I’d love to do than to be able to sit on my farm and do stuff and be around family and friends, but you’ve got to still pay bills,” Robinson said.

“Since then, I’ve had to fight a few cases in court. The bank tried to come to me and say I guaranteed the money. I got a bad taste over that. It’s my own fault. It wasn’t like I wasn’t warned against it.”

Fortuitously, Robinson’s resume--supplemented with the Devils’ Stanley Cup--was sending off a scramble among the handful of NHL teams searching for a new head coach, a yearly event. For a few weeks, Robinson was rumored to be heading everywhere. The Islanders called. There was interest from the Sabres, which ended in miscommunication when Robinson called and could only reach Buffalo’s fan hot line.

Calgary wanted too quick of an answer from him. He was interested in Florida, but the Panthers seemed as though they were set on hiring someone else. Then, there were the Kings, saying “Hello, Larry?”

“Everyone always asked, ‘Do you want to be a head coach?’ I don’t know,” he said.

“It was like: ‘Do you want to drive a Mercedes?’ ‘I don’t know, I’ve never driven one.’

“The assumption I would coach was made because I stayed in hockey so long. My last five or six years, I was always paired with the new youngster in town. I was basically playing and coaching, so why not give it a try.”

Robinson, who finished his NHL career by playing three seasons in Los Angeles, had previously turned down an opportunity to coach its minor-league team in Phoenix after he retired.

Instead, he took a year off from hockey, played some of the best polo of his life and had a nine-hour operation to fix his nose, which had been broken nine times, which had limited his breathing capacity to 30%.

“I spoke to different people about taking a job after you’ve been a player,” he said. “They said if they had to do it all over again, they would have stayed away from the game for a year.

“If you go right from being on the ice to being on the bench, you don’t think of the game as a coach, you think of it more as a player. You’ve got to get that feeling of wanting to be a player out of your system.”

Although Robinson played with several of the current Kings--Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Marty McSorley, Kelly Hrudey and Darryl Sydor, among others--he has been able to adeptly make the transition. “If I was younger, it might be different. With my age it comes a little easier to take--when they see the gray hair,” he said.

A subtle, if not wry, sense of humor often helps Robinson get his point across. The other day, he told his young defensemen, “Remember, the glass is your friend.”

What can be difficult is having to criticize the players. His motivational ways are steeped in positive feedback. A couple of weeks ago, he called Sydor, a “time bomb,” with no malice intended. Sydor improved his play since then, but Robinson clearly didn’t like having to bring someone down after lending consistent support.

“I always thought he could coach,” Shutt said. “But could he be tough enough? Larry is such an easy-going guy. You’ve got to be hard-nosed. That’s the biggest question mark. Some players will take advantage of that.”

But Robinson has stuck to his original plan of distributing playing time more equally than it has been allotted in the past. Right wing Rick Tocchet earlier was upset about his limited ice time and had a meeting with Robinson.

“It’s like you are talking to a friend over lunch or speaking to your dad,” Tocchet said. “We had a disagreement. But he’s not trying to trick you. If he’s wrong, he’ll admit it. A lot of coaches can’t communicate. But he’s approachable and really great for the young guys. Awesome.”

For Robinson, the urge to clown around and be one of the guys is still there. As a player, his persona alternated between regalness and revelry. After all, he is forever known among his teammates at the World Championships in 1981 for the time he put extra long cotton swabs in his ears and ran around shouting, ‘Look, I’m a Martian.’ But he accidentally drove one into his ear and punctured his ear drum.

After returning from the hospital and sitting out three games, his teammates greeted him, lined up in the dressing room with cotton swabs in their ears.

“Well, I still use Q-tips,” Robinson says now.

“For me, that’s the hardest part about being a coach. I like being silly. That’s what kept me young all these years. I’ve always thought like a kid. That’s the part I miss the most. I still like to joke around with the guys. As the coach, you have to have some sort of direction, and it’s kind of hard to show direction if you’re acting like a fool.”

At least, he still has an athletic outlet on the polo field, although the new job has curtailed those endeavors with horses. Said Shutt: “He plays just how he played hockey. He plays defensively and he’s really tough to get around.”

It must be a formidable sight. Vaunted Montreal goaltender Ken Dryden in his book, “The Game,” once wrote that Robinson looks “taller, broader and younger than those around him . . . like an Easter Island statue.”

And now, along with 39 other Canadiens’ players before him, the Easter Island statue has reached the pinnacle of lifetime achievement . . . Hall of Fame status.

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HERE’S TO YOU, MR. ROBINSON

A look at some of the key numbers in Larry Robinson’s playing career:

*--*

Team, Years Goals Assists Points Montreal, 1972-1989 197 686 883 Kings, 1989-1992 11 64 75 Total 208 750 958

*--*

* Six Stanley Cups, all with Montreal

* Playoff most valuable player: 1978

* Norris Trophy (league’s top defenseman): 1976-77, 1979-80.

* Ten-time all-star

* Holds record for playoff games: 227

* Fourth in career points among defensemen