Jay Pandolfo has gotten a ton out of the sport of hockey, and now he’s given back as an up-and-coming assistant coach with the Boston Bruins. I sat down recently for a chat with the Burlington, Mass., native who starred for Burlington High, then Boston University (38 goals in 1995-96), before winning Stanley Cups with the New Jersey Devils in 2000 and 2003. Pandolfo scored exactly 100 goals and had 226 points in a 15-season NHL career that ended with the Bruins in 2012-13.
Billy Jaffe: Besides mom and dad, who was the biggest hockey influence for you?
Jay Pandolfo: My mother’s dad, John Byrne. He played hockey at Northeastern. We would talk a lot about when he played hockey and he would show me a lot of stuff about when he was younger. Being in New England, too, hockey is in your blood a little bit. He was a really good hockey player. Back then, those guys didn’t play in the NHL after college, especially being an American. But he was a real good college hockey player.
Jaffe: Once you got settled in playing college hockey at BU, when did you feel that you could play in the NHL?
Pandolfo: My freshman year — that was my draft year — I was still young. Knowing some of the other players that were there who had already been drafted and some of the players who had played there previously and were playing in the NHL, I felt like I would have a chance.
Jaffe: You had an amazing run with the the New Jersey Devils. This is an intimidating organization, at least from the outside looking in. Did you feel comfortable with them right away?
Pandolfo: I did. The first two years I was up and down (between the NHL and minors), but I felt it was a good fit there for me. The way they played, they kind of slotted guys in to certain roles, and it seems like I kind of found my role there pretty early on, what type of player I was going to be, and I realized that and took pride in the way I played there. Everything was geared toward winning there, and I felt like it was a real good fit.
Jaffe: What was it like practicing with (goalie) Marty (Brodeur)?
Pandolfo: It was great. I was lucky to learn from a lot of the older guys that were there, saw the way Scott Stevens, Scott Niedermayer approached the game every single day. Marty, the way he practiced every day was incredible. He did not like to get scored on at all. It was fun. He made it fun. He was competitive and it was fun going against him every day.
Jaffe: Did you ever get on a hot streak against him in practice?
Pandolfo: Not that I can remember (chuckles). … No one got on that many hot streaks in practice against him — he was that competitive. That’s what makes him such a great goalie.
Jaffe: Take me into the locker room the two times you won Stanley Cups. Is there a distinct moment?
Pandolfo: The first time in Dallas … we had lost in triple overtime the game before, at home. We thought we were going to win that game at home. That’s when we started to think, ‘Oh no, did we let our chance slip?’ I remember going to Dallas, going to double overtime. I remember sitting on the bench in overtime saying, ‘We gotta win this game.’ When we won, it’s something you can’t describe. I remember in the locker room after — it’s relief, but it’s indescribable.
Jaffe: How was it playing in Boston?
Pandolfo: That meant a lot to me. It really helped that I had Claude (Julien) in New Jersey, played for him. That year was a weird year with the lockout and stuff. That helped me as well get a spot in Boston to finish up my career. If it was a full season, I’m not sure they would have brought me on. It helped that it was a shortened season, to have another body around with that experience. … And with a team I grew up loving. It was fun experience.
Jaffe: Transition to being a coach. Fill in the blank: The hardest part about being an assistant coach in the National Hockey League is ..
Pandolfo: Watching video. The video is the hardest part. It never ends. You prepare for a game, the game ends, you prepare for the next game. It never stops.
Jaffe: The best part about being an assistant coach in the NHL is what?
Pandolfo: Being part of a team. As part of the coaching staff, you’re with the players, part of that every day. It’s not like a player where you are competing, but you are still competing. That’s the best part, for me.
Jaffe: You’ve been involved in youth hockey here — you did it and now you have a son. How different is the model in Massachusetts now for developing players compared to when you were growing up?
Pandolfo: There’s almost too many options now for kids. That’s probably the biggest difference. Kids don’t grow up playing in their towns like they used to, it’s just team after team you can go to. I don’t know if it’s right or wrong, but it seems like there’s just too many options for kids nowadays. If they simplify it, how Minnesota kind of still does it, I think it would help in the overall development process of these kids.
Jaffe: What was your favorite youth hockey moment growing up?
Pandolfo: For me, in Bantams we won the state tournament for my town team in Burlington. We were the Burlington Red Devils. Our youth team, we won states, then ended up going to nationals. When you go to nationals, back then, you played against like Tier 1 teams, and we pretty much got killed. But these teams were from all over the place. That was a big eye-opener for us, too, but it was an amazing accomplishment to still go there.
Jaffe: Are you still friends with some of those guys from the Burlington team?
Pandolfo: Yeah, absolutely. There’s a lot of kids that I still talk to, so that was fun. It’s different in this day and age. We all lived in the same town and you’d go right from the rink and play street hockey after.
Emmy winner Billy Jaffe is a hockey studio analyst for NESN, the NHL Network, ESPN, NESN, ASN and Big Ten Network. A Kent School and University of Michigan product, he captained silver medalist Team USA at the 1997 Maccabiah Games, won silver as coach of Team USA in 2013 and bronze as player/coach in 2017.
