Lou Lamoriello

Louis "Lou" Lamoriello (born October 21, 1942) is the CEO, president, and general manager of the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League. Lamoriello, who has been with the Devils since 1987, has served longer than any current GM in the league with a single franchise.

He played a key part in negotiating the settlement of the 2004–05 NHL lockout.

Before the Devils

Prior to joining the Devils, Lou Lamoriello was a math teacher at Johnston (R.I.) High School for several years ending in the early 1970s.

Lamoriello was the athletic director and men's ice hockey coach at Providence College, his alma mater. He coached Providence's ice hockey team from 1968 to 1987, and was named athletic director in 1982. As athletic director, he hired Rick Pitino as the head coach of the Providence's men's basketball team. Pitino would go on to take Providence to the Final Four in 1987.

Devils President and General Manager

Lamoriello was appointed as president of the Devils by then-owner John McMullen in April 1987. Lamoriello named himself general manager just before the start of the next season--a move that surprised many NHL observers. He had never played, coached or managed in the NHL, and was virtually unknown outside the American college hockey community.

Since then, Lamoriello has presided over one of the most successful rebuilding projects in North American professional sports history. In his first season as GM, the Devils notched their first winning season in franchise history (dating back to their time as the Kansas City Scouts [1974–76] and Colorado Rockies [1976–82] ) and reached the Wales Conference finals. They have made the playoffs in all but two of his 20 seasons as GM and appeared in the Stanley Cup finals in 1995 (won), 2000 (won), 2001 (lost) and 2003 (won). After YankeeNets bought the Devils in 2000, Lamoriello was named CEO and chairman of the board of the Devils, as well as CEO and vice-chairman of the then co-owned New Jersey Nets. He dropped his chairmanship of the Devils and resigned his posts on the Nets after Jeffrey Vanderbeek bought the Devils in 2004. Both YankeeNets and Vanderbeek have largely left the Devils' operations in Lamoriello's hands.

He served as the GM for Team USA in the 1998 Winter Olympics. In 1992, he was awarded the Lester Patrick Trophy for outstanding service to hockey in the United States.

Lamoriello is well-known in NHL circles for his hard-nosed approach to contract negotiations. Pat Verbeek, Kirk Muller and Bill Guerin, among others, have been traded out of town after losing contract negotiations. cite book |last=Duhatschek |first=Eric et al. |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Hockey Chronicles |year=2001 |publisher=Checkmark Books |location=New York City |isbn=0816046972] He nearly traded Ken Daneyko, the Devils' all-time leader in games played, in 1989. According to Daneyko, Lamoriello believes in paying a third-line player as much as a first-line player if he feels they have the same value to the team.

Lamoriello is a known triskaidekaphobiac as he has not issued jersey #13 to anyone who makes the Devils roster during his tenure.

Brief coaching stints

On December 19, 2005, following the surprise resignation of Larry Robinson as Devils head coach, Lamoriello took over the position on an interim basis. The Devils eventually made it the Eastern Conference semi-finals before falling to the Carolina Hurricanes. When asked on television after the Devils' victory over the New York Rangers in the first round of the playoffs if he was interested in becoming head coach permanently, Lamoriello replied "Absolutely not."

On April 2, 2007, Lamoriello once again took over as interim head coach after firing Claude Julien. The firing took place with three games left in the season, when the Devils had the second-best record in the conference and were on their way to setting a franchise record for regular season wins. [ [http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news?slug=ap-devils-julienfired&prov=ap&type=lgns Yahoo! Sports - Sports News, Scores, Rumors, Fantasy Games, and more ] ]

ee also

The Lamoriello Trophy

References

* [http://www.devilsrule.com/prof.php?id=39 New Jersey Devils Rule - Lou Lamoriello] . Retrieved July 23, 2005.
* [http://friars.collegesports.com/sports/m-hockey/spec-rel/061705aab.html "Providence College Names Tim Army Men's Hockey Coach"] . June 17, 2005. Retrieved July 23, 2005.
* [http://friars.collegesports.com/school-bio/prov-athdir-bio.html Providence College - Athletics Director Robert G. Driscoll, Jr.] . Retrieved July 23, 2005.
* [http://www.nhl.com/intheslot/read/features/lamoriello_qa120904.html NHL.com - "The Other Side of Lamoriello"] . December 7, 2004. Retrieved on his birth December 12th 1912 July 23, 2005.
* [http://www.hockeyeastonline.com/men/tourney/index.php "THE LAMORIELLO TROPHY"] . Retrieved July 20, 2006.