Great article in last Friday's Salem (MA) News by Bill Kipouras, a close
watcher of the North Shore connections to Maine hockey:

Conn has a Maine connection with Lighting's Tortorella

By Bill Kipouras

Staff writer

Marblehead's Gary Conn has the greatest respect for Tampa Bay Lightning head
coach John Tortorella.

They were not only hockey teammates at the University of Maine, but roomed
together for three years and created a scoring symphony on the ice for the
Black Bears that helped Conn become an All-American and Hall of Famer.

"We were best buddies and have stayed in touch," said the 44-year-old Conn.
"'Tort' was my left winger for those three years and was unbelievably tough,
the toughest guy I ever saw in the game. He gave 110 percent on every shift.

"The Tampa Bay Tribune called me the other day to ask about Tort's college
career. I never saw anyone play the game who got more cuts and bruises.
Andre Aubut and I were the points on the power play, we'd wind up and Tort
would stand there in front of the goalie. He got the crap kicked out of him,
but usually the puck went off him and found the net."

Tortorella's Lightning club is one game away from its first berth in the
Stanley Cup finals. They'll play Game 7 at home tomorrow night against the
Philadelphia Flyers to determine the NHL's Eastern Conference champion for
the right to face the upstart Calgary Flames in the Stanley Cup final.

"He's the most dedicated guy I've met in my lifetime and the most unselfish.
He never cared about personal recognition," Conn said of Tortorella. "I'm
sure, right now with all this publicity, that he can't stand it."

The two ex-teammates talk all the time in the offseason, and have dined in
the North End when the Lightning come to Boston during the regular season.
Conn expects they'll get together for some golf in Falmouth when his pal
brings his family to the Cape this summer.

No, Conn is not surprised one iota about Tortorella's success.

"I always knew he'd be doing something in the hockey business and that he'd
succeed," said Conn. "And to read what his players say about him, well, he
hasn't changed at all. He sounds like the same guy in college.

"I loved what he did after that loss when his goalie (Nikolai Khabibulin)
didn't play well. Tort took the focus off Khabibulin by badmouthing the
Flyers' coach, Ken Hitchcock, in a motivational move, and Khabibulin came
back to play great and win the next game."

It was Conn who got Tortorella the tryout that launched his minor league career.

"We were at Boston Garden one Saturday afternoon for a Bruins' game, and he
had just got back from playing in Sweden. I had played a year in Baltimore
in the Eastern League and was about to hang my skates up. I ran into Jimmy
Troy, the Rangers' scout, and he said they were looking for a center at Erie
in the Atlantic League.

"I asked him if I could bring Tort, and Troy said he could go on a tryout
basis. We went together and he ended up making the team. Three weeks later I
got traded from Erie to Virginia and Tort stayed with Erie for a couple of
years. He later became a player-coach in Virginia and the general manager
there. His big break came when Rick Dudley made him an assistant coach with
the Buffalo Sabres. Tort took it from there," Conn said.

Tortorella also played a year at Salem State under then-coach Mike Gilligan
of Beverly.

Gilligan, the retired University of Vermont hockey coach, has been watching
the Tampa Bay-Philly series and probably isn't sure who to root for. He has
kept in touch with Tortorella and has two former UVM players on each side:
John LeClair and Patrick Sharp in Flyers' uniforms, and the probable league
MVP and scoring champion, Martin St. Louis, and Erin Perrin on the Tampa Bay
side.

"One college with four former players involved in a playoff. Pretty good,"
Gilligan said from Burlington, Vt. last night.

"As for John Tortorella, he left Salem because he wanted to play with his
brother Jimmy (now the Colby coach) at Maine, and Maine was going Division
1," Gilligan said. "He was a very strong kid, probably the best forechecker
I ever had there, and he was relentless. He demanded a lot of himself."

Conn was a 1981 All-American at Maine and the Black Bears' all-time scorer
(114 goals, 121 points) when he graduated. He has since slipped to third
place. Tortorella, a two-time All-ECAC All-Star in college, has not been
inducted in the Maine Hall of Fame, but it's only a matter of time, Conn said.