IT took Scott Arniel all of three words to sum up assuming the job that, for the most part, had become his birth right.
"I'm back home," he said.
But while Arniel may have shuffled off to Buffalo four years ago to become assistant coach of the Sabres, he never really left Winnipeg.
Not really.
His family -- wife Lia and two teenagers, Brendan and Stephanie -- stayed back in Linden Woods. Lia ran her two businesses, a therapy and fitness centre, while Brendan and Stephanie attended St. Paul's and St. Mary's, respectively.
Perhaps they, too, were just waiting for the inevitable, that Arniel -- first a Winnipeg Jet, then a Moose captain, then a Moose assistant coach -- would someday get the job he promised himself at least four years ago.
In fact, when Arniel left Winnipeg in 2002, he told Moose chairman Mark Chipman he'd be back.
Two years ago, after being interviewed for the vacant head coaching position eventually given to Randy Carlyle, Chipman assured Arniel: "Someday, this job's going to be yours."
Of course, Arniel might have been beginning to wonder after being passed over by first Carlyle then Alain Vigneault last year. But the simple fact was both Carlyle and Vigneault had more experience. So Arniel had to wait, again.
All the while, during the last three years in Buffalo, Arniel never interviewed for another AHL job. After all, he knew where he wanted to go.
"This is the job I was aiming for," Arniel said, after his unveiling yesterday at the MTS Centre.
And Arniel just isn't coming home in a residential sense, either. Because the bond between he and GM Craig Heisinger dates back over a decade, to the point where the two friends can take good-natured potshots at each other, even if cameras are rolling.
Heisinger made a point yesterday, in citing Arniel's history with the Moose as a player, of how it was news to him that the former forward actually accumulated some points back in the day.
Countered Arniel: "As much as he likes to zap me, I do like the little guy."
In fact, along with Carlyle, now head coach of the Anaheim Ducks, and Chipman, the quartet have been the backbone of the Moose organization from Day 1 over ten years ago.
"It is family, absolutely," Chipman agreed. "It can't not be when you go through what you go through in this business."
Which is why yesterday's announcement was laced with a symmetry that defined the Moose franchise with a statement of tradition.
"Maybe it's hard to articulate," noted Heisinger, who in a former life was the Jets trainer. "But it goes all the way back to the early days, when Scott and Randy were players. Now we're sort of all moved up in the ranks and we've worked with each other and for each other and against each other."
Added Chipman: "It's a difficult business because you have to win, and that's hard to do. So to the extent you can surround yourself with people you know, admire and respect -- and feel the same way about hockey that you do -- that's an added bonus."
That's why Arniel's return someday was always widely considered a just fact that had yet to reveal itself. After all, it's been a quarter century since a fuzzy-faced 18-year-old from Kingston, Ont., arrived in town to begin his career with the Jets.
"I always ended up back here," he said. "Most of my adult life I've been in this city. This is where predominantly my whole memory and history, and a lot of great things that have happened to me, have been here."
Hence, you have to believe that if Arniel could ever envision a dream scenario for his first stint as a professional head coach, this one has to be in Technicolor.
"There's no initiation, there's no trying to get familiar with the ownership or the city or the team," he reasoned. "Everything else away from the rink is so simple because I have everything here. My only challenge now is to be successful as a coach, to make this team even more successful than they've already been."
The Moose waited. Arniel waited. And yesterday the inevitable became reality.
"Now is his time," Heisinger said.
Yes, it is Arniel's time...
To come back home.
