Coach cans cussing as kids watch practice

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This article was published 19/12/2014 (3942 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PAUL MAURICE is a family man. And he is an employee of an organization that prides itself on providing solid family entertainment.

But Maurice is also the head coach of a professional hockey team — which is to say, he also curses like a sailor, particularly during Jets practices.

Remember that time all those little old ladies around town suddenly clutched their pearls? Maurice was not happy that day with the way his team had practised a drill.

All of which is a roundabout way of getting into the comedy of watching Maurice run a Jets practice at the MTS Centre on Thursday in front of a couple of thousand school children who’d been allowed inside to watch their heroes.

When the smoke had settled, Maurice was proud of the way he managed to hold his tongue for the sake of the children.

“I did a pretty good job of that today,” said Maurice with a laugh. “But the problem was, nobody knew what I was talking about… But every once in awhile, you’ve got to do a good thing.”

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Evander Kane missed practice on Thursday, which got tongues wagging on Twitter.

Kane was a participant in the Jets skills competition Wednesday night, so it seemed a bit odd he was suddenly absent for practice Thursday morning.

Adding to the plot line was the fact Kane went missing at the same time the Jets found out Mark Stuart was the fourth defenceman to come up lame with a serious injury.

Twitter was wondering if maybe the Jets had a trade brewing involving Kane, a rumour Kane was only too happy to fuel.

While his teammates practised, Kane removed all his equipment and the name plate from his stall in the dressing room as a joke, leaving it empty when the media arrived.

In the end, it was all much ado about nothing, with Maurice explaining Kane had simply taken a maintenance day and will be in the lineup tonight when the Jets host the Boston Bruins.

“I think they were just having some fun,” said Maurice. “They’ve got a decent sense of humour in there.”

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With all the injury adversity his team has faced recently, Maurice was jokingly asked on Thursday what he would like for Christmas.

“I’d like everybody to have a healthy and safe Christmas holiday season,” said Maurice.

“We can deal with this. There are worse things clearly that are happening in the world than dealing with some injuries in the National Hockey League.

“We’ll get through it. And it’s our job to be better when we come out of it. That’s our task.”

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @PaulWiecek