No Minor League Regrets for Goring

It’s two hours before the Utah Grizzlies will play the Long Beach Ice Dogs. Butch Goring, looking a little tired, his chin covered with a bit of stubble and his eyes a little red, stands against the boards at the Long Beach Arena and still manages to smile.

Goring is coach of the Grizzlies of the International Hockey League, and in the IHL your team can, and does, play three games in three nights.

So Goring has coached his team on Friday in Salt Lake City, Saturday in Las Vegas and now, Sunday afternoon in Long Beach.

“You don’t do that in the NHL,” Goring says. “Three games in three nights. That’s one way the IHL is different from the NHL.”

It is 8 1/2 months since Goring turned down a Disney offer to coach the Mighty Ducks. It was a move that shocked even some of Goring’s friends and disappointed one of his daughters, who, he said, loves Disney and has always wanted to meet Michael Eisner.

For Goring, 49, the NHL is still the dream. It is where he played for 16 years as a gutsy, hard-nosed center and it is where his coaching career started, for a season and 13 games with the Boston Bruins.

But since the 1987-88 season, Goring has been in the minors, coaching the Spokane Chiefs, Capital District Islanders, Las Vegas Thunder, Denver Grizzlies and now the Utah Grizzlies.

For Goring to have the chance to return to the NHL, to come back and live in the Los Angeles area, where, Goring says, his young family was very happy for 10 years while he played for the Kings, the Ducks’ job would have been the perfect opportunity. So when he turned it down, “Yes, there are people who maybe questioned my sanity when I said no. But not the people who know me. They know I’m stubborn. And they know I won’t go against what I believe in.”

It was well-chronicled how Goring was insulted by what he considered a low-ball offer from the Ducks’ ownership. He said in July and says now that the offer would have placed him among the bottom two NHL coaches as far as pay.

“I didn’t deserve to be paid what Scotty Bowman was getting,” Goring said, “but I didn’t deserve to be in the bottom two either.”

Yes, but. Goring has heard the yes, buts. Yes, but you’re making less money in the IHL than whatever the Ducks would pay. Yes, but look at the Ducks, they are hot, they are on the way to the playoffs, they have made an impressive turnaround. Yes, but you could have been coaching Paul Kariya and Teemu Selanne, two of the most exciting players in the NHL.

Yes, but.

“Yes, but I made the right decision, absolutely,” Goring says. He stares at the empty ice of the small arena and there is no regret in his voice, none in his eyes either.

“I would have enjoyed coaching the Ducks, absolutely. Three games in three nights, no chartered planes, yeah, that’s not fun.

“But I have paid my dues as a coach. I’ve won two championships, I’ve had success as a player. I am not the new kid on the block and the offer that was made to me wasn’t fair.

“I can be stubborn and maybe people think I’m too stubborn, but I could not take that offer and have my pride. No hard feelings either. I’m happy to see the Ducks do well. I do not sit around and wish the Ducks ill. I did what I felt was right.”

Maybe Goring was never Disney material. In recounting his flirtation with the Ducks, Goring remembered he was interviewed by Duck chairman Tony Tavares, he just remembered it was “Tony, um, what’s his last name?”

Goring remembered he was asked to fly to New York to meet with the head of the Disney organization. A big deal, especially to Goring’s 24-year-old daughter Shannon, an aspiring lawyer who hugely admires the Disney success and the Disney CEO.

“Uh, yeah, I met with him, but I can’t remember his name,” Goring says.

Michael Eisner, Goring is told.

“Yes, that’s it. My daughter was mad at me for not taking the job. She thought she might meet Michael Eisner too.”

Hobnobbing with Eisner is clearly not important to Goring. It is the hockey that matters. It is the pride that matters.

Cathy Goring, Butch’s wife, points out that any top-level athlete must always believe he is special, that he is deserving of respect, that his accomplishments must be taken note of.

“It wasn’t only the money,” Cathy says by phone. “The whole thing was so frustrating. There was a total lack of communication. Butch finally said, ‘Honey, if there’s no communication now, what would it be like if I took the job?’ ”

It is Cathy who will say the only part of all this that upsets Butch “are the people who said, who are still saying, ‘Are you crazy?’ Those people just don’t understand. They don’t understand the high pressure environment that NHL coaches work under. Butch believes that it is his destiny to coach in the NHL again. He is sure of himself that he can do the job. But he is also sure of himself that he’s not desperate either.”

And it is Cathy who says that, darn it, because the Ducks are doing so unexpectedly well, that people are still asking Butch the question--are you crazy?

“No, I’m not,” Goring says. “I’m not crazy. I’m just stubborn. And I’m happy.”

Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com