My grandparents, mother, and her six brothers were farm pioneers near Big- gar, Saskatchewan. Biggar is noteworthy for its sign: “New York is Big, but this is Biggar!” The farm was a great learning environment, with most of my values de- rived from a pioneer family persevering in the face of the uncertainties and chal- lenges of nature. My father emigrated from Ireland when he was seventeen years old, but was killed in a farm accident when I was three, so I grew up in a hurry.
Despite my grandparents insisting that all my uncles and mother get an educa- tion and leave the farm, I was not a good student. Many other things, including sports, were far more interesting than sitting in school. One thing was very clear, however: My grandfather would not allow any of us to be “baseball bums, rodeo bums, or hockey bums!” I reckoned there was nothing worse than being in one of those bum categories, so getting an education seemed a necessary salvation.
I was a “C” form player belonging to the Detroit Red Wings, so in order to ad- vance in hockey I had to play junior for the Edmonton Oil Kings. At the tryout the general manager of the Oil Kings told me that “if you want to be a hockey player, forget about school.” The line was very clearly drawn, but my mother and grand- parents were adamant about getting an education. I went to school. Fortunately I was taught and coached by N.A. McNair Knowles, who, along with my stepfather Jim Murland, helped straighten me out. I played new sports, dropped down a level in hockey, and they pointed me towards studying to be a design architect.
In high school in Edmonton I had the good fortune of having Clare Drake and Murray Smith as teachers and coaches. Through having so much contact with Clare and Murray, I decided that I really liked what they did. They had a zest for life and were doing something important that I thought I wanted to do: They worked with people in sport. These men became my lifelong mentors. I had hockey scholarship offers to go to Denver University and the University of North Dakota, but neither school had a good Physical Education degree program. And neither school had Clare and Murray, as they had joined the Faculty of Physical Education at the University of Alberta. In order to pursue coaching, I took what was then a very fledgling Physical Education program at the University of Alberta.
I became the first of my family to achieve a degree and teacher qualifications, but hockey was still the sport I loved the most. Although I received a contract offer for $3,800 to play for Detroit’s farm team, I also had the opportunity to teach for $5,000 and make additional money playing senior hockey. When I examined the Detroit lineup, with Bill Gadsby and Marcel Pronovost on defence playing virtually 60 minutes except for penalties, and especially when I considered the circum- stances in minor professional hockey, I decided that I had a really good alternative to teach, coach, and play senior hockey. Underpinning this decision was the fact that at the U of Alberta I had played with terrific hockey players such as Vern Pachal and Vic Dzurko. They, and others, told horror stories of their playing and life conditions in minor pro hockey under coaches such as Eddie Shore. By contrast, they loved to play for Clare and never regretted how hard we trained to play ama- teur hockey.
Prior to 1967 there were just six teams in the National Hockey League, so the owners had all the power. Players had no power and in most cases had no alter- natives but to endure what amounted to sport slavery.
How did you eventually move from playing and teaching into full-time coaching?
I taught high school for six years and coached all sports, including football, basketball, track, wrestling, gymnastics, and soccer—about eight or nine different sports in all. I also coached community-based hockey, and we tried to start up high school hockey with the leadership of Clare Drake and a number of the high school coaches who were in Edmonton at the time.
In 1967, after playing a strong tournament at the first Canadian Winter Games, I was invited to attend the expansion St. Louis Blues camp. However, Dennis Kadatz, a former U of A classmate of mine and at the time the athletic director at the University of Calgary, offered me a job as a Physical Education instructor and assistant coach with Al Rollins, who was then the U of C varsity hockey coach. The team had gone 0–46 over the first three years of its existence. At the end of my first year Al had other commitments, so he could not lead the team in the final two games of the season in Winnipeg. We beat both the U of Winnipeg and Manitoba in one-goal games. Al left to coach Spokane; fortunately, I was given the oppor- tunity to build the U of C Dinosaurs program. I coached many, many outstanding young men in my 16 years at the U of Calgary. Actually I was there 22 years, but be- cause I went back to complete further degrees, to work as dean, and to take study leaves, I ended up with fewer actual coaching years. Included was a sabbatical leave to join Dave King and coach the 1984 Olympic team in the Sarajevo Olympics.
How did you develop into what many would describe as “a great teacher of the game”?
Although I had played junior, college, and senior hockey, when I stepped on the ice in 1967 to start teaching people how to skate, I suddenly realized that I didn’t know how. I began to analyze the mechanics of what we did naturally as play- ers. I questioned everything and tried to understand all that I had taken for granted as a player. As a player, you just did it. It was an exciting time.
If memory serves, the first coaching clinic in Canada was in 1965. Part of my responsibility at the University of Calgary was to undertake professional and community leadership, so I channelled effort into coaching clinics. In 1969 Hockey Canada was created to improve Canada’s performance in international hockey. Both Hockey Canada and the CAHA sponsored clinics and coaching certification initiatives.
I had one very telling experience when I was playing with some very good play- ers put together as an all-star team to play against a Soviet touring team. In the morning I watched the Soviet team practice. The team held a two-hour practice that was harder than I had ever experienced with Clare, and I’ll tell you with Clare we worked hard. That night the score ended up 5–3 for the Soviet team, but it should have been 15–3. At that time, when the Soviet teams came over, they played a gen- tleman’s game. They kept the interest high and made the extra, extra, extra passes to entertain and ensure another invitation so they could eat well and drink gallons of orange juice … and beer! On ice their fitness, balance, and dynamic strength was as impressive as their skill execution at top-end speed. As a player and physical educator, I appreciated that there was an awful lot going on in Soviet hockey that we didn’t know about. Sweden, Czechoslovakia, and Finland also held curiosity for me, so it became a priority for me to find out how they were developing top-level hockey players.
You were one of the first Canadians to travel to Europe and the Eastern bloc coun- tries to study hockey. What did you learn?
My first foray internationally was in 1971. I went over with my family and toured in a Volkswagen van for five months. I spent three and a half weeks inside the So- viet Union watching their ’72 team. I made a comment, which was picked up and reported, that I thought the “Russians” would win the ’72 series by one game. I saw first-hand how hard they were working that summer and how focussed their daily dryland and on-ice training was. My fear was that we would be caught with our pants down in the September series, as I knew our Canadian hockey mentality about players playing their way into shape in the NHL season. I already knew from being on the ice with them that these guys were for real. These were very, very good hockey players. They were totally focussed. They were preparing to go to war be- cause sport in Communist countries then was “war without weapons.” Their for- eign relations and diplomacy were all built around exporting representative sport, the Red Army Chorus, the Moscow Circus, or the Bolshoi Ballet, where they were exporting the absolute best of their society. In fact, only athletes capable of winning gold were allowed out of the Soviet Union.
Because I’d called the series to be a one-game advantage for the Soviets, I was regarded as somewhat of a traitor in Canada. This was a viewpoint differing from the NHL people, who came back and said, “They don’t have a goaltender, and they can’t shoot the puck.” In fact, their game style dictated that they only went for high- percentage shots, and when they shot, it usually became a tap-in by a player on the wide post. Having watched them for three weeks in dryland training and on-ice training, I knew they could shoot the lights out when the opportunity arose. They had shooting accuracy and velocity from wrist, snap, and slap shots, and they had the legendary goaltender Vladislav Tretiak!
My travel in 1971 only whetted my appetite for further international study. Every year thereafter I travelled to learn more about our hockey rivals, and eventually I completed a doctoral degree based on comparisons among the top five hockey- playing nations. In 1971, however, I never really knew the full significance of all that I learned through bribing (by using Canada pins) my way into all the closed prac- tices which were the Soviet preparations for the ’72 Series. Overall, I learned that all hockey players and coaches the world over were more alike than different, and that every player and nation shared the same deep passion for the greatest game man has invented.
Don’t you find that players today are much more aware of the off-ice training com- mitment and preparation necessary to play at an elite level?
Canadian hockey players are world renowned for their will to win. Our younger generation now understand the absolute necessity of paying the price in all-round fitness training with a will to prepare to win. Competition forces you to always im- prove what you do and makes you more effective, more flexible, more prepared to meet the challenge of change.
The top levels of NHL and international hockey demand virtuosity, creativity, improvisation. It is vital that young players have experience in a wide range of sports and physical challenges, rather than only narrowly focussed, repetitive hock- ey training. Only through experience in gymnastics, martial arts, wrestling, ballet, skateboarding can individual qualities such as body control, balance, leverage, spa- tial awareness, and so on be developed. The current game demands high-speed, split-second solutions which go far beyond the weight room, repetitive hockey training, and more scheduled hockey games. Open-ended solutions are needed both physically and mentally. Nurturing the spirit of play is critical for players of all ages, including NHL players. Far too much of sport has become a business. At the same time, business leaders are desperately seeking ways to play. That should tell us coaches something.
Give us one or two or your most memorable coaching experiences.
After I got fired in San Jose I was offered the opportunity to be director of hockey operations for Hockey Canada. Ron Robison recruited me to accomplish two things: to build the ’94 Olympic program in co-operation with Paul Henry while serving as a mentor coach for Tom Renney and Danny Dube; and to be the head coach of the ’94 World Championship team. The latter was a dream come true because, other than the U of Calgary job, it was the only job I really wanted. It was going back to hockey that I respected.
I thoroughly enjoyed working in the National Hockey League, but I left San Jose knowing that I had unfulfilled business in the NHL. I was really hopeful that I would get another opportunity to have a shot at the Stanley Cup. Every day was exciting and fulfilling as you’re working with the best players in the world.
The Hockey Canada experience was a marvellous year. I loved working with Tom Renney and Danny Dube in international hockey. I blended in and tried to up- lift a couple of very, very good young coaches. We ultimately won the Silver Medal in the Lillehammer Olympics, losing on the famous Peter Forsberg shootout goal. We had some really bad luck. Manny Legace was primarily our backup goaltender, but he was unbelievable in the shootouts, so we had decided we would put him in for any shootout. In the morning practice he took a shot in the kneecap, his knee swelled up, and he hobbled to the gold-medal game on crutches, and therefore we had no option of using him in the shootout.
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