There was never much doubt that Alex Burrows would have a career in hockey if he wanted one, following the end of his playing career.
Well known as a student of the game during the course of his 913-game NHL career with the Vancouver Canucks and Ottawa Senators, few players thought the game as well as Burrows.
It was, however, a surprise that he ended up back in the NHL so soon, after retiring as a player three years ago.
Hired as an assistant coach with the Montreal Canadiens’ AHL affiliate in Laval in 2018, it took less than three years for Burrows to earn an NHL promotion. When Dominique Ducharme was hired as Claude Julien’s replacement on February 24, Burrows was elevated into an assistant coaching role with the Habs.
“I didn’t think it was going to happen this quick,” Burrows told reporters today, from Vancouver. “I was really shocked. I didn’t expect the call, but at the same time I was really excited, really thrilled to get a chance to get back in the NHL with my childhood team, and to chase that Lord Stanley again.”
Burrows didn’t exactly ease into his new role either.
There’s not many places like Montreal in terms of media scrutiny, as evidenced by the fact that Burrows — an assistant coach — spoke to reporters for a whopping 49 minutes today in English and French.
Since Alex Burrows has been running MTL’s power play, the Canadiens have scored five goals on 11 power-play opportunities. That’s the best efficiency in the NHL since Feb. 24. However, all the goals have been scored on their second unit… We’ll speak with Burrows today.
Burrows was given a rather large responsibility, being immediately put in charge of the team’s power play. So far so good, as the Canadiens have the best power play percentage in the league since the former ball hockey star took over.
What Burrows learned with the Canucks
Burrows famously didn’t play a lot on the power play as a player with the Canucks, with Alain Vigneault usually only giving him second-unit time, even when he was a 30-goal scorer playing on the first line with the Sedins. Even when he wasn’t a part of either power play unit, Burrows said he always made sure to sit in on the power play meetings — a surefire sign that he would make a good coach some day.
“What else was I going to do?” Burrows explained. “I might as well try to learn more, see what our power play was going to try to do, and if I was the next man up I wanted to make sure that I knew what my route was going to be, what my role was going to be, what I should be looking for.
“So that’s why I would go in there, sit in these meetings, and I just liked it, that’s pretty much it.
“Instead of eating bagels in the lounge, I would rather be in there making sure that if my name was called upon to be the next guy up, I was going to be ready for it.”
On what he picked up from his longtime linemates Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Burrows said they were “experts at simple plays.”
“It wasn’t always that crazy between the leg saucer pass, back door, and the tic tac toes. The way they had success was by keeping it simple, over and over and over, and becoming experts at that. It comes down to execution, it comes down with knowing where teammates are going to be on the ice.”
Players chirping him
Still just 39 years old, Burrows is closer in age to many of the players than he is to members of the Canadiens coaching staff. He’s just four years older than Corey Perry and Shea Weber for instance, two players he battled with many times during his career.
That makes him a bit more like a friend that players can talk to, rather than a father figure, Burrows says. It might also make him more vulnerable to chirps.
“The boys, they reminded me in morning skate that my name was up there and they were giving me their chirps — ‘How did you get up there?’ — I heard it all yesterday from the players. They were joking with it, it was fine with me.”
Burrows is no stranger to dishing out chirps, of course, so those players better be ready to take it too.
Still chasing that dream
On his approach to coaching, Burrows had a simple but inspiring answer: be yourself.
“Everybody says the same thing, try to be yourself. Don’t try to be someone else. Be yourself and that’s what brought you here. That’s how I made my career, I never really changed, I always tried to be a hard worker,” said Burrows.
“Every day in the NHL is always a great day. And now that I’m here, I won’t start changing the way I am. I’m going to be myself and that’s what brought me here, that’s what gave me the career I had, so why change now?”
Burrows’ rags to riches story is well known, working his way up from the ECHL, to the AHL, then to the NHL as a checker and agitator. He was never supposed to be more than a third or fourth line grinder, but he ended up carving a pretty nice career as a goal-scorer. But through it all, he had the same dream as every other hockey player, to win the Stanley Cup, and his dream as a coach is no different.
“I’ve pretty much seen it all, played at all. Obviously there’s only one thing missing. If I can do it as a coach, I’ll be extremely happy.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
