Mammoth coach Tourigny 'real student of the game'

SANDY, Utah -- Don't judge a Bear by its cover.

Andre Tourigny is nicknamed "Bear" not because he's a big, burly guy who can growl. It's because he once bear-hugged someone, and everyone started calling him "Bear," which is easier for English speakers to pronounce than his French last name.

The Utah Mammoth coach talks hockey in a thick French-Canadian accent. But to get a read on him, listen closely. You can pick up some of the psychology the 51-year-old has learned from coaching clinics and all kinds of books.

At the Utah practice facility the other day, he described how the Mammoth need to play against the Vegas Golden Knights in the Western Conference First Round. Safe, but not too safe. Aggressive, but patient.

"That in-between, that is where your optimum performance is, and you need to find that balance," he said. "We need to have poise with the puck, but we need to play fast. We need to take our time but make it quick."

That sounded like legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, who was famous for saying, "Be quick, but don't hurry."

Asked if he'd studied Wooden, Tourigny said he'd read one of his books and mentioned his "Pyramid of Success," an iconic chart outlining building blocks for life. He has studied other great coaches like Bill Belichick, Alex Ferguson, Pep Guardiola and Phil Jackson.

"I think if you try to be somebody else, that won't work," Tourigny said. "You are who you are, so I am what I am. But I can learn from a lot of people."

This is a key part of the background of a coach who took over the Arizona Coyotes in 2021 and moved to Utah in 2024, when the NHL established a new franchise that acquired Arizona's hockey assets. While developing a team with young stars, he has helped lay the foundation for the organization in a new market.

In their first Stanley Cup Playoff series, the Mammoth are tied with the Golden Knights 2-2 entering Game 5 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Wednesday (10 p.m. ET; HBO MAX, Utah16, SCRIPPS, truTV, TNT, TVAS).

"Part of Bear's philosophy as a coach is continuous improvement," Utah president of hockey operations Chris Armstrong said. "We see it. We exchange messages of quotes, clips, different things you can draw perspective from. I think that's definitely a big part of who he is.

"Just like he requires of his players on the ice, how can he too get better every day? How can he view things differently, take a different approach, reach players in a different way? As we get older, we have to figure out how to reach and connect with younger generations. I think that's the other part of what he's doing."

Tourigny spent many years as a coach in major junior and with Hockey Canada, plus three seasons as an assistant in the NHL with the Colorado Avalanche (2013-15) and Ottawa Senators (2015-16), before he became a coach in the NHL.

He has attended coaching clinics in the offseason to learn from everyone from Ken Hitchcock to junior coaches.

"He's a real student of the game," said Hitchcock, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame who won the Stanley Cup with the Dallas Stars in 1999 and ranks sixth in NHL history in with 849 wins. "Has a lot of common-sense questions. Very practical coach."

He's a real student of other games too.

Tourigny said he has read a book about the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association, adding with a little laugh, "I don't know if I should say that." Mammoth owners Ryan and Ashley Smith also own the Utah Jazz.

Utah general manager Bill Armstrong said he and Tourigny have discussed Belichick's "The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football." It's not to steal X's and O's from the New England Patriots of the National Football League.

Tourigny said if quarterback Tom Brady played hockey, he would have to play offense, defense and special teams on the same shift.

"That might change his playbook a little bit," Tourigny said. "That's the reality of our sport, where you do a little bit of everything all the time, every time you touch the ice. It's different.

"But there's always leadership stuff you can take from, the way they manage certain situations, or it can be the draft, or it can be communication off the field or off the ice with their athletes and how they create cohesion."

Tourigny said his favorite book is "The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups" by Daniel Coyle, who dives deep into organizations like the U.S. Navy's SEAL Team Six and the NBA's San Antonio Spurs.

He said it's about "how you build a culture and how you make everybody involved in the culture and owning the culture and having a feeling of belonging in the culture."

It's no coincidence that there are glass walls and collaborative spaces in the offices of Utah's palatial practice facility, which opened this season. The flow creates what Tourigny calls "constant collisions," people naturally running into each other, coming together. That comes from the book.

Listen to how Tourigny talked about Game 2, when the Mammoth took a 3-2 lead with exactly six minutes left in the third period, stayed even keeled and won their first playoff game, all in a hostile environment on the road.

"I didn't have to say anything," he said. "The veterans on the bench took charge. They (stood) up. They didn't celebrate like we scored in overtime. They were, 'OK, here. We stay calm. We keep pushing. We keep doing our thing.' And they were saying the right thing, and they were making sure everybody was connected, everybody was in tune. So, OK. Our guys know what to do. There you go. It's done. That's the best coaching."

The word on Tourigny is that he fits the narrative Utah is trying to write.

"I think there's a lot of avid readers in our organization," Armstrong said. "It's always fun to share those books. I won't tell you what it was, but we gave out a book at the beginning of the year to the entire organization that thematically represented the journey that we're taking together."

Was it "The Alchemist: A Modern Classic Fable of Spiritual Healing, Self-Discovery, and the Power of Dreams" by Paulo Coelho, an inspiring work of fiction?

"Maybe," Armstrong said.

Regardless, this is the moral of the story:

"I think always finding ways to reinforce the core messages of our group in different ways all the time is important," Armstrong said. "It becomes the language of your team."