The Big Weight A Slimmed-Down Ken Hitchcock Is Finally Calling The Shots In The Nhl

Ken Hitchcock will never forget one April 1989 conversation.

It was with his physician, Bob Smiley, in Kamloops, British Columbia, and the discussion hit Hitchcock like a pie in the face - only the punch line was potentially fatal.

“We were having a beer and he asked me how I liked living in Kamloops,” said Hitchcock, who replaced Bob Gainey last week as coach of the National Hockey League Dallas Stars. “I said I really liked it. He said, ‘Well, you better enjoy it, because in six months you’re going to be dead.”’

That was when Hitchcock, weighing more than 400 pounds, finally realized he had to change his lifestyle if he wanted to live at all. Poor diet and no exercise were about to kill him.

“Hitch was morbidly obese,” Smiley said. “He was so heavy I could not properly weigh him. He may have been 475 pounds. I knew Ken well enough that I felt I could be straight.”

Hitchcock, 38 at the time, had been gaining weight at a steady pace for 20 years. After that conversation, he vowed to turn his life around.

“Eventually, you have to make a decision if you want to live any longer,” said Hitchcock, 44. “I built this body; now I’ve got to break it down. I’m the guy that had to make the changes.”

He immediately went to work.

“I was kind of the poster boy in Kamloops for Nutri-System,” Hitchcock said. During the next two years, using the Nutri-System plan and steady exercise, he shed more than 100 pounds.

“We stopped bringing the goodies to the office and stopped going out for lunches,” said Maxine Patrick, office manager for the Western Hockey League Blazers. “Everybody supported him.”

He continued to be a 300-pound man on a 5-foot-11 frame, though, and carried that weight around from 1991 to 1993 while serving as an assistant coach for the Philadelphia Flyers. He had stopped using Nutri-System. His weight stayed steady, but it caused concern among his friends.

“We were always concerned that Hitch might have the big one right there on the bench,” said Calgary Flames assistant coach Don Hay, Hitchcock’s best friend. “In our game, you get pretty excited and the old blood pressure goes up.”

Last June, weighing 307 pounds, Hitchcock decided to make the final push. His weight-loss plan was simple: a rigorous workout each morning and a healthy, balanced diet with no fried foods.

Hitchcock doesn’t eat red meat; it’s chicken, tuna or salmon. He doesn’t eat snack chips; it’s fat-free pretzels. He keeps only enough food at home for two or three days of meals.

Every morning at work, he’s on an exercise bike 30 to 40 minutes, then a stair climber for 15 to 30.

He’s down to 220 pounds, with a goal to get below 200 by the end of the season.

“I still allow myself a couple of slices of pizza, that’s it,” Hitchcock said. “I’m a saladoholic.

“I’ve lost three-quarters of a Leon Lett off me, so I know what it’s like to lose weight,” Hitchcock said. “It’s been a lot of sacrifices and a lot of adjustments I’ve had to make in my life.”

Six years ago, the only thing changing was a declining ability to tie his shoes.

“You see me here crossing my legs. I couldn’t do that then,” he said. “It’s the littlest things that people take for granted that overweight people can’t do. It changes everything, the way you feel about yourself, the way you are in front of people.”

Growing up in Ottewell, on the outskirts of Edmonton, Alberta, Hitchcock was a competitive hockey player, swimmer and golfer. There was no NHL team in Edmonton in the 1960s, but the Edmonton Flyers were a minor-league affiliate for the Detroit Red Wings, so it was only natural that Gordie Howe was Hitchcock’s idol.

Like most young Canadian boys, he fell in love with hockey. His father, Ray, also a skater, helped build the three outdoor ice rinks in Ottewell.

When Hitchcock was 14, his father died of a back tumor. “That was really tough,” said Hitchcock, whose mother, Barb, died of throat cancer seven years later. “He was involved in everything I did.”

Hitchcock’s weight problems began in his teen years. It dissuaded any thoughts he had of continuing to play hockey.

“I was a better player at 14 than at 17,” he said. “I gained a lot of weight, and I wasn’t able to play with the guys I had grown up playing with.”

Wanting to stay in the game, he coached youth hockey part time.

At age 20, Hitchcock began working full time selling sporting goods. He picked up coaching techniques by attending clinics and camps.

At age 30, he made his decision to coach full time and landed the Kamloops job.

Six highly successful seasons there primed him for the NHL, with his arrival in Dallas coming via Philadelphia (three years), and a minor league head-coaching job in Kalamazoo, Mich.

As he built his resume, it appeared the only thing that might hold him back from his dream job - coaching an NHL team was his weight.

Not anymore. The NHL is finally getting to see the real Ken Hitchcock.

“They looked at him and just saw the size,” Hay said. “I’m really happy for him. He’s been able to beat the battle of weight and … reach his dream.”