Loose ends: One of Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour’s odd quirks actually a life hack
In some ways, Rod Brind’Amour is as exacting and regimented behind the bench as he ever was on the ice or in the weight room as a player. He never cut corners then, and he doesn’t now. But out of sight of the cameras, below the benches where the players sit, there’s one daily task the Carolina Hurricanes coach never finishes.
Brind’Amour, as a player and now as a coach, never ties his shoes. The laces hang loosely from their eyelets, the ends dangling just so, turning even the most expensive brogues or wingtips into loafers.
It’s an odd quirk for someone so fastidious about everything else, who remains every bit as fit as some of his players, who has spent decades leading — and leading well — by example as much as exhortation.
But it’s not a superstition, or a sloppy mistake.
“Hell no,” Brind’Amour said. “It’s convenience.”
In Brind’Amour’s eyes, it’s a life hack.
“I’ve never tied my shoes, other than when I have to go for a run,” Brind’Amour said. “They don’t need to be tied. I’ve got to take them on and off so much. I think it started when I got to the NHL, and we go in and out, in and out of a suit, and then it just stuck.”
Amy Brind’Amour admits now, when she first started dating the coach who would become her husband, that she found it more than a little odd. He would tie his shoes to go for a run with her, but never his dress shoes.
“I have to be honest: Yes, I did think it was strange,” Amy Brind’Amour said. “But then it made sense to me later.”
Rod Brind’Amour wasn’t the only one who made the conscious decision to skip this step. In his playing days, he and Glen Wesley used to sit next to each other on the team plane — “Like the two guys on the Muppet Show,” former broadcaster John Forslund once quipped, Statler and Waldorf — both with their shoelaces flapping in the breeze.
It was a fashion decision they both arrived at independently, but it marked them as veterans of a similar mindset.
“We both did it on our own,” Wesley said. “And when we would play golf, on the course, we wouldn’t tie our shoes up either. Just left them loosely untied. You get a pair of dress shoes, and you never tie them up. I just didn’t bother to do it. Just wore ‘em loose and didn’t think anything of it. Just the way it was.”
There’s more to this than pragmatism. Brind’Amour, when he was traded to the Hurricanes in 2000, was coming off a broken foot that forced equipment managers to carve extra room in his skate. And, this is not a joke, he still has muscles in his feet most people don’t. A little extra space doesn’t hurt.
Still, for a guy who excels at checking all the boxes, doing things the right way and putting in all the work, it’s a little curious that he stops short at tying his shoes.
“Well, who says that you have to tie your shoes?” Brind’Amour said. “What benefit are you getting out of that right now, tying your shoes? If I was slopping all around in my shoes, I would. But they don’t fall off. I’ve never lost a shoe going from the bench to the room.”
So don’t expect Brind’Amour to change that now: win, lose or untied.
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This story was originally published May 14, 2023 at 9:00 AM with the headline "Loose ends: One of Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour’s odd quirks actually a life hack."
