Quinn eager to drop his role as GM

By AL STRACHAN -- Toronto Sun In today's hockey, the dual role of coach and general manager is not only rare, it is almost impossible to do well.
The demands are so intense there simply aren't enough hours in the day.
Toronto Maple Leafs general manager/coach Pat Quinn knows this and hopes to get to the point where he will hold just one position -- coach.
Although Quinn said he feels comfortable with the existing situation, "It wasn't something I wanted. Right now, it's working. I don't know how it is going to work long-term. I don't think the best situation is manager/coach for a lot of reasons.
"But it is a fact right now and we will deal with it. Some day, that is going to change."
Quinn assumed the dual role last summer when associate general manager Mike Smith made demands Leafs president Ken Dryden couldn't meet and was released.
"We were kind of in a stop-gap situation," Quinn said yesterday. "Suddenly Mike was gone and he wasn't intended to be gone. Nobody expected that. At least, we didn't.
"So you shore up and you try to make the best of it and I think some day, along the way, some steps will be made, probably to bring in a manager. I want to coach."
In Vancouver, Quinn held both positions, then named Rick Ley coach, then fired him and took over both jobs again.
But that was a different situation, Quinn said.
"Until Orca Bay came in, I had responsibility over everything as the president so it was a different circumstance. I saw that when I was coaching there, I wasn't doing the job I wanted to do as a coach because I felt that I was running all around, so neither job was getting done properly.
"That's why I stepped away, but I stepped away to the job I was hired to do in the first place. But I was hired to coach here and that's what I want to do. I want to coach."

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