Terry Crisp has been on both ends of the coaching spectrum in his career, leading the teams in this year's Cup final: He won the title with Calgary in 1989 and he was expansion Lightning's first coach.
He talks with the calm, soothing voice of a father speaking of his children.
He will tell you of the successful child, the one that had everything you would want, and the pride is obvious in his voice. He talks of the achievements, of the strength.
He will explain the child who struggled, the one who lost its way from time to time. He talks about the innocence of the early days, about the lessons learned the hard way along a bumpy road.
Terry Crisp loves them both, if you want to know the truth. He loves the Flames, and he loves the Lightning and, if you wish, he will show you pictures. Asking him which one he is pulling for is like asking Pa Cartwright which son he likes the best.
Now, his former teams are playing for the championship, and you are on the phone to ask him who he is pulling for, and for perhaps the first time in his life, Crisp is stuck for an answer.
"I don't know who to pick," Crisp said. "People keep asking me, but I'm like 0-27 the last five years when it comes to making predictions. I'm sending out e-mails. If teams want me to pick against them, they can put in their bid. Maybe I'll make some money."
Yeah, Terry.
But who are you pulling for?
Crisp laughs the good laugh, that deep throated rumble that kept him as close to sanity as possible during those wacky, wayward first steps of a franchise.
"Ah, I don't know," he said. "Tampa Bay is like a child I raised from infancy. Calgary is the older child you sent out into the world. When you win a Stanley Cup with a team, that becomes your benchmark. But I wouldn't be disappointed at all if the younger child won this."
He is the common ground in this series. Crisp was Calgary's most successful coach. He was Tampa Bay's first. Once he walked out the door, it took both franchises a long time to approach the success they had had with him.
It was like living two lives, if you want to know the truth. That's how different Crisp's jobs, and his reputations, were in Calgary and in Tampa Bay.
In Calgary, he was the guy with the large, bulging neck veins, bullying and berating his team toward that elusive championship. Crisp wasn't the nicest guy in those days. He wasn't paid to be nice. He was paid to do one thing: Win the Cup. Whatever toes he stepped on were incidental.
In Tampa Bay, he was the guy with the warm handshake and the wide smile, helping to grow a team and to introduce a sport. Here, he was part diplomat, part storyteller. Oh, and he won some games, too.
"It was different," Crisp said. "Up here, it was "What do you need to win? Go get it." In Tampa Bay, it was, "We don't have the 37 cents to get that guy.' "
Even now, the stories of the early days with the Lightning spill out of Crisp. The way the training room in that first season was outside under a palm tree. The time he had to have someone tell Roman Hamrlik to stop fishing in the nearby pond and come in for the game. The time the radio announcer asked him why he didn't play two goalies at the same time.
There was the first game, a 7-4 victory over Chicago, when Chris Kontos scored a hat trick. A fan tossed a hat onto the ice in salute, and the security guards rushed him out of the building.
There was the game when the Lightning had a one-goal lead late and the other team pulled its goaltender. The way Crisp tells it, a woman berated the official that night. After all, if the other team could pull its goaltender, why couldn't Crisp?
Those were crazy days for Crisp, and sometimes, they were difficult. He never let on much. Crisp kept scribbling notes onto his tiny notepad, and he kept telling stories.
Still, he was Crisp, the guy who had raged so visibly in Canada. In those days, his temper had a hair-trigger, and his voice had neither a volume control nor a profanity regulator.
Even in Tampa, there were times when you could see the white of his knuckles. A competitor remains a competitor, and there were times you could find Crisp alone, grinding his teeth. Soft players drove him crazy. Floaters bewildered him. Small budgets frustrated him.
As you look back, everyone seems to agree that Crisp was a darned fine fellow. What seems to get lost sometimes is that he was also a darned good coach. That '95-96 season, the team got off to a slow start, and there were rumors about his job. But it was a team with some pluck, John Cullen and Brian Bradley and Rob Zamuner, and it scrambled its way into the playoffs.
It was then that Crisp discovered the real difference in the jobs he had.
In Calgary, he had been booed after winning.
In Tampa Bay, he was cheered over losing.
It was the darndest sight. The Lightning had just lost, badly, to the Flyers, and Crisp was walking across the ice at what is now Tropicana Field when the crowd began to cheer. And cheer.
"I'll never forget that," Crisp said. "To me, that was the most surprising moment of my careeer, standing in the ice, turning around, listening to that crowd cheer that team. I won't ever forget that.
"You know, we could have won that series. Every time I talk to Bobby Clarke, I tell him that. If Daren Puppa's back doesn't go out on him, we were going to win. I say that, and he just looks at me and smiles. But I honestly believe it."
As a color analyst in Nashville, Crisp still gets to see this Lightning team. For the record, he likes what he sees. He likes John Tortorella. He likes Martin St. Louis. He likes Vinny Lecavalier. No, it wouldn't shock him to see the Lightning win the Stanley Cup.
Think about that, you say. Think about what you just said.
The Lightning ... winning the Stanley Cup. Would he have ever thought that would happen in his lifetime?
Crisp laughs again.
"Put it this way," he says. "I wouldn't have bet the mortgage on it."
