WHL: Brent Sutter QA, Part Three

We continue our in-depth interview with Red Deer Rebels head man Brent Sutter. In this final portion of the three-piece series, Sutter discusses the player Dion Phaneuf has become since those first days as a Rebel several years ago. The proud dad and uncle also talks about the newest generation of Sutters, while also taking time to harken back to the good old days on Long Island.

DION PHANEUF

McKeen's: Dion Phaneuf recently returned from a shoulder injury. How's he doing and will he be 100% for the upcoming Russia game and the World Juniors?

Sutter: He’s doing fine, no problems whatsoever.

McKeen's: Tell me about Phaneuf’s game. How good can he become?

Sutter: I think he can become a very good player. The thing with Dion is he just has to continue to work on every part of his game because he’s an all-around type of guy. All players should always work on all of their game, but with Dion – things come so naturally to him.

Number one, he’s a great kid, a pretty good leader and obviously he’s a very good player. What we always look at with these kids is to make sure they stay grounded. Make sure they understand and realize it’s a day-to-day thing, making sure they want to make themselves better every day. Preparing them mentally is probably more important than physically. These guys all train very hard, but to me it’s between the ears a lot – making them as mentally strong as they can be for when they make the jump to the next level, which is pro hockey, because there you have to be mentally strong.

McKeen's: What kind of improvement have you seen in his game since he first got to Red Deer?

Sutter: Oh, every part of his game. Every part of his game has gotten better. That’s why he’s rated probably the top prospect in the National Hockey League. He’s made himself better since he was 16 here and now we have him as a 19-year old and to me there’s not a question of who the best player in the league is.

McKeen's: He should be playing in Calgary right now, but the lockout got in the way. How has Dion handled being back in junior for one more year when it seemed he had a really good chance to stick with the Flames?

Sutter: He’s handled it great. It’s probably helped because Darryl’s been involved too where Darryl’s talked to him about it a lot through the summer last year and this fall. But Dion and I have had numerous discussions about staying grounded. Whatever happens, happens. Just make sure every day he makes himself better, whether he’s playing pro hockey or junior. I’m proud to say he’s done that – he’s made himself better.

THE NEXT GENERATION

McKeen's: The Sutter hockey tradition lives on. Brian’s son Shaun is in the ECHL in Fresno. Darryl’s son Brett Sutteris with Kootenay. Your boys, Merrick and Brandon, are with the Junior A Canmore Eagles of the AJHL and Red Deer Chiefs AAA bantam team respectively. There must be a lot of pride in the Sutter family with these boys.

Sutter: There’s no question. They have hockey bred in them and they take it seriously. Everyone expects them to be like their dads; but these kids are going to be their own people, their own players, their own people off the ice. They’re very close. They all try to keep in touch with each other and there’s 17 or 18 of the cousins in all – I lose count – but there is a lot of pride in them. But there’s also people’s expectations of them, which are really high. Fair or unfair, that’s just the way it is. These kids have handled it very well. They’re well-grounded kids and they’ve got their heads on their shoulders properly and they know what they want.

I think the reality of it is if they’re not going to be hockey players, I think the most important thing their parents can relay to them is no different that any other parents: whatever you are going to do in your life, do it the best you can and be the best you can be at it. Work hard at it and commit yourself to it and these kids have done that.

If they want to players, great. My oldest one, for example: if it doesn’t work out for him and he wants to go to school and he wants to make hockey part of that or not – I’m all for it. Same with my middle one and my little girl: just do it as hard as you can and be the best you can. I think that’s the message that any parent would relate to their kids.

McKeen's: When Brandon makes the jump to the Rebels next year, are you going to be even harder on him that the other players?

Sutter: I don’t know if I’d be harder. I’ve had this discussion with Brandon already and I told him hey, if your dad is still your coach next year and you’re good enough to play with the Red Deer Rebels then you have to understand that when we’re at the rink, I’m your coach. I’m always going to be your dad, but you’ll get treated like everyone else. And he expects no different. He doesn’t want it any other way.

He’s going to be coming into Red Deer, moving in with billets, going to school, doing the whole thing – just like the other players do. It’s funny, because before we drafted him in the Bantam draft, I talked to the players. The response from the players is that we know the way that you are. I’ve talked to players that will be playing with him – that’ll be here still – and they said he better be in Red Deer. We don’t want him playing somewhere else.

That’s all part of being a family. Brandon will fit in here fine. Are there expectations on him? Sure, but that’s no different than since he was four years old and started playing. It’s no different for Merrick or Brett of Shaun. It’s just the way things are and kids accept it.

But when you ask that question, I look at it as when I go down to the dressing room I’m the coach and he’s my player and he puts his skates on just like everyone else in the dressing room. Hey, he’ll get kicked in the ass when he needs it and he’ll get patted on the back when he needs it. It’s no different than any of these other players.

McKeen's: It’s got to be pretty special for all of the new Sutter generation because they’re playing hockey and have dads that were in the NHL. How often do they pick your brain about how their playing, things they can do better, that sort of thing?

Sutter: They don’t really say a whole lot. Merrick this year after moving away from home, he’s more receptive to talking to me about it now and understanding that it’s not criticism when you sit down and talk to him about it. It’s to try and make him better.

Brandon’s probably at this point a little now where I’m careful what I say to my kids because they’re going to be their own type of players. I don’t think people should compare them to the kind of players their dads are. Those expectations are going to be there, but they’re going to be their own players.

So I’m really careful about how much I do talk to them about it and I try to be positive. But at the same time, if I go to a game and – it doesn’t happen very often – I see they didn’t make that commitment or put the effort in, then that probably displeases me more than anything. I want them to be solid team players, I want them to work and be competitive and wherever their skills are at, let them grow.

I think their dads have been mostly pretty positive.

NHL CAREER

McKeen's: What do you remember about the 1983 game that saw you and Duane take on Rich and Ron in an Islanders/ Flyers battle?

Sutter: I know there was a lot of commotion before the game because there was a lot of hype about four brothers playing in that first game. It was played in Philadelphia. I don’t know what the score was or anything like that. There were a couple of confrontations between them and myself and Duane. I’m sure the players on both teams were just shaking their heads at that…thinking these guys are insane.

But that was just our competitive nature. When we put our jerseys on to play for the New York Islanders to play for the New York Islanders, you played for the New York Islanders. You can’t worry about if you had family members on the other team or not. If anything, you competed harder against them because that’s just the way we were. It’s the way we were raised.

Yet when the game was over, the game was over as far as family stuff goes. Then you could talk after the game. But you know, it’s funny. During our playing days we talked, but we didn’t talk a whole lot. Everyone just kind of focused in on their own teams and what was going on with their own families. But we always kept tabs and were each other’s biggest fans, no question about it.

But that first game, it was pretty neat, to be honest.

McKeen's: Personal opinion: Who was better in his prime: Billy Smith or Grant Fuhr?

Sutter: That’s a good question. I can’t answer that for you. I think both were very good. They both had their own way. They were both money goaltenders and when the stakes were high, they were there.

McKeen's: Mike Bossy is one of the best goal scorers of all time, in my opinion. You played with him: how incredible was he in his prime?

Sutter: Boss was an elite player, an elite athlete. If there’s one thing that Boss never got enough credit for, it was his defensive play. He became very good defensively. I know all the talk was –and deservedly so – Jari Kurri was scoring all of his goals and playing with Gretz and very good defensively. But Boss was as good, if not better, than Kurri defensively. He just never got enough credit for that because he was known to be a 50-goal scorer every year. And back then, goal scorers were goal scorers. They didn’t look at them as being well-rounded players… but Boss was as well-rounded as you could find. It was a treat playing with him and I learned a lot from him. Not only a good player, but a very good person.

McKeen's: Absolutely. It was just a crime that his career ended like that.

Sutter: It was and I know the first game it happened – when he first hurt his back – and he never was able to recover from that. He never could seem to get over it.

McKeen's: You played with Bossy and John Tonelli back in 1984-85 and your line had a 19-point game against the Kings early in the season. Do you remember that game at all?

Sutter: Yeah, you know, it’s funny how that worked. We played together in the Canada Cup that year. Glen Sather put us together on a line and we just seemed to click. When we went back to New York, I guess if it’s isn’t broken – don’t try to fix it. That was the attitude and Al (Arbour) went with it. Boss and Bryan Trottier played together every year except that year. That year we came back and everything seemed to work and we were in such phenomenal shape from the Canada Cup. There probably wasn’t the off-ice training to stay in shape that there is today, so we were so much further ahead that everyone else. When you have three guys on the ice like that, it just seemed like everything seemed to click and mesh and that game against L.A., I forget exactly how it worked out. I think Boss had seven points and Tonelli and myself each had six points, or something like that.

Everything seemed to work. It’s funny, when you’re in a zone like that and you’ve got three players in a zone on a line together, you can do some phenomenal things.

I look back and that year, out of all the years I played in the NHL, that line – how can you say it wasn’t a great line? I think Bossy finished with 120-some points. I had 102 or so and I missed the last ten games of the regular season because I broke my shoulder. It just happened that on the last game of the regular season that John Tonelli got his 100th point. It was pretty neat that way and everything seemed to click with us.

McKeen's: You were a first round pick for the Isles back in 1980 (17th overall). What did it mean going to a team with that much upside – and one that already had one of your brothers on it?

Sutter: Well, it was great. I think you take it for granted when you play with your brother at such a young age and I look back now and it’s a great feeling to have been able to do that. Yet at the time, you don’t think much about it.

Duane helped me out enormously. I lived in his place my first year, with him and his wife Cindy. They were great. And when you go into a team that’s won a Stanley Cup – you’re 18 and going to a team with a winning atmosphere at such a young age and that was huge. It helped me for my whole career. Those experiences that I had, winning Stanley Cups at that age with the success and winning and understanding how important it is to do things right and being a real professional.

I learned that at a young age. I look back today and the one thing I wish back then that I could change is when you’re young like that and coming out of junior and going into the NHL and bang, you win Stanley Cups your first two years. I was there for their second one. I practiced with the team in playoffs and stuff but I never had a chance to play any games. I was 18 at the time and I played with them as a 19-year old. I mean, you win a Stanley Cup, then again the next year, then we got to the Finals and Edmonton beat us in five games and that was the first year they won the Cup.

I took that for granted a little bit, because you think it’s going to happen all the time. I played 17 years and I only got to a Stanley Cup one more time after that. You look back and it was great to win it, and yet I probably didn’t appreciate it as much as I should have. But you just expect that it’s going to happen all the time, but it doesn’t work that way.

But I learned a lot through it all and I learned a lot from not winning it again. I’ve seen both sides of it and you’re able to use that as a measuring stick as far as things you do. Not just in a game, but the things you do in life.