The other side of John Tortorella

TAMPA - Thinking back, it seems preposterous that the Tampa Bay Lightning once won the Stanley Cup.

Lord Stanley's goblet isn't supposed to reside in a city where sunscreen is mandatory for just about anything and ice is something best used to complement sweet tea. But there it was, on that memorable night in 2004 - a 2-1 victory against over Calgary in Game 7 of the Cup finals. They were the champions.

And right there in the middle of things was this ferocious softie of a man named John Tortorella, the coach in charge of the impossible dream-come-true. Seems like a long time ago. The man they call "Torts" will be back at the Forum tonight when the team he used to coach plays the team he coaches now - the New York Rangers.

We'll get to that in a minute.

But first, be introduced to Catherine Reeves. She has a story to tell about Tortorella. Whatever image you have of him, this may change it.

Her family met Torts during the worst of times. Her young son, Jacob, had bone cancer, and Torts does a lot of work with children facing dire struggles. Maybe it's because Jacob once played hockey, but Catherine says, "Something clicked" between the gruff ol' coach and the 14-year-old boy facing a life struggle. And Torts doesn't do anything halfway.

"He called one day and said he had a surprise for us," Catherine said. "He said he wanted to come up for a visit."

Not too much later, his pickup truck pulled up to the Reeves' family home in Brooksville. He brought the Stanley Cup. He wanted to make sure Jacob got to see it and touch it.

"It was a great day," Catherine said. "When I see John, I see compassion. I see a heart that John has away from hockey. He says he has to be one way with his players to get the most of out of them, but he's different with his friends."

Jacob passed away a couple of weeks after Torts' visit. The family keeps a picture of the coach and their son on a mantle, next to the urn holding his ashes.

So who is the real Torts? The caring man who made sure a young boy in a desperate battle had a few hours of happiness, or the snarling caricature of a coach who in the middle of the Eastern Conference finals told Philadelphia coach Ken Hitchcock to "shut yer yap."

He is both, of course.

"It's the everyday thing with Torts - always pushing you, always getting the most out of you," said the Bolts' Marty St. Louis, a mainstay on that Cup team.

"Sometimes you don't really like him, but at the end of the day he was successful at what he was trying to do. I have a lot of respect for him for what he has done with my career and for my career. He was nothing but good for me, even if some days I didn't like it."

Torts wasn't just demanding of his players, as we know so well. He had open contempt for many of his bosses, even the ones who signed his paychecks - maybe especially them. With Torts, either you were honest and all in to the business of winning, or you were an obstacle to be mocked and crushed.

That's probably what got him fired here. When the current owners bought the Bolts a year ago last summer, Torts sized them up and decided they'd never get along. He mocked them as "cowboys," and they responded by replacing a coach who had won the Cup with a TV personality who had spent the previous 13 seasons in the broadcast studio. We know what happened there.

He wasn't out of work for long. The Rangers hired him late last season, and may the Lord have mercy on anyone in that organization who doesn't toe the line.

"He never seems afraid of anything," St. Louis said. "If there's a challenge, he faced it dead-on. He wasn't the kind of coach to weave his way around a challenge - he went right at it. That's the way he expected his players to be, too."

No one understands that better than Vinny Lecavalier.

Torts was most demanding of those with the most to give, and no one had more to give than Vinny. Tortorella drove him, berated him, mocked him, and it seemed for a while that he might drive Vinny out of town. Like any good coach, though, he knew when a hug was better than the back of his hand.

"Obviously it wasn't fun when he was all over you. I don't think anybody would enjoy that, but I think it was part of his strategy, and it worked," Lecavalier said. "It definitely made me a better player. That's what I remember."

There aren't enough genuine people in the world, but John Tortorella qualifies. This hockey man is grounded enough to know when it's time to drop the "hockey" part.

"He used to call us about once a week while Jacob was sick, just to talk," Catherine said. "He would talk with Jacob, but he wanted to make sure the rest of our family was OK, too. Even after Jacob passed away he kept in touch."

He works in another city now, and time marches on, but tonight is a time to pause. He won't like that; he'd rather sneak in the side door and leave quietly, but too bad. His legacy here is too large for that - whether it's a Stanley Cup banner hanging at the Forum or a picture on a mantle by an urn holding a child's ashes.

"I'll never forget him," Catherine said.

No one around here ever will.