John Tortorella Goes Old School, Takes iPads Away From Flyers

While the NHL is full of hard-nosed, old-school guys no coach in the league fits that description more than John Tortorella. The Philadelphia Flyers' head coach taking away his team's iPads is just the latest example of his coaching strategy.

Like you see NFL players on the sidelines dissecting plays on a tablet nowadays, NHL players do the same between shifts on the bench. For such a fast-paced game, taking a moment to watch previous plays on a screen instead of watching the game in front of you doesn't seem like a great strategy.

That's the same theory Tortorella has about iPads on the bench, too, hence why he took them away.

"We took the video off the bench," Tortorella said after Philadelphia's game on Wednesday. "We don’t have them on the bench anymore."

"I just want them worrying about the next shift. I think it is a major problem with us understanding momentums of the game. You can not understand momentums of the game if you are looking at the iPad all the time. So, we took them off, we are not even going to use them, so they watch the game and see what is next."

Tortorella even singled one of his players out, Travis Konecny, for looking "at that damn thing all the time."

Funny enough, Konecny scored a hat trick sans iPad in the Flyers' 5-2 win over the Capitals on Wednesday.

READ: FLYERS COACH JOHN TORTORELLA RIPS ALL-STAR GAME: ‘I REALLY DON’T CARE’

The Flyers are in the middle of a rebuild and sit third from bottom in the Eastern Conference through 42 games this season.

The no iPad strategy may be working, however, as Philadelphia has won six of its last seven games on the ice.

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Mark covers all sports at OutKick while keeping a close eye on the world of professional golf. He graduated from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga before earning his master's degree in journalism from the University of Tennessee. He somehow survived living in Knoxville despite ‘Rocky Top’ being his least favorite song ever written. Before joining OutKick, he wrote for various outlets including SB Nation, The Spun, and BroBible. Mark was also a writer for the Chicago Cubs Double-A affiliate in 2016 when the team won the World Series. He's still waiting for his championship ring to arrive. Follow him on Twitter @itismarkharris.