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Islanders coach Jack Capuano will be one of Team USA's assistant coaches at the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, USA Hockey announced this morning.
Capuano, who recently coached his 400th game with the Islanders, is second in club history with 189 wins... just a few shy of Al Arbour's 740. The Cranston, RI native took over for the bench on an interim basis in November of 2010 and has led the team to two playoff berths. The Islanders finished with 101 points last season, their most since 1984.
Ironically, Capuano joins assistant coach Scott Gordon, the coach he replaced with the Islanders, on the bench for Team USA. Devils coach John Hynes, new Penguins coach Mike Sullivan and Nashville assistant Phil Housley will round out head coach John Tortorella's staff (yep. Lawta Bahston in thaiah.)
Look, I'm not gonna lie and say that we - the writers, commenters and readers of this and other fine Islanders websites across the internets - haven't had our various issues with Capuano over the last six years. We've raged against and complained about and fired him over and argued and had lots of fun with his many Cappy-isms such as his relationship with Brian Strait, the importance of mysterious "meetings" for call-ups, his adherence to the principles of "Battle Level" and basically anything else we can think of as long as it's (at least a little) funny.
But this is a big honor for Capuano and a really big stage for him to represent the Islanders on. It's been a while since the team had a staff member in an international tournament (Doug Weight did some instructional work last year at a World Junior camp, I think), and Cappy's put in a lot of time and hard work that he should be rewarded for.
So, uh, maybe be happy for him. C'mon. It's a Friday.
The 2016 World Cup of Hockey will be played in Toronto this September and October. Round robin preliminary games start on September 17th and the final best-of-three series will start on the 27th. The tournament will be aired on ESPN in the United States and Sportsnet and TVA in Canada.
Update: Video!