Inside Joke Lost on Dallas Coach

It was a calm enough Thursday morning in San Jose, where Dallas Star Coach Ken Hitchcock talked with reporters about the Stars’ first 51 games and the 52nd, later against the San Jose Sharks.

And then the question was asked about the last game, an 8-0 loss to the Kings two nights earlier.

“I’m not going to forget that as a coach,” he said heatedly. “I’m never going to forget what Los Angeles and the players did at the end of the game. Those things that they did at the end of the game, I’m not going to forget them for the rest of my life.”

Whoa!

Holy misunderstanding, coach.

Nobody was showing anybody up.

Here’s what happened.

With 1:20 to play, Coach Andy Murray wanted to make a line shift, sending the fourth unit--Steve Reinprecht, Nelson Emerson and Stu Grimson--onto the ice to replace the No. 2 group of Luc Robitaille, Eric Belanger and Ian Laperriere.

Grimson would replace Robitaille at left wing, but Murray knew that was going to be a tough job.

“I don’t know if you’re going to get in there,” he told Grimson, because it was no secret to anybody that Robitaille, who is hard to get off the ice to begin with, had two goals to break a scoring slump and would have loved to get No. 3.

“I’ll get him off,” Grimson told Murray, and everybody on the bench heard it and started laughing. Grimson then started banging the boards hard with his stick to get Robitaille’s attention, then gestured wildly to get Robitaille to the bench.

By then, the Kings, who value Grimson’s dry wit almost as much as they do his propensity to exact revenge when they are wronged on the ice, were howling, never more than when Robitaille skated slowly to the bench and Grimson jumped over the boards to the ice.

“I looked over at [Dallas assistant] Doug Jarvis, who has been a friend for many years, and shook my head,” Murray said. “He didn’t look happy.”

Neither was Hitchcock, whom Murray often speaks of fondly because, like the King coach, Hitchcock was a rink rat who finally got a chance to coach in the NHL after a long tutorial in the bushes.

When the scenario was explained to the Dallas coach later Thursday, he refused to be mollified.

“Well, I saw Grimson and he was running people,” Hitchcock said. “I hope we get them again.”

The Stars will, on Valentine’s Day at Dallas.

You can bet no cards will be exchanged.

*

Murray has plans for the All-Star break: to watch hockey.

He figures to get in 11 games before returning to the Kings for Monday’s practice, all played in Minnesota by his children Brady, Sarah and Jordy at Parents Weekend at Shattuck St. Mary’s School, where Murray formerly coached and where Brady and Sarah attend.