KEY WEST, Fla. — I was running circles around the bar at Captain Tony’s and I was getting angrier with each lap completed. It had to be there. I knew it was there. But where the hell was it?
It was Monday. Jan. 22, 2024, exactly two weeks after the College Football Playoff national championship game. My wife and I were in Key West. The mission of the getaway was to quiet my college football brain amid the rum-soaked breezes of the southernmost point of the United States.
But in this moment, the mission had changed. Because as has always been the case whenever I am in flip-flops on the streets of the Conch Republic, all I could think about was a college football coach.
Only this time was different.
This was the first time I was in the land of Ernest Hemingway when I knew Mike Leach would not be. There would be no accidental sightings as he glided by on his rusted beach cruiser. No waking up to 3 a.m. texts that read, “Did I see you walking down Duval tonight?” No calls from Pullman or Starkville because he knew I was there and to demand, “Listen, if you are going to stay in that hotel where you do at the end of the street then you have to get in that water and swim because that’s where Tennessee Williams swam every morning.”
None of that was going to happen during this visit because Leach died Dec. 12, 2022. Now, like Hemingway, Williams, Leach’s beloved Jimmy Buffett and all the pirates and rumrunners who fascinated Leach so much that he bought a home in Key West to tap into their spirits, his spirit now floats around the island. As much a part of its atmosphere as key lime and conch fritters.
So yeah, I was desperate to find the spot where I’d last seen him in a location that wasn’t a stadium or press conference podium. The corner seat at Key West’s darkest yet most colorful watering hole, the stool upon which Leach had parked himself so many times that the proprietors decided to paint his name atop the seat. That’s what I was looking for, the dark-wood barstool with the golden block letters: MIKE LEACH.
This week, as his March 9 would-be 63rd birthday approached, I have thought a lot about that January trip and that moment of anxiety, me endlessly walking around and staring at the butts of irritated Captain Tony’s patrons, hoping they might scoot over so I could see what name they were sitting on.
Robert DeNiro … Dan Aykroyd … “Excuse me, ma’am, but could you shift your hips so I could see if … Ok … No… Sorry … That’s Clint Eastwood.”
It was six years ago that Leach called me while sitting at that bar. I asked him what he was drinking and he said it was Crown Apple. Then he spent the next 15 minutes explaining to me that his answer to that question would depend on what time of day or night it was, or even the time of year. “Sometimes, to mix it up, I will just drink tequila,” he said. “I like rum, but I want to make sure there’s enough left for you when you get down here because I know you’re a rum guy. But if I am feeling particularly good, then I will order Brandy Alexanders.”
I told him I didn’t know what that was. He replied, “That’s because you aren’t as fancy as I am.”
“Anyway …” he continued with a laugh pushed through a cough. “These guys were telling me that Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in here yesterday and I was thinking, ‘I want to meet that guy and I know a guy who knows these NASCAR guys,’ so, do you have his number?”
I did. I sent it to Leach. They met up. I thought of that moment in January as I kept sifting through barstools and a rather large gentleman stood up to adjust his jorts to reveal the lettering beneath his behind: DALE JR.
It was at this bar atop one of those stools that Leach fell in love with Key West. The story goes that in the early 1990’s, he and boss/brother/mentor/co-creator of the Air Raid offense Hal Mumme were in South Florida on a recruiting trip for their jobs at Iowa Wesleyan, an NAIA football program located 1,700 miles northwest of Key West. During their drive down from Miami, rolling over the blue waters atop the Overseas Highway, they blasted Buffett to get into the mood. Leach particularly loved the song “The Last Mango in Paris,” a biographical tune about a gambler and arms runner-turned-shrimper and businessman named Anthony Tarracino.
Leach being Leach, he started researching Tarracino and learned the former scofflaw had been elected mayor of Key West. Not only that, the man operated a bar just off Duval Street, in a building that was once the city morgue, where pirates were embalmed. Captain Tony’s — named for himself — was built around the Hanging Tree, an oak from which nearly 20 ne’er-do-wells took their final breaths, some buried in the ground directly beneath where the bar now sits, right next to the tree that still grows right through the middle of the room.
“The place across the street, they claim to be where Hemingway used to hang out,” Leach growled to me during a visit to see him at Washington State in 2017, referring to Sloppy Joe’s. “But the place that became Captain Tony’s, this is where Hemingway usually was. Harry Truman went there. John Kennedy went there. So, that’s why I went there. Mumme went to bed that night. We had a meeting with a recruit the next morning. But I sat there, waiting on Tony. And as soon as Hal left, a guy came in and took his seat. It was Tony!”
Captain Tony and Coach Leach became friends. That friendship lasted until Tarracino’s death Nov. 1, 2008.
The friendship made in that bar extended to the man who took over ownership from the Captain, Joe Felder. Leach and Mumme kept coming back, even as their jobs migrated to Valdosta State and Kentucky, and Leach moved on to Oklahoma as an assistant coach and then head coach at Texas Tech. The official reason was a football camp/fundraiser for local Key West athletics, organized by a school administrator named Joe Clements, who eventually became Leach’s best friend. It was there, on America’s southernmost football field, at Key West High School — Go Fighting Conchs! — sitting in metal grandstands rusted by the ocean across the street, that Leach and Mumme brainstormed huge chunks of the pass-happy offense that has slowly taken roots beneath every level football like, well, a live oak growing in the middle of a bar.
“The reality is that Mike loved Key West so much that he found any excuse he could to get down there, even if that meant that we all had to go down there with him,” longtime Leach assistant and current NC State special assistant Ruffin McNeill recalled last year with a laugh. “That’s a place that has always welcomed every kind of unique character with open arms. And there’s never been a more unique character than Mike Leach.”
Unique and imperfect. Every name on every stool, from Hemingway and JFK to Arlo Guthrie and Urban Meyer, came with flaws to go with their fame. Leach certainly did, too. His only full-time residency in the town was between jobs, when he was pushed out of Texas Tech amid an investigation into his treatment of a player with a concussion. As he fought for his career and reputation, he calmed his mind by sitting on the beach and deep sea fishing. Just like Hemingway and Williams. And just as Key West’s characters still do every single day.
This past January, those characters reminded me of Leach, no matter where I went. At the Tipsy Rooster, as a local crooner worked his way through the Buffett catalog, a group of guys rode by on rented bikes, all wearing Texas Tech football jerseys. At the Key West Historic Seaport, where Leach used to host visiting athletic directors in town to interview him for jobs, a woman in a Washington State Cougars T-shirt stood up at the bar and randomly toasted, “To Coach!” and we all knew who she was talking about. Even in a Duval Street boutique called Nu Shuz, amid shelves stocked with bright green floral ankle strap closed-toe high-heeled mules, stars-and-stripes sequined booty shorts and, in the words of the store manager, “everything anyone needs to look fabulous,” there was a sequin-covered clutch purse adorned with the maroon block M logo of the Mississippi State Bulldogs.
“We have other schools, but this one stays out front because I get a lot of requests for that one,” the manager explained. “You know, the coach used to live here.” The manager then recalled an hourlong conversation with Leach about Key West drag shows and that they still catch themselves looking out for him, even though they know he won’t be walking by again.
I knew that, too. But it didn’t stop me from looking. Not at every middle-aged man riding by on a creaky bike. Not as our tour bus went down the street where he and his wife Sharon used to live. Not as we drove by Key West High School headed to and from the airport. And certainly not at Captain Tony’s, where yes, I knew Mike Leach wasn’t going to be sitting on his stool at the bar, but at least I could find the stool, right?
Back at the bar, my wife, tired of watching me run laps, asked the night manager where the seat was. “It isn’t sitting,” he said, directing us past the bar and around the stage where, on Jan. 2, 2023, Captain Tony’s regulars watched Mississippi State’s first game after his death, a ReliaQuest Bowl win over Illinois, as they spent halftime on an open mic sharing their favorite Leach stories. We descended into the lower level and there, between the pool tables, he pointed up. “We had to do this because people kept trying to steal it. And because he belongs there.”
Nailed to the ceiling of Captain Tony’s, at the same altitude where pirates once swung dead and where their ghosts are presumed to float now, hang four barstools.
PAPA HEMINGWAY … HARRY TRUMAN … JOHN F. KENNEDY … MIKE LEACH.
I snapped a couple of bad photos with my phone and excused myself to hit the men’s room. There, I stopped being sad and suddenly started smiling again. There, framed over the toilet was Jimmy Buffett’s hand-scribbled lyrics to “The Last Mango in Paris.”
I went down to Captain Tony’s to get out of the heat When I heard a voice call out to me, ‘Son, come have a seat’ I had to search my memory as I looked into those eyes Our lives change like the weather, but a legend never dies.
DENVER — Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog took the ice in his first NHL game in nearly three years Wednesday night in a 2-1 overtime loss to the Dallas Stars in Game 3 of their first-round series.
It marked his first NHL appearance since June 26, 2022, when he and the Avalanche beat Tampa Bay to win the Stanley Cup. He had been sidelined because of a chronically injured right knee.
Landeskog started alongside Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas. He played just over four minutes in the first period, making an immediate impression in Game 3 by hitting Stars forward Mikko Rantanen, who used to be Landeskog’s teammate. He had no shots on goal but finished with a team-leading six hits in 13:16 of ice time.
The Stars took a 2-1 series lead.
“Felt great in all areas tonight in terms of being back,” Landeskog said. “Very special night regardless of the outcome.”
It was an emotional lead-up to the game for Landeskog. There were the ovations from the crowd, and chants of “Landy, Landy, Landy.” There were signs all over the arena, including one held up by his kids that read, “So proud of you Daddy!” The team also played a video tribute, with Landeskog tapping his heart in appreciation.
Landeskog said he felt “blessed and very fortunate” to be embraced by the crowd.
“I don’t know exactly what was going through my mind and body at that time, but it was pretty special, and that’s a memory for life. Simple as that,” Landeskog said. “Avs faithful, they make it special, you know? It’s a special place to play, it’s a special place to live and raise a family. And obviously the last three years have been difficult at times. And to come back and feel that love, I mean, incredible. So it means a lot.”
Landeskog said Rantanen welcomed him back when the two lined up for the opening faceoff Wednesday night.
“Regardless of what jersey he wears I love him. He’s a good friend of mine,” Landeskog said of Rantanen after the game. “But in this series, we’re obviously not friends when we’re playing. But obviously very special to be out there for that.”
It was Landeskog’s first game with the Avalanche in 1,032 days. He became the fifth player in NHL history — among those with a minimum of 700 games played — to return to his team after 1,000 or more days without a game, according to NHL Stats. The last one to do so was longtime Avalanche forward and Hall of Famer Peter Forsberg.
“I feel surprisingly calm and in control right now. I know the butterflies and the nerves will come, I’m sure,” Landeskog said during a pregame interview. “I found myself thinking about this moment a lot over the last three years. And now that it’s here, it’s the reverse — I’m thinking a lot about the hard work that’s gone into it, some of the ups, a lot of the downs, sacrifices and support I’ve had along the way.
“Thankful for everybody and all their support, but now it’s go time so I’m excited to get out there.”
Landeskog’s presence on the ice figured to provide a big boost not only for his teammates but the capacity crowd. His No. 92 sweater is a frequent sight around the arena.
The noise in the building was loud, the energy was electric.
“Everyone is rooting for him. It’s a great comeback story,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said after morning skate. “I trust in Gabe’s preparation, and what I’m seeing with my own eyes that he’s getting close and ready to play. I think he feels really good about where he’s at.
“Adding him back into our locker room, he’s almost an extension of the coaching staff, but he’s still one of the guys and the guy that everyone looks up to. You can’t get enough of that this time of the year.”
Landeskog’s injury dates to the 2019-20 season when he was accidentally sliced above the knee by the skate of teammate Cale Makar in a playoff game against Dallas. Landeskog eventually underwent a cartilage transplant procedure on May 10, 2023, and has been on long-term injured reserve.
He was activated Monday before Game 2 in Dallas and skated in pregame warmups but didn’t play.
Stars forward Matt Duchene was teammates with Landeskog, and they remain good friends.
“We’ve been rooting for him to come back,” said Duchene, who was the No. 3 pick by Colorado in 2009. “Obviously, it makes our job harder having a guy like that out there, but on the friends side, the human side and the fellow athlete side, I think everyone’s happy to see the progress he’s made. … I’m just really happy that he’s gotten to this point.”
It doesn’t mean the Stars will take it easy on Landeskog — or him on them.
“It’s remarkable he’s coming back, if he’s coming back, as a friend,” said Rantanen, a 2015 first-round pick by Colorado before being traded in January to Carolina and on to Dallas in March. “As an opponent, obviously, no mercy.”
The 32-year-old Landeskog recently went through a two-game conditioning stint with the American Hockey League’s Colorado Eagles. He practiced with the Avalanche leading up to their playoff opener.
That was the response Wednesday from Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch after he watched his team allow six goals for the second straight game in a 6-2 loss to the Kings in Game 2 of the Western Conference quarterfinals.
“The last two games, [the Oilers have allowed] five on the special teams, so that’s a problem,” Knoblauch said. “The other one is just mistakes. I don’t necessarily see us — I don’t see L.A. making plays to beat us. Mistakes, gift-wrapping opportunities. That’s different. If they make a heck of a play and [are] able to score goals, you just tip your hat and say, ‘There’s not much we’re able to do.’ But I don’t think I’ve seen very much of that. I think it’s been mostly gaffes that have cost us.”
Entering the postseason, the defending Western Conference champions were already facing questions about how their defensive structure would perform against the Kings. Most of those concerns were centered around their goaltending, which finished the regular season in the bottom 10 in team save percentage, according to Natural Stat Trick. The concerns were further amplified by the fact that one of their best players, defenseman Mattias Ekholm, would miss the first round with an undisclosed injury.
Game 1 against the Kings saw the Oilers fall into a 4-0 deficit before a late second-period goal from Leon Draisaitl sparked a comeback that saw them tie game with 88 seconds left in the third before Phillip Danault scored the game winner with 42 seconds remaining in L.A.’s 6-5 victory.
In Game 2, the Kings jumped out to a 3-0 lead before goals from Draisaitl in the second and former Kings winger Viktor Arvidsson in the third cut the lead to 3-2 before the Kings scored three unanswered goals in less than five minutes.
Knoblauch pulled goaltender Stuart Skinner after the fifth goal before his replacement, Calvin Pickard, allowed a goal on three shots in a little more than a minute worth of work.
“We’re down 5-2, give him a break, but also sometimes when the goalies change, there’s a little boost to our team, an immediate spark,” Knoblauch said. “That’s a stretch, it’s a long shot after the TV timeout, give it a try.”
Knoblauch was asked by reporters how he’ll assess who will start in Game 3 between Skinner, who has allowed 11 goals on 58 shots through two games, or Pickard.
The second-year Oilers coach said he’ll get together with his coaching staff and decide.
But Knoblauch added that he believed Skinner was not at fault for the team’s defensive troubles.
“I don’t think there’s been any bad goals. There’s been a lot of goals but the chances that we’re giving up are Grade A’s,” Knoblauch said. “I’m not sure that are many, ‘Geez, where’s the save there?’ It’s been very difficult for a goaltender playing. More structure and the less we’re giving up those opportunities, it’s a lot easier for Stuart Skinner or Calvin Pickard playing.”
Brandt Clarke scored the Kings’ first goal on the power play as he was able to get open in the slot for a tip-in on an odd-skater rush. Quinton Byfield pushed it to 2-0 when he walked in on net and fired a point-blank attempt that beat Skinner while Andrei Kuzmenko‘s goal saw him get behind the Oilers on the power play.
“When you’re making that gaffe and a guy is all by himself in the slot and we’ve seen probably three of those in the last two games, that’s not giving your goaltender much help,” Knoblauch said.
With Clarke, Kuzmenko and Anze Kopitar all scoring power-play goals, it led to Knoblauch addressing why the Oilers have struggled whenever the Kings have been on the extra-skater advantage.
Edmonton’s penalty kill was among the factors in its run to the Stanley Cup finals last season. The Oilers were an NHL-best 94.3% in short-handed situations.
Through two games this postseason, they’ve already allowed five goals on 10 power-play opportunities.
“They made a change at the end of the season, and it’s a good power play,” Knoblauch said. “There’s a lot of good moving parts there and it’s difficult to check all five of those guys. They bring a different element. It’s exactly what we expected from them. We saw a lot of penalty kills in our last regular-season game against them, and obviously, we’ve looked at the other games they’ve played against other teams. I don’t think there’s anything that’s unexpected.”
Knoblauch’s recollection of what the Oilers saw from the Kings toward the end of the regular season plays into what could become part of a larger narrative throughout the series.
In their last four combined regular-season and playoff games against the Kings, the Oilers have allowed 20 goals. That includes a 3-0 loss on April 5 followed by a 5-0 loss on April 14.
With the series set to resume Friday in Edmonton, the Oilers will try to find the cohesion that has eluded them against a team they’ve faced in the first round for what is now a fourth consecutive season.
Over their previous three encounters, they’ve split the first two games with the Oilers going on to win the series. But with the Kings leaving L.A. with a pair of victories, they now stand two wins shy of advancing to the second round for the first time since the 2013-14 season, when they won their most recent Stanley Cup.
WASHINGTON — The highlight-reel, diving save that it looked like Logan Thompson made to rob Jake Evans was not actually a save at all, and he wants to make sure everyone knows that.
“I didn’t save it,” Thompson said. “It went off the post. I think I almost knocked it in.”
Sure, Thompson and the Washington Capitals got a little lucky on that one. But his goaltending in the third period, when he made some spectacular stops, is the biggest reason they lead the Montreal Canadiens two games to none in their first-round playoff series.
“He was the difference tonight in the third: He wins us that game in the third period,” coach Spencer Carbery said after a 3-1 victory in Game 2, after which Thompson was selected the first star. “You could feel the building with the energy with each save. It felt like he just got bigger and bigger and bigger. He was tested. He made some huge saves in that third period to keep us in front.”
The Canadiens had multiple opportunities to tie the score, trailing 2-1 and pressing Thompson.
They got a 2-on-0 rush with 11 minutes left, but Thompson stopped Josh Anderson. With 4:22 on the clock, he got his stick in front of a textbook deflection by Christian Dvorak, who beat him earlier for a goal. And on the next shift, he denied Juraj Slafkovsky.
Fans rose to their feet to give Thompson a standing ovation and chanted “LT! LT!” after each of the saves.
“Extraordinary,” rookie Ryan Leonard said. “A lot of trust back there with that guy. He’s a gamer.”
Making it an even better tale is this was just Thompson’s second game back after getting injured when a shot dislodged his mask April 2 at Carolina.
“I knew I wasn’t going to get a game before playoffs,” Thompson said. “Just staying ready in practice, working as hard as I can and just waiting to see if I get my name called. It did. It’s playoffs. It’s not the start of the year: You can’t take your time to get into it. You just have to hit it sprinting. That’s kind of what I’ve done, and it’s worked out.”
Thompson and Charlie Lindgren alternated starts for the first half of the season. Then it became evident Thompson was Washington’s No. 1 netminder, something solidified when he got a six-year, $35.1 million extension in late January and Lindgren signed for three years and $9 million in early March.
Lindgren shouldered the load down the stretch, a year after carrying the Capitals into the playoffs, but there was no doubt about Carbery and goaltending coach Scott Murray going to Thompson to start the series as long as the 28-year-old was healthy.
“These games, this is where he wants to play,” Carbery said. “He wanted to play in the playoffs. He said: ‘I’m ready to go. I want to be in the net in Game 1.’ No disrespect to Charlie Lindgren. He wants these moments, and that’s an important part of it.”
Thompson made an important save early in the second period to keep his team’s deficit at one goal. He was at his best in the third, making 14 of his 25 saves to keep Montreal from evening things up.
“We knew they were going to come out in the third just like they did last game, Thompson said. “It’s easy to get into it when you make those saves. You’re definitely right back in the game. It could easily swing the other way if a couple of those go in and you’re fighting it, right? Luckily things went my way.”