Ace of a weekend
First-time All-Stars awed by experience
Posted: Sunday January 24, 1999 10:20 PM
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San Jose's Marco Sturm (right), who was one of 14 first-time All-Stars, scored the first goal for the World team AP |
By Denise N. Maloof, CNN/SI
TAMPA, Fla. -- Lindy Ruff's team lost the 49th annual NHL All-Star game Sunday at the Ice Palace, but he's not particularly upset. Neither is Mattias Ohlund, although Ron Tugnutt might crow a bit because his team won.
All three men participated in their first NHL All-Star extravaganza in Tampa -- Ruff as the World All-Star team's head coach, Ohlund as a World All-Star defenseman, and Tugnutt as a North American team goalie. The North American team beat the World team 8-6, but that wasn't important. All three first-timers drunk in three days' worth of All-Star sights and sounds, and for Ruff and Ohlund, there's the comfort of knowing that Sunday's loss doesn't count in any standings.
"I thought it was awesome," Ruff said of his first All-Star coaching appearance. "I was proud to be here."
"This is something else," said Ottawa's Tugnutt, a last-minute replacement for Toronto's injured Curtis Joseph. "I'm kind of in awe of the whole situation."
"It's a great experience," said Vancouver's Ohlund. "So many great players, so many big names."
As Buffalo's second-year head coach, Ruff has been to All-Star classics before. But orchestrating a roster the caliber of Sunday's was a new experience. He and assistant coach Robbie Ftorek, the New Jersey Devils' head coach, decided to keep it simple by pairing countrymen with countrymen.
"As a coach, you try to stop the best players in the world all the time," Ruff said. "And when Robbie and I talked about it, I was thinking that some of the guys might have some natural chemistry, so we had a Czech Republic line [anchored by Pittsburgh's Jaromir Jagr], and a Swedish line [anchored by Toronto's Mats Sundin]."
Ruff also had his family in attendance, and his 9-yeard-old son Brett was present on the World All-Stars' bench during the game.
"That's a thrill he'll never forget," the elder Ruff said.
Even running the bench was a new experience. With players wearing jersey shoulder patches representing their country's flag, Ruff admitted feeling at times as if he was overseeing a language lab.
"Guys were talking on the bench during the game," he said. "And I had no idea what they were saying. They could have been saying, 'What the heck is the coach doing,' for all I knew."
While the World team may have lost Sunday, Ruff himself scored during the All-Star weekend. He hit a hole-in-one during a round of golf with baseball player Joe Hesketh, a Buffalo native. The two played at Tampa's Eastlake Country Club, and Ruff nailed his shot on a 185-yard hole.
"That was the weirdest thing that happened all weekend," he said.
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