It was buried in the middle of the Chicago Blackhawks official press release on Tuesday morning, sandwiched between the news that the Chicago Blackhawks had fired coach Joel Quenneville and named Jeremy Colliton to that position.
One of Colliton’s assistant coaches will be Barry Smith, who was entering his ninth season as part of the Blackhawks hockey operations staff.
On the surface, this seems like the logical move: pairing a rookie NHL head coach with a veteran assistant. But digging a little deeper reveals something a little more nefarious, a little more shady and, for those who’ve followed the Blackhawks for a long time, a little more familiar — and uncomfortably so.