SERAVALLI:

Bruce, I want to ask you about this week’s turn of events, a hit to the coaching fraternity with Coach Julien being fired in Montreal. I don’t want to ask you what it’s like to be fired because I think everyone could imagine what that’s like, just hitting you like a ton of bricks. But from your perspective, your situation in the NHL has been so different to this point. You you didn’t last very long. Just going from Washington to Anaheim was such a quick turnaround. And then from Anaheim to Minnesota, like you were consecutively behind the bench for a long, long time. What do you think Julien is going through this week? And how long does it take you to sort of digest everything that’s happened?

BOUDREAU:

Well, I’m pretty sure I can read pretty well in this situation. I mean, and you didn’t want to ask about that, about, you know, but everybody gets fired.

But the biggest differences in Claude’s case, in our case is, you know, people get fired every day from every job, but it for us it happens and all of North America and half of Europe know that you’re fired the same day and you don’t want to go outside the door.

I mean, you’re embarrassed. You don’t want your kids, if you have kids, to go to school and get bullied. And it’s tough because, I mean, it’s not a good feeling when everybody in the world knows that you got fired and took the connotation of the word fired means you failed. And I think going through that, [Julien] thinks he’s failed.

[When I got fired] I went right in and went into lockdown in the house. I mean, wasn’t seeing anybody. My biggest thing was to make sure the kids knew before they went to school.

I’m sure he’s going through the same thing. He’s getting a lot of well-wishers and everybody telling him ‘I can’t believe they did that to you, the blah, blah, blah.’ But it doesn’t make you feel any better because you’re the one that’s not working. And as coaches and guys like myself that have been in this business for for an awful long time, we just want to be in the saddle with our team. And so you sit at home and and you go to work every day at six-thirty. And then all of a sudden, you don’t know what you’re supposed to do because you’re not at work. And it’s it’s it’s a tough situation, you know, for a lot of us, a lot of time.

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RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS FOR BRUCE BOUDREAU… 

Q: What is one hobby that’s kept you occupied during the pandemic?

A: Watching hockey every like they’ve been since Hockey’s restarted. We watch every game, every night, all the time. My wife keeps telling me I’ve got to get a hobby.

Q: Could you tell me how many hours a week you think you watch hockey?

A: Well, it’s seven o’clock and it usually ends at one o’clock at night. So, I mean, I’m in New Jersey doing the NHL network thing. So I watched as many as I could. And then the network had the Oilers game on, too. So I watched that one. Once dinner’s over it’s Hockey Night in Canada and Hockey Night in the U.S. for the Boudreau family.

Q: What’s your plan like? When do you how long if you could see one another opportunity, how long would you like to coach for?

A: I don’t know, I mean, I think until it wasn’t fun to get up every morning and do it. Like, I mean, like I’ve been fortunate, and quite frankly, I’ve never been on a team that’s been under five hundred at the end of the year. So I mean, it’s always been fun. If it becomes a non fun thing, I probably, you know, at my age, probably wouldn’t enjoy it anymore and probably wouldn’t have a job anyway if it became that situation.

But it’s something I do every day. I feel I have the energy. I feel like I could get up every morning and go on the ice with the guys and work with them. And I still think I have the emotions to be able to to motivate. And so, I mean, at this point, I would like to do it as long as I could. I watch all the football guys, Bruce Arians, Andy Reid, they’re all close to the 70s are in their 70s. So, I mean, I don’t see why why hockey people can’t do that as well other than the skating part. I mean, it’s still a time consuming thing where you have to have the energy to want to do it. And I feel I do.