The list of requests would have likely been long, but David Quinn claims he is out of the ticket business.
So all the family and friends wishing to see him behind the bench as an NHL head coach for the first time in Boston Saturday night can find their own way into TD Garden.
“They can watch it on MSG or NESN,” Quinn said with a grin. “I’m not kidding, I’m not leaving one ticket for anybody. I don’t know who’s going to be there, but I’m going to win a hockey game and I got nine days off after that, so I’ll spend a lot of time with those people after the fact.”
The Rangers coach said he didn’t circle Saturday’s game against the Bruins on his calendar until midnight Thursday.
But for the man from Cranston, RI, who grew up going to the old Boston Garden to root on the Bruins, played there as a defenseman at Boston University, and experienced some of his best and worst memories from coaching his alma mater at the new TD Garden, a trip back there was all starting to sink in by Friday.
“Certainly thinking about it a lot over the last 12 hours, and what we’re going to face in a heck of a hockey team, well-coached team,” Quinn said Friday after practice. “But obviously for me personally, going to school there and coaching in Boston, coaching so many games at the Garden, it’ll definitely mean a lot more to me.”
Even if he’s trying to keep his own anticipation for the game as secondary to getting two points for the Rangers before they head their nine-day break.
“He hasn’t shown it,” said defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk, who had Quinn as an associate head coach at BU from 2007-09. “I’m sure on the inside — if I know him as well as I think I do — I know he’s been chomping at the bit to get to this day. But he’s done a good job of hiding it. He is focusing on getting a win and creating another good memory.”
Quinn has already made plenty — mostly positive — on Causeway Street. In the old Garden, he helped BU win back-to-back Beanpots in 1986-87, before winning four more, plus two Hockey East tournament titles, as an associate head coach at TD Garden.
And as BU’s head coach, his teams went 10-6-1 at the home of the Bruins, which included a Beanpot championship in 2015 and Hockey East titles in 2015 and 2018. But it was also the site of the 2015 national championship, when Quinn’s Terrirers fell to Providence after leading 3-2 with nine minutes left in the third period.
“My five years as a head coach there we won some big games and we lost a crushing game that I’ll never get over,” Quinn said. “And I used to go to a lot of Bruins games and watch and cheer for them. So there’s an awful lot that went on in that building for me personally.”
BU has its own game to play at 5 p.m. Saturday a few miles down the Charles River at Agganis Arena, but Quinn will still have three former players in attendance — on the other bench.
Bruins defensemen Charlie McAvoy and Matt Grzelcyk and center Jacob Forsbacka-Karlsson all played for Quinn. He has faced former players earlier this season, but not in the city they all used to call home.
“You really form lifelong relationships with these guys, and they’re friends,” Quinn said. “When they all left, you certainly continue to stay in touch with them. It’ll be a little strange, I’m not going to lie.”
The whole night figures to be, but Quinn’s end goal remains the same.
“There’s going to be a lot of people there watching him,” Shattenkirk said. “Hopefully we can get him a big win to top it all off.”