BOSTON, 25 June 2003 — Mike O’Connell was the struggling coach of an independent minor league team in San Diego more than 10 years ago when he called Boston University coach Jack Parker looking for players.
Parker sent out Mike Sullivan, one of his former captains who hadn’t attracted much interest from the NHL.
“He saw that (Sullivan) was a character guy,” Parker recalled Monday. “Once you know him, you know it’s a guy you want to keep around.”
Now the general manager of the Boston Bruins, O’Connell called on Sullivan again Monday to make him the team’s head coach. The 35-year-old former Bruin is the youngest head coach in the NHL, 13 months younger than Carolina’s Paul Maurice.
“I know I’m still a little wet behind the ears when it comes to the coaching ranks,” said Sullivan, who only retired as a player a year ago and went straight into coaching with the Bruins’ American Hockey League affiliate. “I can’t say enough about the experience I had in Providence. Hopefully it will prepare me for what lies ahead.”
A 10-year veteran of the NHL who played for Boston, San Jose, Calgary and Phoenix, Sullivan was heading into the AHL playoffs in his first season there when O’Connell fired Boston coach Robbie Ftorek with nine games left in the regular season and took over behind the bench himself. A little rusty on some of the finer points of coaching, O’Connell asked Sullivan to help out.
The Bruins lost to the New Jersey Devils in the first round of the playoffs, and O’Connell stepped down as coach. From then on, speculation focused on Sullivan for the job. The team even sent out a news release last week to announce a Wednesday news conference; it was canceled a half-hour later because of what O’Connell said was a problem getting everyone’s schedules to mesh.
