Coach Joel Quenneville talks possible return and the potential of the Florida fan base
Joel Quenneville spent the first month of the NHL’s COVID-19 hiatus at his home in South Florida before he finally retreated north to Chicago over the weekend. The coach is now in Illinois with family waiting out the next segment of inactivity as his Florida Panthers wait to see how play might resume.
This week, Quenneville is feeling optimistic about the future. On Friday, he joined Dave Tippett and Barry Trotz for a virtual roundtable discussion, touching on a number of topics, both hockey and coronavirus. He said he feels good about the chances the season will resume in some capacity, based on chatter around the league and the sport.
“It sounds like it’s a little more optimistic in the last couple of days than it’s been at any point in the process here,” Quenneville said on the Zoom Video Communications conference call hosted by an NHL spokesperson. “Now we’re in a situation where, hey, we would love to play and I think that the enthusiasm we’ve seen in the last little while — hopefully that’s going to happen and in the meantime I think there’s a little bit more excitement right now where I think we’re talking hockey. I’m thinking, Hey, it could happen and hopefully soon.”
The conversation between the three coaches was wide-ranging and spanned nearly an hour. Tippett, the Edmonton Oilers coach, talked about the joys of coaching Connor McDavid. Trotz, the New York Islanders coach, recalled his time rooming with New York Rangers play-by-play announcer Kenny Albert when the two were both working in the minors.
Quenneville talked about somet the great players he coached, too. He also outlined the difference between coaching a team like the Chicago Blackhawks, one of the most storied franchises in the sport, and the Panthers. His biggest takeaway from less than a year in Florida is the potential of the fan base — as long as the Panthers start winning.
“We went down there with an open-minded approach,” Quenneville said. “Crowds improved this year. It’s a very passionate fan base. I think that you’re going to have to win. You’ve got to be a playoff team there. There’s a lot of excitement that can happen there. I think you’ve got to win in the playoffs — it’s been a long drought — but there’s a lot of enthusiasm in that area.”
Florida, which sat three points out of a playoff spot when play suspended last month, still had the third worst attendance in the league this season, but average attendance was up more nearly 1,000 people per game from 13,261 per game last season to 14,104 this year.
“We did have five or six full buildings this year where we had a full crowd and you can see the difference, you can feel the difference, but it’s up to us,” Quenneville said. “We’ve got to win and recapture that feeling.”
He also pointed out how trips to Sunrise are typically a beloved diversion on any NHL player’s calendar. When he was coaching the Blackhawks, Quenneville always welcomed his journeys to the BB&T Center as a chance to escape the frigid winter weather of the league’s mostly northern locales. It was always a welcome “change of scenery.”
He learned to appreciate the scenery even more this year when the league shut down indefinitely in March. He took advantage of the beaches before those closed, then still took advantage of the weather by going for bike rides to break up his time watching horse racing or “Tiger King” on Netflix.
It’s far different than his time coaching in Chicago, but he’s enjoying it so far.
“I’m enjoying the experience,” Quenneville said. “It’s a whole different place.”
