i love George McPhee

All you people calling for McPhee to lose his job, all the people saying his job's on the line now with this coaching move? You should probably watch it. Not only are you wrong, this is also probably not the ideal person to choose to tangle with. You will lose.

He is smart as hell. He is well-spoken. He is formidable. Don't get into an argument with him or he will cut you to pieces. Don't get in a fistfight with him, because he will kick your ass.

He looks sharp in a suit.

He's apparently a winker. Be still my beating heart.


He has quite a way with words--see: his radio interview over the summer defending Alex Semin and the team in general with logical, former-lawyer eloquence guaranteed to make anyone who disagreed with him feel stupid. See: his comments a few days ago after Mathias Sjogren's agent, Ritch Winter, decided to be a snarky bitch on twitter for about a week and then encourage his client to fuck off to Sweden instead of sticking around.


Not well-handled. GMGM did not approve. Here are some sharp-tongued quotes about it, via the Washington Post and Washington Times:


"It's probably a mistake. He needs to develop here. He wasn't prepared to make a commitment to do so."

"You can't promise anyone an NHL job. You can promise him you'll give him a great look, and you'll give him an opportunity, and we told him we'd give him an opportunity this year. But you've got to earn the job, and we all know that Mathieu Perrault had a great camp and he's a better player."

"His training camp wasn't good enough to keep him at the start of the year, and he was developing OK. But I guess he got impatient and decided to go home. If you're going to quit on us, you might as well go."

"[H]is upside was fourth line center. He probably don't have the footspeed to play any higher in the lineup than that."

"I know Claude Lemieux [who also represents Sjogren] told him that he should stick it out. So either Rico Winters or whatever his name is told him to go home or the player didn't want to be here." 

Ouch.

I don't know if you're aware, Rico, but McPhee had more than one house on fire that week. Your huffiness about your client not getting a roster spot not he didn't earn may not have been his number one priority.

So now we know we don't want to get into an argument with George McPhee. How about a fistfight?

NOPE.

Please note that McPhee is 5'9, and back in the day he used to take on all the tough guys. Youtube him and see what comes up, it's fun!

And my favorite George McPhee story ever: The Time He Marched Into The Blackhawks Locker Room and Punched Out Their Coach.

True fucking story.

In 1999, the Blackhawks were acting like dicks and putting a bunch of enforcers on the ice in preseason games against players that were young and undeveloped and apparently intentionally seeking to injure. Players had been hurt. McPhee called them up before the Caps played them and asked them politely to please fucking behave.

They did not.

The Hawks dressed seven goons, count 'em, seven, against a preseason Caps team and were going after them so much that the Caps had to remove Adam Oates and Peter Bondra from the lineup out of concern they'd be injured.

After the game, McPhee stormed into the Blackhawks locker room and punched Hawks coach Molleken in the eye. You read that right. Punched him in the eye, while Molleken was surrounded by that same roster full of thugs. Balls of steel.

He got suspended, of course.

It was probably worth it.