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Beat Writer Reflects On What It's Like To Cover Former Rangers Coach John Tortorella

(CBS) Former NHL.com writer Dave Lozo spent four seasons covering the often rude, condescending and inconsiderate former coach of the Rangers, John Tortorella.

In the wake of Tortorella's firing last week, which came after his Rangers were ousted from the Stanley Cup Playoffs, Lozo explained exactly what it was like to cover the surely head coach.

Here are some excerpts:

The old press room in Madison Square Garden was a fitting setting for my introduction into covering John Tortorella. The tiny quarters had a suffocating, claustrophobic feel. The room was encased by cement bricks and filled with 20 or so metal folding chairs that faced a stage that held a table and chair where Tortorella would sit and answer – or usually, not answer – questions from the assembled media. 

If a prison had a press conference room, this would have been it.

It was September 2009, and my extensive professional hockey writing experience totaled one Western Conference Final game and four Stanley Cup Final games, all of which were contested at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit the previous summer. I found myself covering these very important games after writing stories off conference calls in the earlier rounds that the usual writers couldn't do because of travel situations.

It turned out my reward for that three weeks of work was four years covering the scariest coach in the NHL.

There's no way to ever relay the terror that comes with that first press conference involving Tortorella. I had seen the videos, heard the stories and knew what to expect. Seeing as how it was my first day, I planned to simply sit back and watch the beat writers ask their pre-game questions and see how it went.

...

Eventually, Tortorella stops being scary. For me anyway, it went from asking a scary coach a question to asking your crazy uncle a question to I'm going to avoid the crazy homeless man altogether and walk on the other side of the street.

Read the full report here.

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