TAMPA, Fla. — The only head coach of a major professional sports team who is also a convicted gambler sat in an unoccupied St. Petersburg Times Forum office last week and tried to explain why that resume wasn’t as bizarre as it appeared.
Tampa Bay coach Rick Tocchet, center, was in the middle of a gambling probe, but now is a head coach in the NHL. AP photo
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"I can sleep at night knowing what I did and who I am,” said Rick Tocchet, who, on Nov. 14, despite a 2007 gambling conviction, was named interim coach of the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning. "I’m a fair guy, and I would never compromise this game. Ever.”
The Lightning’s hiring of the fiery-eyed former Flyers star capped an astonishing comeback for a man who 15 months earlier had walked out of a Mount Holly, N.J., courthouse and into an uncertain future, as a felon.
Now that Tocchet, 44, has made it back — against the odds, if you will — he realizes that, for a while at least, the spotlight will focus on him, his team, his past. He’s confident that he’s not a gambling addict, an opinion supported by a compulsive-gambling expert, and that he paid a price for behavior he still feels was more "stupid” than evil.
But the questions and the doubts will linger. That’s why the native of Scarborough, Ontario, has been willing to discuss the subject to some extent with reporters. He declined to discuss specifics of what he did in the gambling operation. But during his first week as Barry Melrose’s unexpected successor, Tocchet said, he spent nearly as much time trying to justify his hiring as coaching a team that was 1-2 in his first three games behind the bench.
"I’m not going to do this every day ... trying to defend myself,” Tocchet said in an interview. "It’s just not going to happen. I knew when I was named head coach, I was going to have to answer some questions about this and be open and get it done.”
On Feb. 7, 2006, then-N.J. Attorney General Zulima Farber announced that a state police investigation called "Operation Slapshot” had resulted in criminal charges against Tocchet, then-State Trooper James Harney and a third man, James Ulmer.
The Inquirer reported that State Police Superintendent Col. Rick Fuentes said at the time that investigators received a tip in October 2005 that Harney was involved in a gambling scheme. A fellow trooper went undercover to place wagers with Harney, Fuentes said, allowing state police to infiltrate the ring, which one official said was believed to have been operating for about five years.
Capt. Al Della Fave, a spokesman for the state police, said at the time that Tocchet had met Harney years ago, when Harney was a bartender at a Holiday Inn near the sports complex in South Philadelphia. Tocchet was a regular bar customer there.
Fuentes said the gambling ring they built accepted bets mostly on college and professional football and basketball games. During one 40-day period, he said, the operation processed more than 1,000 wagers worth more than $1.7 million. State police said Harney was accepting bets on the job.
On May 25, 2007, Tocchet agreed to a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to two counts: third-degree conspiracy and third-degree promotion of gambling.
On Aug. 17, 2007, N.J. Superior Court Judge Thomas S. Smith sentenced Tocchet to two years’ probation.
Ulmer, who was accused of helping Harney take bets, pleaded guilty to third-degree conspiracy and third-degree promotion of gambling.
Harney pleaded guilty to second-degree official misconduct and third-degree promotion of gambling.
Some early reports indicated the operation attracted wagers from others in hockey, including Jeremy Roenick and the wife of Wayne Gretzky, Janet Jones. Gretzky coaches the Phoenix Coyotes.
Tocchet, who played 18 years in the league, 10 with the Flyers in two Philadelphia stints, had been a Gretzky assistant with the Coyotes until 2006. The NHL, terrified by the case’s possible implications, suspended him for two seasons.
Coming less than a month after news of a gambling scandal involving NBA referee Tim Donaghy had traumatized professional sports leagues, Tocchet’s sentencing seemed to ensure that his future as an NHL coach was as dead as the era of no-helmet hockey.
"So Much For Rick Tocchet’s Coaching Career,” read a headline on a popular hockey Web site a day later.
Last July, after his suspension ended and his probation was shortened, Tocchet was hired as an associate coach by Melrose, who had left broadcasting to guide the Lightning.
On Nov. 14, after just five wins in 16 games, Melrose was fired. If that seemed like a stunning development, it was topped by what followed in the Lightning’s news release — Tocchet was promoted to head coach.
The questions came as fast as power-play shots:
What was Tampa Bay thinking? Why would it become what is believed to be the first major pro sports franchise to hire a convicted gambler as its coach? What kind of gambling speculation might ensue the first time the Lightning pass up an empty-net goal or Tocchet fails to pull his goaltender in a crucial spot? And how had Tocchet managed to resurrect his career before his reputation?
According to Lightning owner Oren Koules, Tocchet’s gambling conviction wasn’t "a concern for us at all.”
"The league and the legal system walked through a diligent process with him,” Koules said. "He did as he was asked, and the commissioner’s office let him return to the game before we hired him. In our minds, this was a complete nonfactor.
"When (NHL commissioner) Gary Bettman and Wayne Gretzky were supportive of adding Rick to our staff this past summer, that was good enough for all of us.”
League investigators, headed by attorney Robert J. Cleary, conducted a 1½-year investigation into the matter, interviewing 90 current and former players, coaches, and other league and club employees.
They determined, among other things, that neither Tocchet nor anyone else connected to the league had bet on hockey and that the former Flyer had no organized-crime connections.
Tocchet said the facts were overblown and in some cases misreported. But he admitted there likely was little he could do to answer all the questions or assuage the concerns about how his presence behind the bench might affect the league’s integrity.
"I know a lot of owners and GMs around the league, some I consider friends, and they never thought it was an issue,” he said. "For those people (who want to know) why am I back, I can’t worry about them. I can’t answer every question those people have. I have to live my life.”
Public perceptions aside, the NHL had no legal grounds on which to prevent Tocchet’s return — though insiders suggested that if Bettman hadn’t wanted it to happen, it wouldn’t have.
Unlike the NFL and Major League Baseball, NHL players are not prohibited from wagering on team sports, as long as it’s not hockey. NBA players, though not referees, also can bet on sports outside their own.
An NHL spokesman declined to comment and referred to Bettman’s lengthy statement of Nov. 1, 2007.
"There are those who might suggest that Tocchet should be prohibited from resuming active status in the league for an extremely long and additional period of time, perhaps forever,” Bettman said last November. "In my view, those who would make such a suggestion probably are not familiar with all of the facts and still are focused on the original headlines.”
Asked if their leagues would countenance a convicted gambler as a coach, spokesmen for the NBA, NFL and MLB said they didn’t want to engage in speculation.
"But I can say there is no rule about felons not being coaches,” NBA spokesman Brian McIntyre said. "Technically, you could be a convicted murderer and still coach.”
In the 2007 statement, Bettman noted that the Cleary investigation turned up no evidence that Tocchet had ever "compromised the integrity of NHL hockey.” The commissioner also suggested that while Tocchet clearly indulged in criminal behavior, the case may have been given more attention than it warranted.
Not long after Tocchet and the others were charged early in 2006, some reporters and bloggers pointed to a possible mob connection. The Inquirer had reported that FBI documents indicated Tocchet, during his years as a Flyer, had at least a casual relationship with South Philadelphia mobster Joey Merlino. But Cleary’s investigation uncovered no organized-crime links.
"When I heard that (mob ties), I thought writers were just being disgusting,” Tocchet said. "I have a kid. When you just throw stuff like that and don’t have the facts, to me that’s disgusting. Unless you have a fact and you know for sure, don’t throw it against the wall.”
Whatever his coaching future might be, the gambling conviction undoubtedly tainted Tocchet’s two-decades-plus NHL career. A tough and relentless winger, he was one of the Flyers’ most dependable and popular players.
His hard-charging style earned him the respect of players, fans and coaches throughout the league, and when he retired after the 2001-02 season, the Colorado Avalanche hired him as an assistant coach. In 2005, he joined Gretzky in Phoenix.
As soon as the charges were filed in early 2006, Tocchet left the Coyotes. He and his attorney said at the time that Tocchet would fight the allegations.
Still, simultaneously ashamed and hurt, he initially forgot his ambitions and continued to gamble, according to the NHL investigation.
"Almost unbelievably,” Bettman said in his November 2007 statement, "Mr. Tocchet has continued to gamble during his leave of absence — although not as frequently or in the same manner that resulted in his problems with law enforcement.”
In July 2007, Tocchet even competed in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.
"There were some times when I was just saying (forget it),” Tocchet recalled this week. "But there are parts of me that were like, ‘Stay strong. Eventually everything will come out and you’ll be back.’ ”
He now contends that while his involvement in the betting operation was "stupid,” he is not a compulsive gambler. He bet occasionally on sporting events, he said, and had wagered as much as $1,000 on blackjack hands.
"I went personally, myself, and spent a lot of money to go to a gambling psychologist named Arnie Wexler, who’s world-renowned,” Tocchet said. "We did like six hours over two days. ... I went through that thing and came out clean. It was like, ‘This guy has no problem at all.’ ”
Wexler, a compulsive-gambling expert who once headed New Jersey’s Council on Compulsive Gambling, agreed with Tocchet’s assessment.
"I’ve probably interviewed more compulsive gamblers over the last 40 years than anyone in this country,” he said Friday. "And this is the first time I’ve ever come up against someone who unequivocally is not a compulsive gambler. He’s a sociable gambler.”
The NHL, wanting confirmation, sent Tocchet to a second gambling expert, this one in Los Angeles. That finding, according to Tocchet, was the same.
After those reports and a meeting with league officials in New York, Tocchet was cleared to coach again in February.
Among the conditions the NHL placed on him were that he stop all legal and illegal gambling, and do nothing that would reflect badly on the league.
Tocchet said the NHL has had no one monitoring him since his reinstatement. His criminal probation, which ended three months ago, required him only to report to a probation office once every three months.
He came to Tampa in July and four months later was the Lightning’s head coach. His players seem to respect his credentials. As Chris Gratton put it, "He’s probably beaten up half the guys in here.”
Koules’ ownership group includes Len Barrie, who played in the Flyers organization during Tocchet’s time with the team. Koules said the interim coach’s status would be reviewed, probably at season’s end.
"In hiring Rick this summer, we knew we were adding an assistant that would be well respected by our players because of what he accomplished as a player,” said Koules.
"Plus, he knows the game well, technically. Now with him as our head coach, we have a guy that talks the talk and walks the walk.”
Tocchet said he was content again, though he still bristles at what he sees as lingering misperceptions.
His lawyer, Kevin Marino, and he had put together a videotape chronicling all the alleged misstatements and errors in the media.
"We had it just in case,” Tocchet said.
He insisted he was not "part of a ring.” He said he didn’t know Ulmer. And he never had any organized-crime connections.
"But I will never, ever sit here and go to City Hall and complain,” he said. "I’m not bitter. It was a part of my life that was kind of tough, but I’m not bitter at all. ... Selfishly, I’m upset, but in the whole picture? God, I’m blessed.
"They said I never bet on hockey. I’ve done all the stuff I had to, with psychologists and stuff like that. I’ve done everything I was asked, and now it’s time for me to live my life.”
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
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