The era of players, coaches and executives in the public eye began to end as sports officials realized that most of what they said would be forever accessible on the Internet in the form of video.
Even today, people who give us great material give it to us as if it were a screenplay, and maybe that's because it is a screenplay.
That's what I was thinking last weekend while reading Taylor Swift's softball interview with her ex-boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, in the London Times.
Moving on to the only question that interested everyone, Alwin gave a bland 128-word answer, which he had to repeat twice to get right.
That's the performance of a trained actor who has been preparing for weeks. A successful hockey coach talks almost every day for eight to nine months and relies on his wits almost all the time.
No wonder most of them sound like they're recording the hostage videos in a second language.
Most of them are, except for Paul Maurice.
For years, the current Panthers head coach has had the worst reputation for a hockey coach: being a hard-headed person. The worst part is knowing that you'll continue to get hired because you're the safe choice, but no one will accept you because you're the safe choice.
In Toronto, especially, Maurice seemed like a guy smart enough to understand that one wrong conjugation of a verb could bring about a franchise firestorm — in other words, too smart for his own good.
He suffered the same in Winnipeg. It wasn't until he was in his mid-50s in Florida that he… “Unleashed” is the wrong word. Maurice would never use that word. “Invited” is better. He invited the beast.
Unconstrained by the game's bizarre rules governing who can say what, when and how, Maurice has become the most interesting man in hockey. On any given night, his six or seven minutes in front of the microphone are more entertaining than the previous two and a half hours.
When asked leading questions about Florida's stupidity midway through the game, he replied: “Nobody's been arrested yet.”
“I just thought they needed some foul language in their lives,” he said after scolding his players on the bench.
On elimination: “If you lose your last game, you're not going to care if the plane crashes, are you?”
If the Leafs or Oilers coach said that, even the most cynical media person would buy pearls to get it in print. That's the click game. But when Maurice says it, people don't care, because they know it doesn't make sense.
What are the Panthers going to do? Cut him? “Thank goodness for the meme moments and Stanley Cup appearances. We're going to sign someone who's unlikely to interest 400 fans.”
No one tells you when you start a job that what you should aim for at work is a state of meditative indifference. That doesn't mean you don't care; it just means you stop caring about how your work is going.
You are no longer working, you are being. This is the moment when craft becomes art.
Morris reached that magical level in Florida, where the franchise lacks the weight of history, giving him free reign to fill a lot of the vacancies, and because management has an unconventional roster approach of hiring only adults, the players seem happy to let him say whatever he likes.
Floridians must assume that all hockey coaches speak like their European soccer counterparts, in complete sentences, with affable humor and illustrative anecdotes.
If there was a real-life Ted Lasso, Maurice would be the current front-runner. He's the only character who understands that knowing what you don't know is wisdom, and he was also the first to say it.
After the Oilers beat the Panthers in Game 4, Maurice was back on track. A blowout loss in a must-win series is a tough situation to talk about. Nobody practices it. If you're too talkative, you come off as overconfident and make your players nervous. If you worry too much, you come off as fearful and make your players nervous.
Maurice's post-match press conference was a master class in breaking tension. The same relaxed tone. The same downturned Muppet mouth. The same jokes.
“There's not a lot of silver linings here,” Morris said. “But [pulled goalie Sergei] Bob[rovsky] I took a little rest.”
This is not just a question of wit. It is a question of delivery. Maurice Dirty HarryClint Eastwood of his era looks hysterical.
Some coaches, like Bill Belichick, take composure to the realm of arrogance, which is entertaining but not likable.
Maurice's deadpan is his big heart. He wants everyone to be in on the joke. He's smarter than you, but he doesn't need you to feel that way.
“I'll say at least one cliche, so you guys know what: We came to Edmonton to get a point, and we got what we needed,” Maurice told reporters on Sunday night, a very meta line given the circumstances.
It's very hard for the average observer to discern what makes a great coach apart from having a ring on their finger, and they remember that under extreme pressure they begin to stammer and gibberish in an attempt to confuse the audience.
But does this work for players? Does it make teams stronger? Behind-the-scenes documentaries show that many NHL coaches seem to use the f-word as often and at the loudest volume as possible.
Right after you get fired for the fourth time, you hear over and over again that this guy or that guy is a great coach, and if he's so great, why don't you want him anymore? No one answers that question.
But sometimes, listening to a coach, I find myself thinking, “I wouldn't mind if he/she was my boss,” even though I don't exercise. That's the mark of a great coach — someone who is seen as a leader not just to beginners, but to everyone listening.
No one in the NHL right now has more understanding, control and leadership than Paul Maurice, and it's not just because his teams are winning.
It's that in a world full of men tied up tighter than piano wire, he's the only one who always seems to enjoy his job.
