It’s not just a safe assumption. It’s entirely accurate that Mike Ricci, as a hockey player, never thought he’d become a coach.
“Not back then for sure,” Ricci said recently. “Not even maybe two and a half weeks ago.”
The former Sharks forward was caught off guard by being named as an assistant on interim head coach Bob Boughner’s staff in mid-December.
“It was like boom, told to come to a meeting,” Ricci recalled.
But there was no reservation in accepting the position.
“When a friend asks, and a boss asks, you’ve got to do it,” said Ricci.