Quick Take
- Narration: Barry Abrams reads with the measured professionalism the subject demands, letting the coaches’ voices and Custance’s research carry the emotional weight.
- Themes: Leadership under pressure, the psychology of high-stakes decision-making, the cost of managing elite performers
- Mood: Insider and intimate, with the texture of a long film session with someone who has seen everything
- Verdict: Essential listening for hockey fans, and genuinely applicable to anyone interested in how elite teams are built and sustained under pressure.
I am not a hockey person by upbringing. I came to the sport through a friend who played junior hockey and who talked about coaches the way other people talk about formative teachers: with a complicated mixture of gratitude, frustration, and lifelong impression. Behind the Bench is the book that gave me a framework for understanding what she was describing. I listened to most of it during a long weekend drive, and I arrived at my destination knowing considerably more about the psychology of elite competition than I had eight hours earlier.
Craig Custance is an ESPN journalist who spent his career covering the NHL, and Behind the Bench reflects the access that kind of sustained relationship with the league produces. He doesn’t just interview coaches on the record. He sits with them for film sessions. He asks them to revisit specific moments from specific games and explain what they were thinking, what information they were working from, and what they would change. The result is a book that reads less like a sports biography and more like a master class in decision-making under pressure.
Our Take on Behind the Bench
The coaches Custance profiles, names including Mike Babcock, Joel Quenneville, Dan Bylsma, Todd McLellan, Ken Hitchcock, and Claude Julien, represent a cross-section of modern NHL coaching philosophy. Each brings a different approach to the dressing room, to line changes, to player management, and to the problem of motivating elite athletes who have already proven themselves at the highest level. One reviewer compared the experience to the HBO 24/7 behind-the-scenes productions for Winter Classic games, but noted that Custance’s access produces something deeper: not just what the coaches did, but what they were thinking and why.
The signature game breakdowns are the book’s centerpiece, and they work because Custance has prepared his subjects to be specific. Stanley Cup finals, Olympic gold medal clashes, World Championship contests, both wins and losses, are walked through in detail. A reviewer who found themselves pulling up game footage to follow along described feeling like they were in the film room alongside the coaches, which is exactly the experience Custance is engineering. That immersion is what separates this book from a standard sports interview collection.
Why Listen to Behind the Bench
Barry Abrams brings a clean and professional narration that serves the material without overworking it. The content is substantive enough that a neutral delivery is appropriate. Custance’s writing carries the emotional freight, particularly in passages where coaches discuss losses, personal doubts, or the moments they know they got wrong. Abrams doesn’t editorialize, and that restraint is correct for a book that trusts its source material.
One reviewer made a point that deserves emphasis: the leadership insights in Behind the Bench are not confined to hockey. How do you motivate people who are already high performers? How do you manage a dressing room of elite professionals who each have their own agent, their own ego, and their own ideas about how the game should be played? The answers Custance draws out have genuine application to management, organizational psychology, and anyone who has ever had to lead under scrutiny.
What to Watch For in Behind the Bench
The book was written before several of the featured coaches became subjects of controversy in ways that were not yet public at the time of publication. One reviewer noted a datedness to sections covering Mike Babcock given subsequent events, and that observation is fair. The book presents these coaches as understood in their peak professional years, and some of that portrait has been complicated by later reporting. Custance cannot be faulted for what he did not know, but listeners should bring their own updated knowledge of these figures to the experience.
The focus is almost entirely on the coaching perspective. Players appear primarily as problems to be managed or performance questions to be answered rather than as subjects in their own right. That framing is appropriate given the book’s premise, but listeners hoping for player-side perspective will need to look elsewhere.
Who Should Listen to Behind the Bench
Hockey fans who want genuine insight into how the game is coached at the highest level will find this essential. Readers interested in leadership, organizational psychology, and the management of high-performing teams will also find significant value here regardless of their relationship to hockey. Anyone who has only a casual familiarity with the sport should be aware that the book assumes some baseline knowledge of the NHL, though the coaching psychology material largely transcends the sport-specific context.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to be a serious hockey fan to appreciate Behind the Bench?
A basic familiarity with the NHL helps, particularly for the signature game breakdowns. However, the leadership and decision-making material translates well beyond hockey, and multiple reviewers with broad rather than specialist sports backgrounds found it genuinely illuminating.
How many coaches does Craig Custance profile, and which ones?
Custance profiles approximately ten coaches, including Mike Babcock, Joel Quenneville, Dan Bylsma, Todd McLellan, Ken Hitchcock, and Claude Julien. Each chapter focuses on a different subject, giving each coach dedicated space for their particular philosophy and signature moments.
Does the book address the controversies around Mike Babcock that emerged after publication?
No. Behind the Bench was published before the misconduct allegations against Babcock became public, and the book presents him as understood at the peak of his career. Listeners should bring their own awareness of subsequent events.
What format do the signature game breakdowns take?
Custance asks coaches to revisit specific games, including Stanley Cup finals and Olympic medal contests, and explain their thinking in real time: what information they had, what line changes they made and why, and what they would do differently. The format resembles a film session rather than a traditional interview.
