Ducks Spread Their Wings

The situation is similar. The differences huge.

Two coaches. Two messages. Two directions for one hockey team.

“He did everything to help us win,” Mighty Duck General Manager Bryan Murray said about Coach Mike Babcock on Thursday, a day after the Ducks swept the defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings.

“He had guys playing the system, they had structure, they had belief.... The demands he placed on players were fair, but they know what we have to do every night.”

The memo sent down the line, from then-team president Tony Tavares to coach Ron Wilson in 1997, was short and not-so-sweet: “You’re fired.”

Those two moments bridge a five-year chasm that saw the Ducks go from a promising, profitable franchise to a cocktail party joke. The journey back to the future may still be in progress, but it is picking up speed.

The Ducks are fresh from an exciting Stanley Cup playoff series with the Red Wings ... just like in 1997. Fans at the sold-out Arrowhead Pond roared as the Ducks battled through two home playoff games ... just like 1997.

Two big differences. The Ducks actually won the series against the Red Wings this time And, the powers that be are not about to fire the coach.

The depths the Ducks sank to after their promising showing in the 1997 playoffs can be measured by how far they have come in less than a year. They have gone from a team that was the punch line to one with punch.

It all rolls down from the top ... now and in 1997.

Paul Pressler, who oversaw the Ducks and Angels for the Walt Disney Co. before jumping to the Gap Corp., hired Murray as general manager last spring. Murray then reworked the Ducks on the fly, first making the right choice in Babcock, then upgrading the talent at every opportunity and finally by getting people to put forth the effort.

“That’s what management is, it’s nothing more than just being a regular person,” Murray said.

The Ducks, once a cash cow for Disney, are beginning to recapture the promise of the days before Wilson’s firing. Attendance was up slightly, from 12,002 tickets sold a game in 2001-02 to 13,988 this season. But it did rise after a free-fall since the 1998-99 season.

“We haven’t been around long enough to have a real rich tradition here, so any time we win a playoff series it’s going to create some excitement,” said center Steve Rucchin, now in his ninth season with the Ducks. “Back then, it looked like the start of good things to come.”

It wasn’t.

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“I remember how alive the fans in Orange County were in 1997,” said Phoenix Coyote scout Warren Rychel, who played on the 1996-97 team. “You go into restaurants and there was a buzz about the team.”

At that point the Ducks were in a stretch where they sold out 90 of 93 games. Their merchandise sales ranked among the leaders of all professional sports. The franchise had new-found respect, “maybe people won’t look on us as a Mickey Mouse organization,” then-general manager Jack Ferreira said after Game 4 of the Detroit series.

Duck leadership changed all that. Ferreira was the general manager, but Tavares reigned and made that clear often. He talked of five-year plans to bring the Stanley Cup to Anaheim but undercut that quest.

“There was a draft meeting [in 1998] and Jack walked into the room and all the scouts were pale,” one former Duck official said. “Jack asked what was wrong and they told him that Tony had just been there and went on a rampage. He didn’t want the team to draft any more Russians.”

The Wilson firing was the result of another Tavares edict.

Before the first game of the Detroit series, Wilson told a Detroit writer about his family’s long history with the Red Wings, where he said coaching the team would be a “dream job” but was not “something I covet right now.”

Tavares, “threw one of his classic fits,” a former Duck official said. He ordered Wilson fired before the series began but was talked out of it by Ferreira.

There was no swaying Tavares after the Ducks were eliminated. Wilson was fired and Tavares ducked the news conference, later denying dodging the responsibility, saying, “I was not hiding. I had a prior engagement. I was not eating Snickers bars and soaking my feet in Ron’s blood.”

The quote stuck with Duck fans, who grew more frustrated when the only thing on the rise was the ticket prices.

“It all crumpled pretty quick,” Rychel said. “Tony took things apart and it backfired. He doesn’t really know hockey. He had his hands on everything. Ron was gone, the older guys were gone. They tried to bring in young guys who weren’t ready.”

Tavares resigned as president of Anaheim Sports in January 2002 and is now president of the Montreal Expos. He could not be reached for comment.

Tavares was followed by another iron fist, Pierre Gauthier, who supplanted him as president as well as taking over as general manager in 1998. Gauthier oversaw the decline to the bottom of the NHL, which included trading the popular Teemu Selanne.

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Winning back trust has been tougher than winning games.

“I heard comments all the time that they forgot about the fans here,” Murray said. “The bottom line was they felt they weren’t being treated quite right. All I know it is a good building and a good team. The fans will respond.”

Unlike Ferreira’s situation, Murray has free hand from his boss, first Pressler and now Jay Rasulo, who succeeded Pressler in November. When Murray wanted to hire Babcock, he started to sell it to Pressler. It was a short conversation.

Said Murray: “Paul said, ‘That’s why we hired you Bryan, to make the decisions. Hire the guy.’ ”

The Ducks have made all the right moves this season, including to reduce the price of 9,000 seats.

Under Murray, the reins have been loosened. When he came in as coach last season, office staff was not allowed to talk with him or the players in the office. That rule was wiped off the books. Other simple acts followed

“You take the team out to dinner,” Murray said. “I was told a couple times last year that we don’t want to spend money in that area. To me, you do the small things. It may cost a few thousand dollars on one or two occasions, but it is the right way to do it. It’s like saying good morning to your staff. You’re allowed to do that, allowed to have that freedom.”

The slow turnaround shifted to light speed in the last week, as the Ducks took out the Red Wings. The Pond buzzed like never before

“I think it’s better this time,” Rucchin said. “Any time you beat the defending champs it’s going to make the atmosphere even more exciting. It’ll be nice to get to the second round and do more damage.”