The Minnesota Wild opens its season next month with a new coach, 42-year-old Todd Richards. He’s been a winner as a player and coach, and hopes to continue that experience with the Wild where he will be an NHL head coach for the first time. Although Richards is a Minnesota native and former second team All-American with the Gophers, his hockey career has taken him to other places and the public’s “learning curve” about him is just beginning. Sports Headliners interviewed Richards last week, asking him both personal and hockey questions:
Best hockey advice: “Keep your head up when you’re coming across the middle.”
Favorite late night snack: “When I came home after playing hockey games…I was big into Tombstone Pizzas.”
First hockey memory: “I just remember skating outside (in Crystal)…and using the big steel cage nets with the fence in the back and lots of snow on the ice.”
What motivates me: “My competition level that I have. That’s what’s always kept me motivated to try to be the best. If there’s something out there that I haven’t mastered or I am not good at, I am very motivated to try to either acquire the skill or the talent of whatever it takes.”
All-time favorite song: “If I am allowed to pick two, I would probably say ‘Band on the Run’ and ‘Joy to the World’ just because of my getting the 45 (records) as a young kid and playing it on my little stereo.”
You can be certain the 2009 -2010 Wild will: “We’ll be prepared. I’ve got a great staff here in Dave Barr, Bob Mason, Mike Ramsey and P.J. DeLuca, and we’ve got a great training staff. I know that the guys will be prepared and ready to go.”
The best part of my job: “I get to be in hockey. It’s a game. I’ve been doing it since I was a kid, and it’s something that I love and I am still part of it.”
The most difficult thing as a coach: “There’s a lot of difficult things as a coach. A lot of times there’s tough decisions that have to be made, and sometimes…certain situations happen where a guy doesn’t deserve the fate that he’s getting, but it’s just the set of circumstances that have come up. It’s never an easy conversation. It’s a difficult conversation because I used to sit in that chair across the desk from where I am sitting now.”
I can’t wait for: “I can’t wait for the start of the year. Game No. 1.”
Four historical figures I would love to spend a day with: “Obama. I would love to sit and talk to him. And I don’t want this to come across as a bad thing; I am fascinated by Adolph Hitler. I am just amazed that he got a whole country, a population, to believe in his lunacy and his ridiculous thoughts. Bobby Orr would be a great one, and…probably general (George) Patton.”
I get cranky when: “When people don’t do, or live up to the things that they said they will do.”
I would pay money to watch: “I would pay money to watch the Minnesota Wild play hockey.”
The next big thing in the NHL is: “I have a couple ideas, but I can’t share them with you because I would be giving the competition my ideas.”
I am in bed and catching my beauty rest on most nights by: “Especially during hockey season it probably won’t be until midnight; 1 o’clock after games.”
My view on twitter is: “I don’t even know what twitter is. Honest to God. I know what I need to do on the computer and I stay in that realm. I don’t get too far outside that.”
The media might be surprised that: “That I have a sense of humor.”
My biggest concern about being confused with Todd Richards the snowboarder is: “That I can actually skate, or snowboard. And I won’t be at the X Games.”