Guy on the Air

Transcribed from The Bob and Dan Show Live, on The Ticket, KTCK Radio Dallas, 7/5/00
(to hear the interview, go to Bob and Dan's site, 7/5/00, to approximately 1:15:40 in the recording)
Thanks to Sherry Hildebrand for telling me about this great interview!

Postscript from the author: On 7/7/00, Bob and Dan discussed this transcript on their show (to hear it, click HERE and go to 14:45). I was referred to as "some lady who wanted to put a transcript of our interview with Guy Carbonneau on her website," and the discussion was most amusing. My thanks to whoever let Bob and Dan know, I appreciated the free publicity!

Joining us on the phone lines right now is a guy who has a little more free time, we assume, right now, and until further notice…he is Dallas Stars great, and now retiree Guy Carbonneau. Hello, Guy, very nice to have you on the show. Well, I guess we should start at square one, the latest news of course of your retirement. And you said, it didn’t take you long after the final game to come to the realization that it was time for you to go ahead and call it quits.

Guy: Well, I think I made my decision a little bit after Christmas. I think after 18 years there were some things that I had a tough time to handle, and I think you have to make a decision at one point in your career, and it was just…I still love the game, I still love to compete, and I think the playoffs were still awesome, but in the days in between games and the rest was kind of hard for me, so I knew that it was the time to make that decision.

So are we not going to have the possibility of a January comeback?

Guy: (laughs) Well, I can’t live that far ahead, so I’m trying to relax as much as I can. I have some decisions to make in the next couple months to see what I’m going to do with the rest of my life but, you know, I never say never…but right now it’s not something that I want to think about.

What kind of decisions, I mean we’ve heard possibly signing on with Dallas in some kind of a capacity, possibly Montreal…is there anything else out there?

Guy: Well, actually, I talked to Bob a little bit before I left for Montreal. He said we need to talk again and that he’s interested in having me back doing something with the team. And I have a meeting tomorrow with Rejean Houle, the GM of Montreal, to see what they have to offer. It’s only been a couple days that the story came out so I don’t really know what else is out there. So I’ve got to take my time and see what’s on the market and take my time to make that decision.

You were mentioning that around Christmas you kind of came up with this idea that you were done in June. Did you sense your product was suffering on the ice? Because to be completely honest, and again, this is going to sound like I’m kissing up to you because you’re on our line right now, but I didn’t see your game dropping even though you were 40—that was what was so extraordinary about what you’ve been doing these last couple of years. Did you feel like your game was suffering?

Guy: I don’t think so. I think the last couple years were probably my best years in the last six or seven, so I don’t think that was the reason. Like I said, I just felt like the days were longer, the trips were longer, I didn’t have the patience to kind of wait for the games…and I talked to a lot of people…as much as I still enjoy playing the game, I’m really competitive, and when I play I’m taking the game so much to heart that I really didn’t have fun like I should have. And I think when those things happen, those signs happen, it’s kind of time to make a decision. I knew at the end of the season that this was going to be it. I just didn’t want to tell anybody, I just didn’t want to hurt anybody. I think I talked with my wife about it, she was not too convinced…but I knew at the end of the season, after I broke my wrist, and I hurt my hand, that I really didn’t want to go through that again.

We’re talking with Guy Carbonneau, retiree…so he’s walking around with a metal detector on a beach somewhere right now. (laughs) So it’s seems like you want to stay in the game…

Guy: Yes.

Would that be right?

Guy: Yeah, definitely…I’m 40 years old, I’ve been playing professional hockey for 20, so half my life has been into that game. So, I’d love to find something that would keep me around hockey, where I can kind of work with the young guys and try to teach them the knowledge that I have learned throughout the years.

Well, that sounds more like, then, that you’d be leaning towards maybe some kind of a coaching gig instead of what we’ve been reading, as more of a front office thing.

Guy: (laughs) Well, no, I don’t intend to coach right now. Like I said, the thing that really made this not be easy was traveling, being away from my family all the time, and I think coaching is more time-consuming than playing, so this is not on the list right away. But you never know what’s going to happen in a couple years. There’s ways to stay around the game and still working with the young guys.

I want to look back at the Stanley Cup Finals, a couple elements, with you real quick. First of all, the series in general. People come up to me all the time and say, "Oh, what went wrong? They looked pretty good going into the Finals?" I come up with this, Guy, you guys just came up against a team that was peaking at just the right time, and New Jersey just played an incredible series. What was your whole take on how that ended up?

Guy: Well, I think what you said…after the game, the last game, we were in the room and I think everyone was kind of upset about losing. And I think you should, you know, every time you get that close to winning a Stanley Cup you’ve got to give everything you have, and I think that’s what we did. But like you said, they didn’t have a really good season, they started peaking right at the end of this year, and they played really well. If you look at it, except for the first game in Jersey, where we lost 7-3 I think, every other game was really close. You had two teams that wanted to have a good playoffs, that wanted to win the big prize, and it showed on the ice. Everybody played really well, both goalies played awesome, and the goals that were scored were from hard work, not from mistakes.

Well, then, I wanted to take you to that Saturday night, Game Six…you guys are in double overtime at the time, and Jason Arnott scores. And I would assume somewhere around that goal being scored, we could hit a "start" button, and then when you finally get back in the locker room let’s hit the end. I’m kind of wondering what’s going through your head that whole time. Because during that time you’ve got the goal, you’ve got the silent Reunion Arena, you’ve got the handshake, and then you’ve got the crowd chanting your name as your leave the ice. There has to be a couple moments in time there that you won’t soon forget.

Guy: No, I won’t forget that. I think that was kind of a surprise. And I think they knew that something was in my mind and I really appreciate the people over there. You know, I think in Montreal they were kind of used to players like myself, but in Dallas they were not used to it, so for them to acknowledge the work that we put on the ice was pretty awesome.

What do you mean used to players like yourself?

Guy: Well, you know, hockey in Canada, people are more aware of what’s going on on the ice a little bit, and defensive players are looked upon a little bit more. I always said that there’s more to scoring goals to win games, and I think in the States sometimes they tend to look at guys that score goals like Brett, or Mike Modano, or Pavel Bure and guys like that, and the guy that plays defense, or even the defensemen, they sometimes forget. And I think the last three, four years in Dallas we made some unbelievable strides and it shows that they appreciate not only the goal scorer but the rest of the team.

Did you have any idea in 1995…in 1995 you’re with St. Louis, and I’ll be honest with you, the word around the league, at least from what I was reading, Guy, was that you had pretty much had it. You know, it was pretty much over for you, and then you get traded to the Stars and the next thing you know you fire off five great seasons in a row. I don’t know if you saw that coming in ’95…you must have been asking yourself questions at that point, right?

Guy: Oh definitely…I had 12 great years in Montreal, and for reasons sometimes that you don’t understand they trade you. I went to St. Louis with a guy—Mike Keenan—that I really didn’t like and I didn’t get along with, and I started asking questions, you know, why was I there, what reason, why did they pick me to be there because I couldn’t do what I was able to do in Dallas, which was try to use my knowledge, use my experience to try to help the kids. In St. Louis I couldn’t do that, because they didn’t let me do it. So I was really thinking about retirement. So Bob called me and said, we would like to have you in Dallas. You know, after the first year it was kind of tough there too, but I had great talks with Hitchcock after my second year, and from there it was just a great experience.

So you were kind of like a player-coach on the ice here the last couple of years…would you take some of the kids aside?—

Guy: (laughs) I wouldn’t go that far, but I think Ken Hitchcock really improved in his coaching because he likes to listen to players, his door is always open, he has his way of coaching but he’s not scared of asking questions, and I think if look at the kind of team we’ve had the last three, four years, we’ve had a lot of experienced players that were team captains or won Stanley Cups…and so we have different views of the games sometimes, and it’s good to put everything in one basket and let him make the decision.

Do you think this Stars team that you have just left—and by the way, thanks a lot for that, because now we’ve got to replace you as well—but I mean, do you think this team has what is needed, or do they need to make something happen in terms of, do they need to pick up some more goal scoring? Because the fact is 16 teams made the playoffs, and you guys were the lowest scoring team of those 16. So you’d have to believe maybe a little more goal scoring could help.

Guy: Well, I think if you look at the season that we’ve had, we had a lot of points, but I think injuries was a big part of why our goal scoring has been down. When you lose Mike Modano for a couple weeks, and Joe Nieuwendyk, and Jamie Langenbrunner, and a couple other guys, Jere Lehtinen, you know, something’s going to go down. And I think next year everybody’s going to be healthy, the goal scoring’s going to come back. And I’m not scared, I think they do have the stuff to win it again. Will a few players help? Sure, I think anytime that you can grab somebody that has experience and knowledge of the game, you’re going to be a better team, and I think that’s what they look at right now.

Well, we can’t have Guy Carbonneau on without asking you, because this is the big story that broke during the Finals…

Guy: (laughs) I can’t talk too loud now, because he is here.

Is he really? Now that he’s not a teammate anymore—

Guy: Nope.

But is it weird having your teammate dating your daughter?

Guy: Well, actually, you know it looks weird, but I really didn’t have a problem with it. I think I’ve known Brenden over the last three years…he came to training camp, and all year this year he was a teammate of mine. So we used to go on the road a lot, and you know, I knew him well, so that’s why when that thing came out, I didn’t have a problem. I knew what kind of a guy he was, what kind of a player he was, and my daughter is pretty responsible and I figure they made that decision and I approved it from the start. So I think it was just funny everyday to be hearing people talking about it.

I was going to say, it had to be the coverage that was a little bit weird.

Guy: (laughs) Yeah.

At least you can keep a close eye on them.

Guy: Exactly, that’s the good part about it!

And you know enough guys in the league that you could just have somebody go kick his ass if you need to, right?

Guy: I think he knows that.

We appreciate having you on, and we wonder if we could have you do a wacky radio liner for us where you just say, Hi, I’m Guy Carbonneau and we would like you to say that "I never listen to Bob and Dan on the Ticket."

Guy: Oh yeah? I am Guy Carbonneau, ex Dallas Stars, and I never listen to Bob and Dan on the Ticket.

Hey, enjoy what? The golf course everyday, is that it?

Guy: Yep, that’s about it right now.

All right, hit ‘em straight, Guy. Thanks a lot, man. There he goes, the great Guy Carbonneau. Next stop, Hall of Fame, if he doesn’t decide to go work in someone’s front office…