Tony Granato was at a crossroads in his life and the pathway before him was not well-lit.
It was the spring of 2001 and Granato had just retired after an accomplished hockey career that saw him excel on the college, international and professional stages.
Over the course of 18 years Granato went from being an acclaimed goal-scorer at Wisconsin to a Team USA fixture in international competition to playing 852 games in the NHL with three organizations. Along the way he became a Hall of Famer, an Olympian and a respected, award-winning all-star.
But when Granato skated his final shift at age of 36, he was at a loss.
“You’re done playing, the itineraries stop coming in and the practices and the workouts that are mandatory, you don’t have,” he said. “There’s no structure in your life and you’re just trying to figure out where you’re going to go and what you’re going to do.”
Granato dabbled in radio and TV as a hockey analyst for a year, but it wasn’t fulfilling. He fretted about finding a fulfilling niche that would accommodate his family of five.
“It was a transition period of confusion, I guess would be the right word,” Granato said. “Not really sure on whether I wanted to try something else. I was lucky enough to realize the passion that I have for the game of hockey — the love I have for the game of hockey — and that I had to find a way to stay around it.”
That path of discovery has brought Granato full circle.
Three decades since he played for UW — becoming one of two men in program history to amass 100 goals and 100 assists in his career — Granato is back as coach of the Badgers, and he brought some impressive reinforcements with him.
Granato prepared for this assignment by coaching in three different NHL organizations — twice as the head coach in Colorado and subsequent assistant roles in Pittsburgh and Detroit — between 2002 and 2016.
“I don’t think my heart ever left Madison or the Badger program,” he said. “It was always there with me that someday it would be great to go back. Someday it would be an opportunity — if it ever came along — where you always think in your mind, ‘Wow, wouldn’t that be special and a great place to go back to?’”
The chance came earlier this month when UW Director of Athletics Barry Alvarez called Granato to get his thoughts on the state of the program. Alvarez had just dismissed Mike Eaves — another prominent, highly-regarded alum — after a 14-year coaching stint that included an NCAA title in 2006, but ended with consecutive losing seasons for the first time since 1995 to ’97.
“I wanted to talk to some respected hockey people from our program from different eras,” Alvarez said. “People who were truly interested and cared and could give me a vision for what we needed.”
Granato, whose younger brothers Don and Robbie and cousin Kevin also played for the Badgers, certainly fit that bill.
Granato offered some familiar recommendations, including his brother, Don, a coach with the U.S. National Team Developmental Program; Mark Johnson, the legendary UW women’s coach; and Mark Osiecki, an assistant coach with Rockford of the American Hockey League.
“All would be outstanding for different reasons,” Granato told Alvarez.
The discussion, not to mention the search, soon changed course.
“Every hockey guy I spoke to all said the same thing,” Alvarez said. “Tony’s the best guy, but you can’t get him because he’s an NHL guy.”
Alvarez proceeded to ask Granato why he wouldn’t be interested.
“I didn’t have an answer for him,” Granato said.
That gave way to a tantalizing brainstorm: Granato told Alvarez that he’d like to see if his brother, his coaching confidant, and Osiecki, their close friend, would join him on staff.
“You’re kidding me,” Alvarez replied.
Pick your metaphor: Grand slam. Hat trick. Blockbuster. Mind-blower.
“As we kept talking,” Alvarez said, “he got more excited and I got more excited, and we were able to pull it off.”
Granato, 51, said that in order for him to take the job he needed to have the “right people beside me to go in there and have the best chance for success, and those two people were Donny and Mark.”
Two phone calls later — Don, 48, is a renowned cerebral tactician and Osiecki, 47, is a peerless recruiter — an extraordinary coaching staff was born. Tony received a five-year contract, while his two associate head coaches received three-year deals.
“I think he’s the right guy for it,” Don Granato said of his brother. “I think he deserves it.”
Tony Granato has people skills that make him an ideal candidate to rally former players spread across three coaching eras — Bob Johnson, Jeff Sauer and Eaves — and seal large cracks in a fractured fan base.
Wisconsin football coach Paul Chryst was a year behind Granato at UW, but they bonded recently while Chryst coach at Pittsburgh and Granato was an assistant coach with the Penguins from 2012 to ’14.
“When you hear people say he’s a really good guy, he’s better than that,” Chryst said of Granato. “He’s got that ability to make you feel like you’re the most special person in the room. He’s got a gift that way.”
In a roundabout way, Chryst, who returned to coach his alma mater in 2015 and guided UW to a 10-3 overall record, helped lure Granato back to Madison.
“When he got the position to be the Badger coach again, we’d been in touch a lot,” Granato said. “He told me how wonderful it is to be back, how great it is to be back on campus and be part of the university. So he’s got me pumped up and excited for how it’s been for him.”
While in Pittsburgh, Granato said he sat in on team meetings and walked the sidelines during games and practices to see how Chryst operated.
“I have great respect for him as a coach,” Granato said. “I think what he is as a football coach is what I want to be as a hockey coach. He’s class. He’s a great human being.”
Alvarez said he spoke earlier this week with Granato’s soon-to-be-ex-boss, Detroit general manager Ken Holland, and learned that whenever the Red Wings have played in Pittsburgh, former Penguins players huddle outside the dressing room, all waiting to see Granato.
“What a message that sends me,” Alvarez said.
Osiecki, who played against Granato in the NHL, describes his friend as “sincere” and “intense” with a strong sense of family.
“He’s one of the most respected people I’ve seen in the NHL in our business,” Osiecki said.
Granato, from Downers Grove, Illinois, was a second-team All-American for the Badgers in 1985 and ’87 who finished his 152-game college career with 100 goals and 120 assists. The only other member of the 100-100 club at UW is Johnson (125-131).
Granato played for Team USA in the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary and spent 13 seasons in the NHL despite being average-sized (5-foot-10 and 185 pounds) and a sixth-round draft pick. He accounted for 264 goals and 535 points while playing for the New York Rangers, Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks.
Known for his rambunctious instincts, Granato still holds the Rangers rookie record for most goals, with 36, and was such a prolific finisher in Los Angeles that he skated on a line with the legendary Wayne Gretzky, assisting on the 2,000th point of the Great One’s career.
Along the way, Granato played with UW products at every stop, including goaltender Mike Richter in New York, center Gary Shuchuk in Los Angeles and defenseman Gary Suter in San Jose.
Granato credits Suter, who grew up in Madison and played for the Badgers from 1983 to ’85, with easing him through his post-retirement transition.
“He was my mentor, my best friend, a person who kind of kept me sane from the chaos of not knowing which direction your life is going,” Granato said. “He kind of got me refocused on staying involved with the game.”
The road to this moment actually began during Granato’s final season with the Sharks in 2000-01. That’s when he found his on-ice role being downsized and him being cast a guide for younger players like Marco Strum and Patrick Marleau.
“That was the transition into coaching,” Granato said. “That’s where I knew it would be something I’d like.”
Granato worked as the radio color commentator for Sharks games in 2001-02 and did some freelance work as a TV analyst, including at least one Badgers game.
Then came a call from Pierre Lacroix, the general manager of the Colorado Avalanche who offered Granato a spot on coach Bob Hartley’s coaching staff for 2002-03.
“I was blessed to get that call because I think that’s what got me to stay part of the game,” Granato said.
The best part of that assignment and two subsequent stints as head coach of the Avalanche — 2002 to ’04 and ’08 to ’09 — was the stability it provided Granato’s wife, Linda, and their now-grown children Nicholas, Dominic, Michael and Gabriella.
“To generally get a coaching position, you start in the minors, you work in a small city somewhere and you ride buses and you’re never home to take care of the kids and be part of their lives,” Granato said. “I didn’t want to chase it. I wanted to find something where I could be a dad and be in a position where I could stay and have my responsibility to the family as my priority.”
Back when Granato played for the Badgers, the NCAA tournament consisted of eight teams, the first round was determined by a two-game, total-goal series and the matches were played on campus sites. Now it’s a 16-slot field and a single-elimination format on neutral sites.
Since Granato played at UW three new leagues have come to life — including the Big Ten Conference where the Badgers reside — 17 schools have added Division I programs and six of them have reached the Frozen Four.
Back when Granato played, it was somewhat unusual to see underclassmen leave college and sign pro contracts. Now it happens all the time, especially at schools like UW.
Of course, the sprawling Wisconsin campus has changed, as well as rules of compliance and academics.
“The dynamics that go along with college hockey have changed,” Granato acknowledged. “The one thing that hasn’t changed is the game.
“The game is played and you’re successful when you find kids, student-athletes, that are passionate, that understand the excitement part of playing college hockey. We want to get an enthusiastic, passionate group back.”
Granato will remain in his capacity with the Red Wings until their season ends, whenever that may be. Upon taking over at UW his top priority is to learn about the personnel on his young roster, the one that compiled an 8-19-8 overall record in 2015-16, as well as those who have signed National Letters of Intent for 2016-17.
“I know there are pieces in place there that are outstanding,” he said.
A close second on the priority list is reaching out to former Badgers players and getting them involved with the program.
“I want them to feel part of it,” Granato said.
In recent days Granato has communicated with Eaves, via text, and Johnson, via phone, to make sure the lines of communications are open. Back in 2002, Eaves was hired to coach the men’s program over Johnson, a former UW men’s assistant.
Granato, who was inducted in the UW Athletic Hall of Fame in 2000, said his respect for Johnson runs deep. Granato was in his first go-round as an NHL head coach in Colorado when he asked Johnson to come and be an assistant. Johnson declined citing a reluctance to leave his fledgling women’s program, which has gone on to win four NCAA titles since 2006 and wins 82 percent of its games.
“It’s important that he understood why I wanted to be a part of this,” Granato said of Johnson.
“I told him I want to develop and build a program like he has on the women’s side. That’s what I want the men’s side to look at.”
Granato has a deep appreciation for the women’s game. His sister, Cammi, helped Team USA to the Olympic gold medal in 1998 and has since been inducted in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Meanwhile, their niece, Baylee Wellhausen, is a sophomore winger for the Badgers.
Alvarez, the former UW football coach, has been criticized for his perceived lack of involvement with men’s hockey over the years. Granato addressed that notion.
“He’s been unbelievable in this whole process,” Granato said. “He reached out to me and said how much it means to him to get the program to an elite level. That’s all of our goals and expectations. That’s what we expect.
“We’d like it to be alongside what Mark’s done with the women’s program. We want to be at that level. We want people banging on our doors to come to Wisconsin. We want to be respected like the women’s program is, like the football program is, like the men’s basketball program is. We want to be right there with them.”
It is hard to imagine UW doing better than this. Given how many high school and junior hockey players want to play in the NHL, having a successful (as in more wins than losses) NHL coach recruiting you cannot be anything but an overwhelming positive. The added benefit is, as with the hires of Chryst and Greg Gard, the Granatos and Osiecki (all of whom were UW students when I was) know the UW environment and students you can and cannot recruit. And, as schools that recruit one-and-dones find out, if you bring in NHL-caliber players, that requires you to increase your talent level every year because those players often don’t stay all four years.
One interesting thing about this hire is this the Badgers’ first hire with no connection to Badger Bob. Jeff Sauer, who replaced Bob Johnson as coach, was an assistant for Johnson before becoming Colorado College coach, from where (like Johnson) he came to UW. Sauer’s second year at UW was Tony Granato’s first, and Sauer recruited Don Granato and Osiecki, who starred on Sauer’s 1990 national champion team. (I got to see that Frozen Four in Detroit.) Tony Granato was chosen over, among other possible candidates, former Badger George Gwozdecky, formerly the Denver coach.
It is not that UW should never hire coaches without Wisconsin connections, but the Gary Andersen experience demonstrates the perils of hiring someone with no connection to UW (which, unlike the bad old days, is now one of college sports’ premier programs — the Badgers were recently named the fifth best football–men’s basketball combination in Division I) and, as appeared to have been the case with Andersen, more optimism than warranted about being able to get athletes with subpar (by UW’s standards) academic records into UW.
Granato could be described as UW’s answer to another Big Ten coach, Red Berenson, who played hockey for Michigan, went to the NHL, coached in the NHL and then went to his alma mater to coach. Granato won’t coach as long as Berenson at UW, since Berenson just completed his 32nd season, but if UW can match Berenson’s two NCAA championships and 11 Frozen Four appearances, I think Badger fans will be fine with that.
It’s unfortunate that things turned out as they did for Eaves, who won one national championship, finished second another season, and remains UW’s all-time leading scorer. He was criticized for bringing in too many players who left early for the NHL, but when that stopped, the Badger talent level dropped. He had two bad seasons, and average nightly attendance dropped below 10,000, which I think is what ultimately got Eaves fired. Eaves suffered from the same thing as Sauer — neither is named Bob Johnson, and neither reached the success levels of Badger Bob in a totally different college hockey environment compared with when Badger Bob coached in Madison. (For one thing, getting to the Frozen Four in most of Johnson’s seasons required just winning the Western Collegiate Hockey Association tournament; only in Johnson’s last two seasons were there more than four NCAA tournament teams.)
I’m not surprised Mark Johnson took the job. Johnson has quite a women’s program, and at the same time would inevitably be compared to his father if he moved over to the men’s program. Johnson could certainly coach men’s hockey (and did as an assistant), but the women’s game is not precisely the same as the men’s game. (There is no legal checking in women’s hockey.)
Given that Don Granato and Osiecki were UW head coach candidates, I don’t know how long they’ll stay at UW to assist Tony Granato. I’m guessing UW will have no problem selling tickets this coming season.
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