Coach Great One:Alpha Male or Dogs Lunch?

That is the question. Someone once said, those who can, do, those who can't teach. This is so true of players who turned coach in the NHL.

Gordon "Red" Berenson was arguably the best player turned coach. As a player he scored a respectable 695 points in 1036 career NHL games with Montreal, Detroit and St. Louis. He turned assistant coach in 1978, then coach in 1980 and took the sad below .500 team to the playoffs in 1981 with an amazing .669 average winning himself the Jack Adams trophy.

No one has ever questioned Wayne Gretzkys leadership and abilities as a player or as a manager and business man. The Great Ones records and achievements in the NHL and internationally speak for themselves. His decision to take over the coaching duties are another story.

Gretzky came to Phoenix and turned around a franchise on the brink of bankruptcy, to the point that interest in the team is at an all time high, based on ticket sales and merchandise sales. Phoenix is no longer the team with laughable jerseys playing in a substandard building thanks to the greatest player of all time.

The question is, again. Can Gretzky coach the ailing Phoenix Coyotes and make them respectable like Berenson did or will he let an inferior product and lack of experience turn his tenure into a coaching footnote more the lines of Mike Milbury in New York, who was forced once again to teach from a distance.

Kenaz