Not going to lie, I love these quotes from Claude. Right on the money. Pulled from DJ Bean's blog post.
“I did a self-evaluation,” Julien said. “[I considered], ‘Do I still have the ear of the dressing room? Are they still hearing?’ All that stuff that you go through. Even in my regard, being here nine years and everything else. Everything that came out of it, by the time I was done [with] my evaluation when I met with Don on Sunday morning was I want to be here, I want to bring this team back to where we once had it. I know that there’s some bumps along the way.
“There’s no doubt — I’m going to be honest with you — would it have been easier for me to go somewhere else and say that I’m going to go somewhere fresh and start? That’s not what I want. To me, this organization’s been good to me. They’ve been loyal to me. Like I said before: I love the city, I love our fans. I love just the environment here. You want to be somewhere where people are really passionate about the game. There’s a lot of people here, including players, that have helped me become the coach that I am.
“I don’t want to be that guy that bails just because all of a sudden you hit a bump in the road. I want to be that guy that perserveres. Things that went through my mind are, it’s OK to be remembered right now [as] the winningest coach in Bruins history, but I’d rather be remembered for a guy who had enough character to go back into the trenches and dig his heels in and help turn this organization around vs. the other way that could have been.
“I was pretty clear with Donnie on that front and now it was up to Don to tell me what his thoughts were. Obviously we have very similar thoughts and it was great to hear earlier that I still had his support and that he still believed that I was the guy. THat’s why I’m still here today.”