Columnist Dean Juipe: McSorley looks for good old days

Dean Juipe

Friday, March 20, 1998 | 9:30 a.m.

DEAN JUIPE is a Las Vegas SUN sportswriter.

IN AN AGING building that's being refurbished, in a dark and largely deserted room that within a month will be a brightly lit snack bar and coffee shop, sits Chris McSorley at a makeshift, dust-covered desk. In terms of both the temperature and the aesthetics, it's cold.

But extending the parallels, he's here because he sees past the desolation and toward better times to come. Like the under-reclamation Sahara Ice Palace itself, McSorley is in the process of crossing a bridge that he trusts will lead to a return engagement with the good old days.

"I don't feel it's a setback in the least," McSorley said Thursday, pondering his decision to resign as head coach of the International Hockey League's Las Vegas Thunder two weeks ago. "In fact, I'm truly relieved."

Speaking at length for the first time since he stepped down and was replaced by assistant coach Clint Malarchuk, McSorley chose his words carefully yet weighed in as perpetually confident.

The site: a once-abandoned ice rink on the rail of the Commercial Center that is in the process of a face lift.

The goal: to gauge McSorley's state of mind now that he's an unemployed coach with National Hockey League aspirations.

"I know I'm going to have another coaching job by September," he said. "I'm confident that I'll be back behind the bench and maybe even in the NHL.

"I think I'll get to the NHL because good things happen to good people. But if I'm not in the NHL next season I'm sure I'll be haunting the rafters at the Thomas & Mack Center and coaching another team in the 'I.'"

It was in the T&M and within the 'I' that McSorley distinguished himself as a young coach with big-league potential. In three seasons with the Thunder he went 125-81-21, including a 57-win season as well as the 27-30-6 record that chained him to the mast of this year's sinking ship.

"The team I was given this season, I couldn't make win," he said. "I have no regrets with my performance but I take full responsibility for the team's performance."

The team's performance wasn't impressive under McSorley and, heading into tonight's home game with Long Beach, it hasn't been impressive under Malarchuk, leading to this conclusion: Perhaps who's behind the bench is less important than who is actually on it.

With a shorthanded roster pestered by injuries, the Thunder is nothing but a fringe contender for the Turner Cup this season. In truth, it's not really a contender at all.

"Change was imminent," McSorley said of the days prior to his decision to step aside, "and you can't change 20 players."

The pressure was on yet it was McSorley's call on the day he quit.

"I resigned," he reiterated. "There were a lot of burners on in the kitchen and it got pretty hot, but it was my decision."

In an uncommon gesture of good will, Thunder owner Ken Stickney rewarded his outgoing coach by announcing he would honor the final year and a half on his contract.

"Ken gave his word on that and it was very upstanding of him," McSorley said. "I think he appreciated the number of games I'd won for them."

Yet the tradeoff from a career perspective is that it cost McSorley some continuity as he attempts to jump from the IHL to the NHL. At the age of 35 he is suddenly out of professional hockey and certainly not following the natural progression or script that had been laid out for him, one that would have seen him graduate with honors from the 'I'.

"It's definitely a speed bump in my career," he admitted. "But I've always had good shock absorbers and I think in the long run this speed bump will be hardly felt."

He's passing his time as a management consultant at the Ice Palace and arranging the inaugural season of Pro Beach Hockey, an ESPN-driven sport that he calls "an extension of the evolution of in-line hockey." The latter project will take him to Huntington Beach, Calif., for the month of May.

He's also coaching a YMCA basketball team made up of third and fourth graders, and he is playing for a local senior hockey team that will compete in a national tournament next week at the Santa Fe.

"I'm busy but I haven't lost my focus on September," he said, pointing again to the belief he'll be back in coaching by then.

That belief is shared by many in the game, including NHL television analyst (and former player and coach) Barry Melrose. In the current edition of ESPN The Magazine, Melrose predicts McSorley and fellow IHL coach Steve Ludzik of Detroit are headed for the NHL.

"My colleagues throughout the game have called with great support," McSorley said. "I'm flattered all the way around. It's made it easy to digest this experience in Las Vegas."

This "experience" includes being responsible for the on-ice showing of a franchise that certainly has its quirks, including the occasional desire to be portrayed as the modern-day Charleston Chiefs.

"Let's just say I worked for some very competitive people who demanded very aggressive hockey," McSorley said, when asked if the Thunder's reputation has sullied him. "Every team has its identity and the Thunder's identity was always supposed to be physical hockey."

In other words, those in hockey -- re: the NHL -- realize what McSorley was asked to do with the Thunder. If his team sometimes had a Hanson-brothers look to it, maybe it wasn't his fault and maybe he won't be held responsible.

"There'll be 28 teams in the National Hockey League next season and I'm not afraid of the interview process or of standing on my own in front of any of them," he said. "I can relate well to players and I've advanced my game from a tactical standpoint. I've got a good winning percentage and have won wherever I've gone."

He's ready for the next step. Despite this curious sidetracking, he feels he's still headed toward the NHL and that this "bump in the road" will soon be in his rear-view mirror.

"I love Las Vegas and it's been great to live in this wonderful city," he said. "When the time comes, I'll leave town thanking Ken and (general manager) Bob (Strumm) for my years with the Thunder.

"I'll be gone by this fall. My career has always been in the fast lane and it's just about time to move along."