TORONTO — Patrick Kane might not know football, but he knows who he likes.
The Buffalo native hadn’t tweeted in more than two months, yet Wednesday morning, he felt compelled to endorse his pal Brian Daboll as the next head coach of his hometown Bills.
“Let’s go bring him home!” Kane quote-tweeted Adam Schefter’s report that Daboll was a candidate to replace the long-serving Sean McDermott, who was fired Monday.
Within a couple hours, Kane’s tweet received more than 2,000 “likes.”
“Try to act like I know what I’m talking about,” said a smiling Kane Wednesday morning, following the Detroit Red Wings’ morning skate in Toronto.
“Daboll, he’s a good friend. He kind of grew up in the Buffalo area and went to school at Saint Francis, which is where some of my buddies went to school.”
Daboll, 50, was born in Welland, Ont., and raised by his grandparents in nearby West Seneca, N.Y. After attending Saint Francis High School, he attended the University of Rochester. He is not a Canadian citizen.
Kane explained that he met Daboll in New York, when the superstar winger was playing for the Rangers, and Daboll was coaching in the Giants.
“Just kinda crossed paths a little bit. So, ever since then, just kind of stay in touch,” Kane said.
“I actually talked to him on the phone the other day about maybe becoming the next Bills head coach — and then saw he’s getting an interview. So, I thought I’d throw that out there. But didn’t really know what type of traction it would get. So, we’ll see.”
The Chicago Blackhawks icon kept a keen eye on his go-to NFL teams, the Bills and Bears, during last weekend’s nail-biting playoff action.
“It’s tough, right? I mean, I don’t really know the rules or anything, but you hear one thing from one person, it makes you a little bit more angry with what’s going on in the game, whether it’s a catch, interception, pass interference, all that stuff,” Kane said of the controversial calls surrounding the Bills’ overtime loss to Denver.
“I’m not gonna stand here and act like I’m Bills Mafia jumping through tables or anything like that. But it’s always nice to see the team do well, the city do well.
“Same thing with the Bears too, right? Like, I think it was awesome what they did. And seeing them win (their wild-card game) is just so good for the city, too. So it’s always good to see the teams do well.”
