Chicago Blackhawks' Quenneville has lighter side

As stoic and serious as Joel Quenneville often is in practices or in front of the media, there's another side to the Chicago Blackhawks' coach that not everybody sees.

Yes, Joking Joel will make an appearance every now and then, especially during big moments in games.

"You hear new guys come into our room and sit on the bench and they love talking about the things they can't believe come flying out," said captain Jonathan Toews. "I won't get into some of the stuff that goes on between our bench and the refs, but he's got some great one-liners when we score goals. That definitely loosens the guys up a little bit."

One of Quenneville's favorites?

"PEANUT BUTTER!"

What, exactly, does that mean?

"Peanut butter is when you take a shot and it goes in the top shelf, up in the top part of the net," Quenneville told Blackhawks TV last year. "That's where they usually store the peanut butter - right there in the top shelf."

Quenneville is well known for getting on the refs as well, often flailing his arms in exasperation or grabbing a certain private area ever so discreetly when a call doesn't go the Hawks' way.

"Yeah, he's quite hysterical out there," Andrew Shaw said. "He's got some lines that the boys always repeat, that's for sure. They're not all R-rated, but it's one of those things you keep within the team, I think."

Bryan Bickell said he notices that Quenneville most often gives the refs a good tongue-lashing when he knows the cameras are on him.

"Then he gives the referees a wink and a laugh," Bickell said. "Sometimes it's kind of funny behind the bench when things are going good and the jokes he pulls. He keeps it loose on the bench."

Said Quenneville: "You never know what's coming (and) rolling off my tongue. It's very unpredictable."

In his last season as a player, Hawks radio analyst Troy Murray won a Cup in Colorado with Quenneville as an assistant coach. Murray said the hard-nosed image Quenneville portrays is certainly an honest one but that there's also another side to the 57-year-old father of three.

"There's coach Joel Quenneville and there's person Joel Quenneville," Murray said. "They're not always the same person. Is the CEO of a company different behind his desk than he is on the golf course? There's always two sides to the personality."

And just the way parents often keep a wall up with their kids, so too do most coaches between themselves and their players.

"He's the head coach," Corey Crawford said. "You can't be joking around all the time, you know? You've got to have that professionalism and that sort of boundary, too."

Said Murray: "There's a different side to him, but there's a little bit of a danger to let that side be seen by the players because there's an authoritative figure behind the bench that needs to be there. You just don't let the players see the cards on a regular basis because there is that separation."