By Scott Wheeler (The Athletic)
Brett Leonhardt is sitting on his back porch on Lake Huron in Grand Bend on a warm summer night. He’s just wrapped up putting his twin boys, Beckham and Lennox, to bed and is about to smoke a cigar.
It’s a rare moment of tranquility for the Washington Capitals’ video coach. And he’s laughing as he remembers a presentation Kings video coach Samson Lee gave at a conference. It was called “So you want to be a video coach…” and he can’t think of a more fitting title.
Leonhardt will be entering his 12th season as the Capitals’ video coach in the fall, and if there’s one thing he knows for sure about the gig, it’s that it takes a special person.
It’s every single day. To be a video coach is to wear many hats, and to never come up for air in season — and to have a family that knows that.
Leonhardt’s a Stanley Cup champion.
He’s also the guy who once dropped off tape at a coach’s home on Christmas Day because the Capitals had a game on Boxing Day, their next opponent had played on Dec. 23, and he’d spent the team’s otherwise-mandatory Christmas Eve day off cutting the game.
He’s the guy who, almost two decades removed from life as a Division III NCAA backup, and now 40, guesses he suited up in net for 25 skates when goaltender Darcy Kuemper took optionals off last season.
He’s the guy who twice served as an Emergency Backup (EBUG) in an NHL game, sitting in full goalie gear in his office after taking warmups — instead of in the backup’s seat on the bench — so that he could cut the game during the game.
“They’re like, ‘Oh, go take warmup, you’re the backup goalie tonight,’ and I’m like, ‘Great’ but all I’m thinking about is, ‘Well, if I sit on the bench doing nothing then all it’s going to do is it’s going to make more work later and I’m going to be until 2 a.m. cutting our video,’” he said, chuckling. “So I wasn’t about to screw myself that way.”
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