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Ludzik: 'I'm starting to heal up'

His hockey life was put into perspective soon after being fired as Lightning coach.

By DAMIAN CRISTODERO

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 31, 2001

Steve Ludzik still can't watch Lightning games on television.

Oh, he tries. The former Tampa Bay coach turned on Tuesday night's 7-1 loss to the Devils on the satellite system at his home in Niagara Falls, Ontario.

Five minutes later, he turned it off.

"I'm starting to heal up," Ludzik said this week, but added, "it's just too tough for me to watch."

Ludzik was fired Jan. 6 after a season and a half with the Lightning and a 31-74-14-9 record. Since then, he has sold his Valrico home, written pages upon pages of notes analyzing what he did right and wrong at Tampa Bay, and is trying to decide whether to take a job coaching major juniors.

He also had a couple of wake-up calls; one that made him laugh, one that makes him shudder.

About a week after Ludzik was fired, his 12-year-old son, Ryan, was seriously hurt in a rollerblading accident. Ludzik said Ryan was in Tampa General Hospital for five days after a fall "fractured the back of his skull." Only recently, Ludzik said, have tests confirmed Ryan is fully recovered.

"It really shows you what's important," Ludzik said. "Probably the most important thing to me is my family. I'll work again. I'll coach again and have a winning team. But you never have a chance to have another son."

His 14-year-old son, Stephen, provided the second, though more subtle, jolt.

Ludzik said he woke one morning earlier this month and asked Stephen if the Lightning had won the previous night.

"Cut the cord," Ludzik said Stephen told him. "They put you on waivers and they don't want you anymore."

Easier said than done, Ludzik said, in large part because the person who fired him, general manager Rick Dudley, is one of his best friends.

Ludzik said he has not spoken to Dudley since the general manager came to his Chicago hotel room at 8 a.m. to tell him he was out of a job. Even so, Ludzik said he has no hard feelings.

"The decision to fire Steve Ludzik, that's a business decision," he said. "It has nothing to do with how I feel about Duds. He's great. That's business. I'll always be friends with Duds."

Ludzik lauded Dudley's trades which, since Ludzik was fired, have brought in defensemen Adrian Aucoin and Stan Neckar, forward John Emmons and goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin.

"It was an unbelievable coup to get him," Ludzik said of Khabibulin. "The ducks are in a row now. Everything is set."

Would Ludzik have liked those players available to him? He declined to say. Nor would he say what he would have done differently.

"That's between Steve Ludzik and Steve Ludzik," he said. "My wife (Mary Ann) doesn't even know."

What Ludzik does know is he will coach again. He said he met last week with a representative of a major junior team, though he would not say which one.

From a financial standpoint, there is no rush. Ludzik was in the second of a three-year contract, and Dudley said the rest of Ludzik's $1.2-million salary would be paid.

But Ludzik said, "If you're coaching hockey to make money, you're in the wrong job. You do it because you love it."

And that's why he will try again.

"I'm one of those guys who has to keep banging away," Ludzik said. "I stepped back and re-evaluated myself. It's like Babe Ruth stepping up to the plate. He takes a big swing. Sometimes you hit it and sometimes you miss."

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