He has resurfaced, after two years in exile, wearing a suit. That is probably the image a lot of hockey people have from the last time they saw Marty McSorley.

	Marty McSorley was convicted of assault in a Canadian court on Oct. 6, 2000.

Back then, he wore a suit when he emerged, stonefaced, from a courthouse in Vancouver, guilty of assault with a weapon (his hockey stick). He is back in a spotlight, a much smaller one, but now it is for the right reasons.

McSorley will be behind the bench of the American Hockey League's Springfield Falcons when they open their season against the Hartford Wolf Pack on Friday night.

Like the rookies in his young lineup, he will be nervous. Like the rest of the rookies, a new stage in his career stretches out before him as smooth and clean and full of possibility as the fresh, unblemished ice that awaited them in the Springfield Civic Center.

McSorley was given what amounted to a life suspension from playing, the harshest ever from the NHL, after hitting Vancouver Canucks forward Donald Brashear in the head with his stick in February, 2000. There was a court case (he was found guilty by a Canadian court of assault with a weapon, but the charges didn't go on his record after 18 months of probation) and replays of the incident were on television more often, it seemed, than repeats of the The Simpsons, Seinfeld and Frasier combined. McSorley took it all in silence.

A man who made his living as a team player refused to put the game and the NHL on trial, but was still lambasted in many quarters. He had his playing career effectively ended by a hypocritical league which fostered the very environment that has quietly encouraged one player to assault another as a tactic.

But it was McSorley that was on trial, not the game.

This time, he took the hit and didn't retaliate.

Now his detractors might question putting a guy they saw as the embodiment of what is wrong with hockey in charge of shaping the careers of young, impressionable players.

Not Phoenix vice-president and general manager Mike Barnett, nor Phoenix managing partner Wayne Gretzky, who hired McSorley to coach the Coyotes' top farm club, which they will share with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

"Not at all," said Barnett, one of the sharpest hockey minds around who had Gretzky and McSorley as clients during his immensely successful days as an agent.

"It was one blemish in a stellar career. I prefer to think about all the contributions he made later in his career. As a veteran, he made the young players understand the preparation and commitment that were required to make themselves better.

"He might be one of the best examples over the last couple of decades of a player who willed himself into the NHL. He was a player who was never drafted who, through effort and commitment, made himself a player."

AHL president and CEO Dave Andrews said he has not had any negative feedback regarding McSorley's return to the AHL (McSorley played in Baltimore and Nova Scotia on his way up).

"If you look at his career, yes, he was an enforcer, but he played the role the way it was supposed to be played. The incident in Vancouver is one not anybody is proud of, least of all Marty. He's paid a big price for that," said Andrews.

"I"ve known him for a long time. I'm pleased to see him in the league. He's got a lot of presence, he's a good communicator and is well organized. He went from not even being considered a prospect to playing in the NHL and having a great career. He knows what it takes to play at the top level. He played for a lot of great coaches and I'm sure he absorbed a lot. I know his players will look up to him. He's got a lot of class."

	“	I will never tell a player how good I was as a player ... or how tough I was. ”
		— Marty McSorley

Barnett and Gretzky, a teammate on those great Edmonton Oilers teams and in Los Angeles with the Kings, know better than anybody what McSorley put himself through every day to become a regular in the NHL. They know better than anybody the lessons he learned and can teach to the Coyotes' hopefuls. They know better than anybody what McSorley brought to the game, something they saw firsthand over the course of two decades, not in a few seconds of irrationality on videotape.

"He brought that passion to the rink every day," said Barnett. "He felt hockey was an eight-hour-a-day job. He was willing to put in that amount of time. He got to the league and he continued to improve every day, every week. It's the part he wears on his finger as a Stanley Cup champion. We thought he would bring that passion and show the young players the commitment they need to make in themselves."

Barnett talks about commitment.

There were a lot of people who would have liked to have seen McSorley committed.

He isn't making any apologies.

"It doesn't bother me," McSorley said of people who will remember him for the Brashear incident. "I'm proud of the way I played. I mixed it up. I stood up for my teammates. I don't know how many times I started a fight (to defend a teammate)."

Did he worry over the last year he would never get a job in hockey again?

"No," he said. "There are too many good people in the game."

He spent his time off from the game traveling, networking, watching, learning. He went to Europe where his brother, Chris, is coaching in Switzerland.

McSorley has always been a student of the game and he used the time well.

He is a gifted communicator, but he has learned now when not to speak. He has established two rules for himself as a coach, the result of listening to coaches when he was a player.

"I will never tell a player how good I was as a player," he said, "or how tough I was."

McSorley knows better than most about what it takes to overcome obstacles. For young players in the AHL, that is their existence. They must overcome preconceived notions of the type of player they are or could be, a skating stride that needs work, a poor attitude or work ethic, a weak release or cluelessness when it comes to the defensive part of the game. McSorley has overcome a lot to get to where he finds himself now. He knows what his players are going through because he has lived it himself -- and more.

Chris Stevenson covers the NHL for the Ottawa Sun and is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com.