Want to understand the teaching and motivational chops of new Gulls coach Kevin Dineen? Skip past his time in the NHL, where he coached the Florida Panthers and later helped win the Stanley Cup as an assistant with the Chicago Blackhawks.
The best clue is not hidden in his stint leading the Canadian women’s team to gold at the 2014 Olympics in Sochi.
Dineen’s wife, Annie, revealed the sneaky-smart scheme her husband employed to, let’s say incentivize his four children to climb into skates when they hit 3 or 4.
“Yeah, I would throw bubble gum onto the middle of the ice,” said a laughing Dineen, 55, who was announced as the second coach in Gulls history Monday at Pechanga Arena. “It’s horrible. It’s like sending a dog after a ball, but it’s an effective method.”
Thinking about the game from all angles is something that has anchored Dineen in the game in all types of ways in all kinds of places. He played 19 NHL season, including 59 playoff games. He’s coached grizzled big-stage stars. He’s molded green-around-the-skates junior players. He’s led women to the Olympic mountaintop.
Want to know how wide the hockey knowledge net stretches? Annie Dineen said the game has taken them to nine cities in 28 years of marriage.
“You take something from everywhere you’ve been,” Kevin Dineen said.
If you peel the puck on Dineen, there’s the 56-62-28 record leading the Panthers. There’s the 2015 run to the Cup with the Blackhawks. There’s a playing career with 760 points and 2,229 penalty minutes in 1,188 career games as a right wing with Hartford, Philadelphia, Carolina, Ottawa and Columbus.
Dineen also is the guy who loves “Breaking Bad” and “Braveheart,” who just helped his 18-year-old son harvest an 8-point buck with a bow in Ohio. He’s an addicted outdoorsman who’s chased turkeys in North Dakota, caught elusive permit south of Tulum, Mexico, and landed a tarpon on a fly rod off Islamorada.
“I’d much rather be on the bow of a boat, than on a tee at a golf course,” he said.
Dineen, a native of Quebec City, also prefers being on the ice.
When his playing career ended in Columbus, Annie said he considered retirement and a life away from the sport. When he landed a job in player development with the then-Ducks in Portland, Maine, the light switch flipped back on.
“He told me, ‘I feel alive again,’ ” she said.
Asked to describe his coaching style, Dineen pointed to unflappable fundamentals on defense but an attacking style with the puck in possession. At Portland, for example, he painted the picture: “We let the dogs run.”
Perhaps the most experience came during Canada’s Olympic run. Dineen said so much of the game is the same, but how it’s discussed and processed forced him to approach things differently.
“When you’re coaching men’s hockey, you say, ‘Hey, you (have) to go a little harder on this forecheck’ or ‘You’ve got to change this angle,’ ” he said. “With the women’s game, you’d say, ‘You’ve got to change this angle because if you do that you’ve got a better chance of cutting off that . And if you cut off that …’ They want to ask and discuss and understand. You take the communication to another level.
“To me, it was incredibly enjoyable experience.”
A long love affair with the game now brings Dineen to San Diego, despite a contract with the Blackhawks that could have allowed him to sit out this season – to relax, to reassess, to do whatever recharges life’s batteries.
Dineen said obsessing about hockey’s business side – the staff being dumped in Chicago, his own firing in Florida – risks obscuring the joy of teaching and competing.
“It’s not roses every day you come to work. … You hit a few bumps along the way,” he said.
In 2016, Dineen interviewed to become coach of the Colorado Avalanche. His wife said the reason he was given for the near miss caused him to momentarily question his coaching com – before quickly recommitting.
“When he interviewed, they decided to go with someone younger,” she said. “He was like, ‘So when is (52) the old guy? How about all this experience I have?’ He knows that sometimes you have to move sideways or backwards a little bit to get ahead.”
In San Diego, Dineen follows in rare footsteps. He’s just the second coach of the Gulls and jumps in after Gulls icon Dallas Eakins left to lead the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks. The Gulls reached the most recent Western Conference finals under Eakins, who carved out a 154-95-23 record and topped the Pacific Division in wins and points since its inception in 2015-16.
Hockey, though, still throws its own motivational bubble gum in front of Dineen, too.
“I think you put your own fingerprints on things,” he said.
Pucks, candy and all.
