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Shocker: Coach Renowned For Dickishness Asked Question He Clearly Won’t Want To Answer, Doesn’t Answer It

Rangers coach John Tortorella has long used his press conferences as an excuse to put the “prick” in prickly. There was that time last year where he kept trying to top himself re: how brief and substance-free he could make his postgame pressers, for one. Other times, the passive aggression in his endless quest to show reporters just how little respect he has for them gives way to aggressive aggression instead. Either way, the message is clear: tread lightly around Torts, lest you incur his condescending wrath.

Losses, naturally, put Tortorella in an especially sunny mood, and it just so happens that last night, his Rangers lost to the Jets in Winnipeg, 3-1. And it also happens that as part of their attempts to psyche the Rangers out, the Jets crowd at one point started chanting Tortorella’s name:

It’s possible Tortorella didn’t even notice it, given that he was undoubtedly focusing on the game at the moment, though give the fans credit: it was loud and clear. And if he did notice it, it’s definite that he was in no mood to address it after the loss. But that didn’t stop one reporter from trying. You can more or less guess the result:

So… yeah, that was probably a useless question to ask, given that Tortorella clearly wasn’t going to give any sort of good answer even if he could. In that sense, the reporter got what was coming to him. Even so, we say good for him for asking it, and especially good for him if he was asking Tortorella just to mess with him. Should the point of a postgame presser be to get insight about the game that just happened? Yes, but there were plenty of other people there to ask those questions (plus it’s not like Tortorella was likely to say much of interest about the game itself, either).

So often Tortorella’s primary interest at press conferences is to undermine the reporters trying to do their jobs – shouldn’t he get the tables turned on him every once in a while? We mentioned this last year – during his “let’s see how quickly I can end every press conference” streak, some outlets were celebrating the stunt – and enabling him in the process. Maybe the question about the chant didn’t have a ton of value from a reporting standpoint, but Tortorella’s done plenty to make reporters’ lives just a bit more difficult for no reason. He was overdue for a turning of the tables.

[Puck Daddy]