Coach K: new nickname sticks to Komisarek

And since Carbonneau might be unwilling to tamper with success, Komisarek could well be behind the bench again Tuesday night when the Canadiens are home to the Atlanta Thrashers.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen (Tuesday),” Komisarek said. “But it was pretty neat to watch the game from ice level.”

The 26-year-old had expected to absorb Saturday’s action from the press gallery roughly seven storeys above Bell Centre ice, sitting out his ninth game since injuring his shoulder in Boston in a fight with Bruins’ Milan Lucic on Nov. 13.

Saturday was a melancholy morning; it marked the third anniversary of the passing of Komisarek’s mother, Kathy, who lost her battle with pancreatic cancer on Nov. 29, 2005.

But Carbonneau unknowingly boosted his spirits with a bold idea, placing the call as Komo had an early afternoon meal with teammates.

Carbonneau would have assistant Kirk Muller and goaltending coach Rollie Melanson behind the bench with him, associate coach Doug Jarvis at home in Brantford, Ont., with his ailing father.

But adding Komisarek’s leadership and enthusiasm seemed a hunch worth playing. It was a wild card perhaps for a head coach who almost desperately needed a winning hand, his club having lost eight of its previous 12 and about to begin what might be a season-defining seven-game homestand.

“Carbo told me to make sure I brought a tie to the game because I was going to be behind the bench,” Komisarek said. “I definitely had some butterflies and I was pretty nervous, thinking how it would be back there. But it was an awesome experience.”

Komo was amazed by the speed of the game as seen from ice level, and how quickly on-ice and coaching decisions must be made.

Since being sidelined, he’s watched road games on television and home games on the press gallery, from where he says “it seems players have so much time and space, and the play seems so easy and simple and obvious.

“But at ice level, the guys are making split-second decisions with the puck, moving it or passing it.”

Yes, Komisarek sees the same game when he’s in uniform on the bench. But the perspective is entirely different.

“As a player, you focus on the little details of your job and your own role,” he said. “As a spectator behind the bench – I don’t want to say coach, because I don’t know that I was one – I had a whole new appreciation for the game. It’s so fast from that level.

“I can’t even imagine how Bowman or (Toe) Blake did it alone. We have Carbo and Kirkie and usually Jarvie back there. There’s a lot of communication between them during a game and between periods, and someone has an earpiece to communicate with someone else in the press box.

“There’s lots of information being thrown at them and processed to make instant decisions. It was unbelievable. I wasn’t putting players on the ice or making lines, but I was nervous as hell at the beginning. I didn’t know what to expect.”

Including the stray puck that came over the boards and sent him scrambling for cover.

“Watching the game as a player on the bench doesn’t come close to (Saturday) night,” Komisarek said. “It was a whole different world to me. I had an absolute blast.”

Defenceman Mathieu Dandenault retrieved the game’s final puck and presented it to his new coach, a grinning one-game veteran. Komo later pulled Dandenault aside and thanked him for a souvenir he’ll cherish forever, if one that caused him more than little good-natured grief given his promotion/demotion to the coaching ranks.

“I was wondering if I could still go grab dinner and a beer with the guys,” he joked. “I got a lot of heat from them. They told me, ‘Why don’t you go out with your new friends?’ ”

Let the record show that Komisarek, the perfect assistant, dined with teammates, none of whom sucked up to their new coach by picking up his tab.

“I heard about the coach thing all night,” he sighed. “I got a new nickname, too: Coach K. And I don’t think it’s going away.”

---

Komisarek on rehab, kicking Georges Laraque's butt in a stationary-bike race and the All-Star Game

DAVE STUBBS
The Gazette

Mike Komisarek arrived at the Bell Centre Sunday morning with a bag full of empty calories, some doughnut-shop drive-through for Canadiens athletic therapists Graham Rynbend and Nick Addey-Jibb.

“It’s the least I can do for these guys, for all they do for me,” Komisarek said. “Though these guys eat more Timbits than anyone I’ve ever seen.”

The injured defenceman has been seeing plenty of Rynbend and Addey-Jibb in the Canadiens clinic the past two-plus weeks. And before he’s finished with them, he might well Timbit them to the summit of Sugar Mountain, a hit the legendary Neil Young might even sing Monday night during his Bell Centre concert.

Komisarek has been sidelined with a shoulder injury since he scrapped in Boston on Nov. 13 with the Bruins’ Milan Lucic.

From “nothing serious,” the injury was declared on Nov. 21 to require a four- to five-week rehabilitation.

That will put him back in the lineup, if the schedule holds, for the Canadiens’ four-game post-Christmas road trip beginning Dec. 27. Tomorrow will be his 10th game missed; he’ll be out 19 by Christmas.

“I told the trainers even during the first week of rehab that if this were the playoffs, I could manage to get back into it,” Komisarek said. “But the best thing right now is to make sure I’m 100 per cent healthy when I come back.

“There’s a ton of hockey still to be played. The toughest thing is swallowing the pill and letting time and healing run their course.”

Komisarek believes the injury likely occurred when he toppled to the ice at the end of his fight with Lucic. Only in the penalty box did he sense any discomfort; back on the bench, the jostling of teammates confirmed there was indeed a problem.

The first phase of rehabilitation has been isolating the injury to promote healing. Komisarek has been reporting to the Bell Centre daily, without exception, for treatment and lower-body and cardio work – running, riding the bike and using the slideboard.

“I’m doing everything I can to stay in shape and be in the best possible shape when I come back,” he said.

The competitive juices still flow – Komisarek will happily tell you that he waxed fellow clinic patient Georges Laraque in last week’s so-called Tour de Canadiens stationary-bike race, the champion being the first to burn 500 calories.

“All I heard before the race was that Georges was going to beat up on me,” he said. “I beat him by a couple minutes, but he lost graciously.”

Komisarek hopes to be back on skates by the end of the week. The team’s imminent move to its new Brossard training facility will get him into a therapy pool, as well.

He admits it’s not been easy to watch the Canadiens’ spotty performance of late, the inconsistency illustrated when all hands reported to impressively win in Detroit last Wednesday, then struggled like house-leaguers in being shut out two nights later in Washington.

“Our team identity is to outwork the other team, and when we do that we’re a very dangerous team,” he said. “We’ve never been about one guy or about just our skill or speed. We’re about coming to the rink prepared to outwork the other team.

“That’s what we did (Saturday to beat Buffalo 3-2). The message the coaches gave us was ‘work, work, work’ and ‘work harder.’ The guys took it to heart.”

As he rehabs, Komisarek watches his vote total soar for the Jan. 25 All-Star Game. He trails fellow Canadiens defenceman Andrei Markov by roughly 42,000 in balloting for the two starting positions on the Eastern Conference squad, but leads third-ranked Boston captain Zdeno Chara by 195,000.

A huge honour, but…

“I’m here to win a Stanley Cup, not an All-Star Game,” Komisarek said. “Being part of the game would be awesome. If I’m part of it, great. If I’m not, that’s fine, too.

“As much as it would be a great experience, I want to come back and make the push for the second half of the season. I don’t know where I’m going to be (in late January) with my injury. We’ll see.

“But it’s an absolute honour just to be considered, and if I’m voted onto the team, I’d love to be there.”

Komisarek behind the bench Saturday night, assistant coach Kirk Muller to his right, with defencemen Roman Hamrlik and Josh Gorges and forward Maxim Lapierre looking on.
André Ringuette, NHLI via Getty Images