1-on-1 With Bob Hoffman
Tucson Roadrunners Team President Bob Hoffman joined Adrian Denny, Kim Cota-Robles and Arizona Daily Star Sports Editor Brett Fera this week on Roadrunners Happy Hour. Catch Happy Hour every Tuesday at 5 p.m. on Fox Sports 1450 AM and the Roadrunners Happy Hour Podcast on the iHeartRadio app. For the complete episode, and to hear Bob’s teaser for 520 Night, you can download below.
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Q: We play the whole season to bring the whiteout back to Tucson. Are you excited?
It’s exciting to see the schedule put together and to see that Wednesday, Friday, Sunday, all the home games. Last year, we weren’t fans of this playoff format by having to play all the games in Coachella Valley. But now this year, I can tell you, I kind of like it. So, I’m excited to have home games for the fans. When you look back at the beginning of the year, we knew this team on paper looked like it had a lot. And it had a lot of those pieces with guys playing their first year in North America, guys playing their first year at the top level of development hockey in the American Hockey League. As well as a goaltender, we knew very well coming in that Matthew Villalta had stung us numerous times while wearing that Ontario uniform. I think we looked at it and said, you know what, this is a pretty good group. Now we’ve got to go out and execute and see what it looks like and, you know, really every step of the way throughout the first half of the season, certainly right around, mid-November on, this team was dynamite and one of the best in the league.
Q: We’ve been watching so many players develop and work since we talked in mid-November. How happy are you that we got Josh, Dylan and Mike Kesselring back for the playoffs?
I’ll kind of answer that in two parts, but what we talked about mid-season, when you see that collection, I think cohesiveness and teamwork is what this team was all about all year. There were nights with guys out of the lineup. There were nights when different players stepped up. We kind of looked at the All-Star Break and saw the success that we had. Being in first place, but you looked down the stat sheet and there weren’t players that were in the top five in the league, there weren’t players that were stuffing it every night with two and three points a night and 12-game point streaks. It was a really good balance. You saw that, and I think that’s tough to prepare for, for a visiting team and I think that those were some of the benefits that we saw. Second half of the season, then right after the All-Star Break, that’s when he started to see Josh Doan really take off and he was an All-Star; so obviously he had a great first half of the year, but boy the second half of the year he started scoring some big goals in the third period and goals that were going to give us an extra point in the game and so on. So, we started seeing a little bit more of him taking the lead there, then you blink your eyes and he’s gone, he’s up to the National Hockey League and you wonder what’s this going to do to our offense? I’m sure you guys recall the first couple of games after he left. It was a little scattered, it was, I think, trying to find that identity and how do we get back to that teamwork approach; and they did it didn’t take very long. They kind of shook the cobwebs off and were able to really reestablish with other players jumping in and scoring some points and doing some really good things. So I think that collective group and that teamwork approach has really been beneficial for us all year, so that part’s great, but I think from the playoff standpoint and just getting those players back that you mentioned. I would take the group that we played the last month with and I’d go to the Moon with them. They’d be fantastic. But then you add in some of these other players who have now developed in the National Hockey League and maybe played at just a tick higher speed even though the American Hockey League is exceptionally fast, but a little bit higher from that side and really just vision. When you see how well Dylan Gunther sees the ice in the NHL, playing with the line he did and all the success he did with 18, 19 goals, whatever it finished to be in a half a season of play, I want to see how that translates back down here to see what that jump looks like, right? And in the very worst case, one thing we don’t have a problem with now is depth, whether it’s somebody gets dinged up in a game, or just a matchup might precipitate so we can put a different player into the lineup to try to lock up a top offensive player from from Calgary, whatever those moves that the coaching staff wants and the hockey operations crew want to make, we’ve got more depth, I think, more than anybody in the playoffs. So, we’ve got the ability to go out there and match up with anybody. So, I’m really excited just to see how it looks. I do not envy Steve Potvin and some of the decisions he has to make to get this crew on the ice. I think you’re going to have a lot of really talented, accomplished people sitting in the seats waiting for their opportunity, unfortunately, just because the roster is so loaded.
Q: What kind of stuff can the fans expect for this upcoming Whiteout games? We saw a lot stuff getting set up during practice today.
It’s really unmatched. It’s something that’s unbelievable and great excitement. We want to make sure everyone’s ready for that, so come dressed in white. The last time around people had white wigs and face paint and all of the stuff that really made the atmosphere just unmatched. That’s what we want to do as we go out there and try to support the team and try to advance as far as we can to get ourselves in a position to potentially win a championship and tickets are going really well. Wednesday nights jammed; which is really good for game one and Friday is tracking great too.
Q: The building felt like it was buzzing on Saturday. I could feel the energy. Do you know what the attendance was?
So yep, we ended up having the largest crowd of the season. There was just a few hundred short of a sell-out. But 6200 (6,205 fans), I believe, was the number that was there. Largest crowd of the year and the largest weekend of the year when you combine that with the great crowd that was there Friday night as well. So, it was it was a great turn out. You’re right about the feeling of the crowd, I thought that that too, that everything just seemed to be a notch up on the decibels. Every hit, there were a couple of breakaways that happened that the crowd, you could just feel them getting ready. Like I said, we always have a great crowd, but I do think it was up a notch. I think that was everyone getting ready for the playoffs.
Q: Are there any guys that you really enjoy watching this season?
I can’t play favorites, but I will tell you this, one area that I thought I remember mentioning after the first month of the season and what I noticed about this team was the willingness to do the very tough things that so many teams shy away from. Then our first handful of games we were double-digit leaders in the league in blocked shots and that continued around the midway point of the season. Our guys just throw in their bodies in front of the pucks and don’t allow great opportunities or rebounds that Matthew Villalta would have to deal with, and I think really setting that tone. So, I won’t play a favorite, but somebody that I noticed, who is just exceptional in that area, is Max Szuber. Max did a great job all year of setting that tone. We didn’t know how he was going to play in North America. We didn’t know what we were going to expect, but when I saw at least him just throwing caution into the wind and getting in front of any bullet coming his way, it really set the tone, I think, for the other defensemen because, you think about it as a defensive partner with him. You don’t want him showing you up the entire time. If he’s going to sacrifice and put his body on the line, you better do it as well. I think it really set a tone throughout the year. Early on, Justin Kirkland and Zach Sanford, when he was with the team, I thought created just a different look of leadership and calmness, that they were able to go out there and say, “hey guys, we’re veterans, we’ve got this, we can get this done” to some of the younger players. I really have loved the development of Nathan Smith and Ben McCarthy this year. I think where their games have come from when they first joined us to where they are now is, I think, certainly exceptional. So just a few, I guess, not playing favorites, but some people that have stood out that are on the roster that I look at and say, I think that is a little bit of the fabric and the definition of who we are. Some of those guys, I think, are the players that really are that fabric.
Q: What are you expecting in this series? Any predictions? In the NHL playoffs so far, what we’ve seen is really an interesting balance that’s leaned much more towards offense where you’re seeing 7-6 games, and 7-4 games, just seeing a ton. I think we’re going to see the exact opposite down here in this series. What I’m expecting is tight. every goal is going to matter big time. I think we’re going to see a couple of one-goal games. I think it’s going to be tight with 2-1, 3-2 finals and maybe even an overtime game splashed in there as Calgary battles. They have a tremendous coaching staff and they have a very good goaltender that’s going to keep their team in it. So, I think tight games and we’re going to see the heroics at the end. So, there’s my prediction.
