ALL BUSINESS

Berube's Stanley Cup ring helped land him behind Leafs bench, but there are many other reasons why he looks like 'the right fit'

- KEVIN MCGRAN

When Ken Hitchcock first met Craig Berube, the new coach of the Maple Leafs was just a teenager getting off a yellow school bus from Williams Lake, B.C., to try out for the Kamloops Blazers.

That was 1984.

What followed is 40 years of friendship as the coach/player relationship morphed into mentor/ coach.

"We got to spend an awful lot of time together," said Hitchcock, who was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame last year. "Craig really became a student of coaching, and he studied coaches. I gave him a lot of stuff to work on, and he was diligent as hell. And he made himself a coach, but he never lost his core values as a player, which is pretty impressive."

A bruising winger, Berube played one junior season for Hitchcock in Kamloops (1985-86). They started their NHL careers together in Philadelphia, with Hitchcock hired as an assistant coach in 1990 and the never-drafted Berube just beginning to establish himself as an NHL regular.

They'd cross paths again when Berube started as an assistant with the AHL Philadelphia Phantoms while Hitchcock was coaching the Flyers.

"Their office was right down the hall from mine," said Hitchcock. "I've always been an early-riser guy, and Craig is the same. There were a lot of days that he was in his office before I got there. And I just knew at that time that if he got the opportunity, he was going to be successful because he was absorbing information, he was seeking new information, and he started to really study what it would take to be a good coach."