Mark Spector

Mark Spector is a columnist for sportsnet.ca

Pat Quinn and Ron Wilson did their best, but they've got nothing on John Brophy.

“I gotta figure that we’ve got to ****in’ seriously ****in’ consider what the **** we have on this hockey club. ‘Cause they’re not ****in’ foolin’ nobody.” — John Brophy.

They’ve taken the batteries out of the smoke detectors in the room where Pat Quinn does his post-game media conferences in Edmonton. It’s because of the smoke billowing out of Quinn’s ears nightly as he fumes over another pathetic performance by his club.

In Toronto, Ron Wilson spars with the Fan 590’s Howard Berger off and on throughout the season, as the Maple Leafs coach resorts to his usual, calculated tactic of blaming the media, his star player Phil Kessel, or anyone other than himself for his team’s poor play.

But the grand daddy of them all was former Leafs coach John Brophy, who set the modern day record when he dropped 72 F-Bombs (heretofore referred to as ****) in one tirade, on a memorable evening in Bloomington, Minnesota. Brophy vented spectacularly for about two minutes after a 4-2 loss to the North Stars, stewed for a while, then sent his assistant coach out to retrieve the two Leaf reporters for another expletive-filled session.

“It’s a disgrace,” Brophy raged that night. “I’m sick and ****in’ tired of makin’ excuses for all these ****in’ guys that’s gettin’ paid on this ****in’ hockey club, blamin’ it on someone else all the ****in’ time.

“Who are these ****in’ people who drag that ****in’ uniform through the ****in’ mud? For Christ’s sake, there have been great players play in the thing, and then (they) act like this here. Who are they?”

Who are they?

“They are what we thought they were,” Arizona Cardinals coach Dennis Green seethed during a meltdown following a loss to the Chicago Bears. “And we let ‘em off the hook!”

Perhaps the template was established by John McKay, the coach of the 0-14 Tampa Bay Buccaneers back in 1976 who was asked about his team’s execution: “I’m in favour of it,” he quipped.

Then there was the relentlessly positive Badger Bob Johnson, coach of the Calgary Flames. To Badger, every day was a great day for hockey — even one where his team was on an 0-10-1 skid.

“I don’t why everyone is so upset about this so-called slump,” he complained.

But none threw the ol’ applesauce around the way Brophy did in his day.

“It’s embarrassing. It’s ****in’ embarrassing. Without ****in’ question, it’s embarrassing, embarrassing, embarrassing. Without that, it’s very ****in’ embarrassing.”

Just before Christmas, Ottawa Senators GM Bryan Murray steered clear of both the fans and his players when he took a run at NHL officials. Of over 540 games played to that point of the season, only eight times had a club gone an entire game without receiving a powerplay. Three of those occasions the team was Murray’s Senators.

“How can we have this happen to us three times already?” asked Murray. “I don’t want the story to be that I’m a complainer. That’s not the case.”

That was the case, in the eyes of the referees.

“He is not having as much success as he wants,” countered NHL ref Mike Leggo, “so maybe it’s not his fault. Maybe it’s our fault.”

With Brophy, there was never any question who was at fault. It was the players.

“Just who are they? And just who the **** do they think they’re kidding?,” he said. “Where do they get the ****in’ nuts to come to the ****in’ rink every second day, and fourth day, and play one ****in’ period in a week and get away with it?

“I am tired of explaining. I am tired of making things ****in’ clear to this hockey club. I am ****in’ wore out doing it. Don’t tell me they weren’t explained to and talked to and told.”

When Wilson carved up Kessel this week, he knew it was in full view and earshot of the assembled media. Bristling at the fact the scribes asked him about it was merely the same act Glen Sather used to pull when he berated Paul Coffey at practice, then refused to provide the quotes the media needed to properly do the story.

Where do you think they got those quotes? Exactly — from Coffey himself.

Mission accomplished.

Mets manager Casey Stengel once asked famously, “Can’t anybody play this game?” While Punch Imlach once went to the box office, borrowed a bunch of small bills, and threw them on the floor in front of his slumping Leafs.

It represented the team’s playoff bonuses. “That’s what you’re going to be missing if you don’t get your butts in gear,” he said.

But Wilson’s jabbering at sports writers is a favourite fall-back. Like when Bobby Knight said, “All of us learn to write by the second grade, then most of us go on to other things.”

Or Penn State coach Joe Paterno: “If I ever need a brain transplant, I want one from a sports writer. Because I know it’s never been used.”

Ouch. We resemble that remark.

We’re out of space, and we haven’t even got to Cubs manager Lee Elia’s tirade. You’ll have to watch it here.