Following the Florida Panthers` victory over the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 5 to win the Eastern Conference Final, neither head coach participated in the traditional post-game handshake line. While Panthers coach Paul Maurice and Hurricanes coach Rod Brind`Amour had a brief on-ice discussion, Maurice clarified that the absence from the line was deliberate, not a slight.
“It`s a personal belief, and I really appreciate him agreeing to it, because there`s a bit of a risk involved,” Maurice stated after the game. “I don`t think coaches should be shaking hands with players at the end. You have this huge group of people in suits and tracksuits – we had around 400 people on the ice. They`re all important to our team, but none of them were actually in the game.”
The Panthers secured their spot in the Stanley Cup Final (their third consecutive appearance according to the source text) by overcoming a 2-0 first-period deficit in Game 5 to defeat the Hurricanes 5-3. As players lined up for the customary handshakes, Maurice and Brind`Amour met briefly near the benches, where they had a lively chat and mutually decided to leave the post-game moment entirely to the players.
Maurice elaborated on his view: “Visually, seeing only the players who were on the ice – the ones who played, blocked shots, and fought for each other – is special. It marks the end of one team`s season and the excitement for the other,” he said. “The last thing a Carolina Hurricanes player needs is to face another 50 people in suits they don`t even know. There`s something truly beautiful about the focus being just on the players shaking hands. We should respect that moment.”
Maurice mentioned he had a similar conversation with coach Craig Berube following a second-round series earlier that May (as stated in the source text). He noted that both Berube and Brind`Amour, having been NHL players themselves, readily grasped his reasoning behind this approach.
“I`m not sure when that changed,” Maurice reflected on the coach handshake tradition. “When I first joined the league, you`d never think of shaking the players` hands. The only explanation I can think of is maybe a coach just wanted to get on camera, right? Maybe they wanted to shake Wayne Gretzky`s hand. I don`t know when it started, but I don`t believe it`s right… Think about the intense competition on the ice, the hard battles, going after each other, and yet they still shake hands like that. That`s what`s special. They aren`t sending each other Christmas cards; it`s fierce out there. There`s something truly unique about that.”
