The London Knights signed Ken Hitchcock as head coach for $1.5 million per year for three seasons.
Ken Hitchcock will takes his Jack Adams trophy and English surname to London to coach the London Knights in the EURO Hockey League. Hitch was one of seven men who will make $1.5 million during each of the next three years in Europe. Two other Ahearne Division teams landed the bench bosses for which they were fishing as Belfast bagged Darryl Sutter and Dublin came to an agreement with Alain Vigneault.
The other top-earning coaches are Switzerland-bound Joel Quenneville (Geneva) and Mike Babcock (Bern); Claude Julien in Minsk and Barry Trotz in Helsinki.
Dan Bylsma, formerly of the Pittsburgh Penguins, will be coaching in sunny Spain, where he’ll spend his off days with matadors and senioritas. The longest-tenured professional coach, Lindy Ruff, moves from Buffalo to Edinburgh, while Bruce Boudreau will be brushing up on his Slovakian curse words before he buys a (bleepin’) house in (bleepin’) Bratislava.
Athens reporters are thrilled to have John Tortarella for post-game press conferences and Guy Boucher of Gothenberg is learning how to write 1-3-1 in Swedish.
Minutes after Todd McLellan took over in Frankfurt, he assessed the team and asked GM Davvon2590 to announce the team would like more help on the right wing. And in Oslo, winger Travis Moen was put on the market shortly before Peter Laviolette came onto the scene. Reporters are trying to determine if the two had run-ins with each other while both were in the NHL.
Russian GM Sergei P of St. Petersburg said it’s apparent some people do not want to come to Russia. He says he noticed at least three coaches who signed elsewhere for less money than he offered them. The Lynx will be coached by Kevin Dineen, formerly of tropical Florida, for $400,000.
Sixteen coaches signed for $1 million, all for three-year terms. The eight who failed to negotiate million dollar contracts are basically auditioning because all have only 1-year pacts. Four teams saved their money for other purposes signing coaches for $350,000. They include Zurich (Dale Hunter), Munich (Glenn Gulutzan), Moscow (Claude Noel) and Paris (Randy Cunneyworth). Reports out of Paris are that fans of Le Rouge Eiffels are furious and protesting that Cunneyworth still doesn’t speak French.
