Legends of Team Canada: Dave King

Dave King was the long time coach/manager of the Canadian national team and Olympic program. In that time he earned a reputation as the hardest working coach in all of hockey. He was a clinical tactician who did not always have the best players but always got every ounce of effort from them.

"All I can say is that I don't think there's a better coach on either side of the ocean," said Team Canada captain Brad Schlegel back in the early 1990s. "Dave is always trying to be better. He's very intense, very demanding. And there were times when he pushed me to the limit, but that's what I needed. He got the most out of this team. Nobody else could have gotten more."

King had his fair share of critics, as do all coaches. His biggest flaw was his supposed inability to coach offensively.

"He'd rather win games 0-0," once said Dino Ciccarelli at a World Championships.

Dave King was born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan but grew up mostly in Saskatoon. He was pretty good hockey player in his day, starring with the University of Saskatchewan from 1968 to 1971 where he earned degrees in science and education.

King had a tryout with the Portland Buckaroos of the old professional Western Hockey League. They offered to sign him to a measly minor league contract and cast him out to God-Knows-Where in the southern United States. King decided that was not for him.

He returned to Saskatoon where he played some senior hockey while working as a high school teacher for much of the 1970s. 

But he also discovered coaching. By the end of the decade he had risen from the junior ranks to head coach of his alma mater at the University of Saskatchewan. 

Under his guidance, the Huskies won the Canada West Championship three times - 1981, 1982 and 1983. The Huskies finished second at the Canadian Interuniversity Athletic Union championship in both 1981 and 1982 and in 1983 won the CIAU title in Moncton.

At the same time, King was becoming a household name in Canada. He also coached the Canadian national junior team to a world championship in 1982 and a bronze in 1983.

Dave went on to become coach/manager/head recruiter/travel agent/media relations guy of Canada's national hockey team for many seasons including three Olympics - 1984 (Sarajevo - fourth), 1988 (Calgary - fourth) and 1992 (Albertville - silver). He also coached the Canadian national team at five International Hockey Federation world championships. In 1987, he coached Canada to the gold medal in the Izvestia Cup tournament in Moscow, becoming the first Canadian team to defeat the Russian national team in Russia since the 1972 Summit Series.

 "My family moved to Winnipeg in my early teens and I'd watch Father David Bauer's Olympic and national teams. People used to look down on the amateurs, but we've since learned that losing 2-1 or 3-2 to the Russians meant he must have been doing a hell of a job." 

"You know, our frequent lack of success against the Soviets isn't all bad. One of the great advantages is that it makes people think," said King, the game's ultimate thinker.

"Coaching against Europeans, you learn so much. I've always felt players are incomplete who jump from junior to the pros. It's surely the same for coaches. They have a lot to teach us. It was our game, all right, but, once they got into it, they took aspects from other sports that are strategy-related."

Dave was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1992. He was inducted into the Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame in 1997 and the International Ice Hockey Hall of Fame in 2001. One day soon he will be inducted in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

For all his efforts in all these international tournaments, King's greatest legacy is influencing how hockey is coached not only in Canada, but worldwide.

"He's the best coach on the planet," said coach and broadcaster Drew Remenda. "That's not an irresponsible and biased statement. He has influenced the way an entire nation coaches hockey. He is the most accessible educational resource for Canada's coaches through his teaching with the National Coaches Certification Program and many seminars and clinics. Dave has also expanded his efforts to educate and develop other hockey nations, including Sweden and Japan."

So many of his players went on to the NHL - Ed Belfour, Sean Burke, James Patrick, Bruce Driver, Zarley Zalapski, Paul Kariya, Eric Lindros, Trent Yawney and so many more - while others went on to impressive coaching careers themselves - the ultimate influence of a coach - including Mike Babcock. 

He eventually did go to the NHL, He had turned down a lucrative offer to coach Vancouver in the mid 1980s to stick with the national team program, but finally jumped to become head coach of the NHL's Calgary Flames from 1992-93 to 1994-95 and the Columbus Blue Jackets from 2000-01 to 2002-03. He was also an assistant coach with the Montreal Canadiens from 1997-99. He has coached in the Russian Super League and the German Elite League.

In 2018 he returns to the Olympics as an assistant coach for Team Canada where he will support a coaching team he has coached himself at one time or another.

"Sean (Burke) twice opted out of NHL competition and took a hit to do it, financially. But he wanted achieve that medal so I know what it is that drives this guy. Willie (Desjardins) was a great [university] player. As a coach, he won a Calder Cup … To see these guys do well, it’s great to come back and coach with them. As a staff, I think it’s good to have an old guy – that’s me – and to have had a relationship with some of them as players. Craig Woodcroft, I had him a couple of times with the national team program and the Goodwill Games. Scotty Walker, I coached him at a world championship."

As for King's thoughts on the pros and cons of having NHL players at the Olympics or not:

"I knew it was best on best and I knew for hockey fans that would be really terrific because it would be best on best at a key time during the year, when everyone is in good form. So you recognize that’s a great event for TV. However, with my background, and seeing so many players enjoy the program, utilize the program for their own benefit, I was a little sad to see that happen. When the NHL decided not to take part in 2018, I know that a year ago when we were in the Deutschland and Spengler Cups talking to the players about the possibility of going to the Olympics, for a lot of these guys it’s a dream come true – that suddenly they’re candidates for the Olympic team. They were excited."

Dave King Did Not Invite Mario Lemieux To 1984 Olympic Team

Dave King spent the better part of a decade piecemealing together teams of speedy, undersized, defensive forwards who couldn't score to take on the world's best at the Olympics.

It didn't work very well. No medals in 1984 or 1988, and then a silver medal in 1992 - thanks in large part to the presence of junior sensation Eric Lindros.

King did attempt to inject junior stars before Lindros. King was named as Canada's coach at the 1982 and 1983 world junior championships. The ultimate goal, of course, to win medals. He got a much-celebrated gold in 1982 and bronze in 1983. But the exercise was also in part a scouting trip for King to beef up his 1984 national team with some junior help.

King ended up adding Kirk Muller, Russ Courtnall and Dave Gagner, while passing on another junior sensation you may have heard of - Mario Lemieux.

Yes, that's right. Mario Lemieux could have been on Canada's 1984 Olympic team. The same Mario Lemieux who scored 133 goals and 282 points that season in Laval. The same Mario Lemieux who became arguably the most unstoppable offensive player in history.

But there was a small problem. King did not like Lemieux, and the feeling became mutual.

King wanted his players to play a 200 foot game, working as hard on defense as on offense. He liked, almost to a fault, less-talented scrubs who worked their tails off.

Lemieux did not play like that back then, or most of his career. It was all offense. In those days that was acceptable for otherworldly talents like Number 66. It was even a smart coaching strategy.

But it was not acceptable to King, who clashed with Lemieux at the 1983 World Juniors. He even sat Lemieux on the bench for extended periods of time when the game was assured and he wanted to give others ice time. And he did not invite Lemieux to the Olympic program because of his lack of commitment to the defensive side of the game.

King also knew Lemieux was not likely to accept, as he was very critical of the way King handled him at the WJC's. Mario even went so far as to - unfairly - suggest King was anti-Francophone.

Lemieux ultimately took the high road on the Olympics, saying he would not leave his junior team because he wanted to break Guy Lafleur's junior scoring records. His agent had promised him a million dollar contract if he did. (That promise went unfulfilled as he reportedly settled for $750,000 each year for two years on his first contract with Pittsburgh. That was still pretty impressive money in those days. Six year veteran Wayne Gretzky was not making a whole lot more. )

The unofficial word was Lemieux would never play for Hockey Canada as long as King was coach. The only time he did play in a World Championships was when Doug Carpenter coached in 1985. And for many years he declined playing for Canada at the World Championships even though Pittsburgh did not make the playoffs. No reason was ever officially given, often leaving Lemieux's agents and coaches to do the public speaking.

Lemieux, like all junior players, was far from perfect but the guy could score. King was singularly focused on winning with defense. It's too bad the two sides could not have found a way to co-exist as teenaged Lemieux would have been an interesting watch back in the 1984 Olympics.

The Night Gretzky Joined Dave King's Olympic Team

It doesn't happen too often, but remember the night that Team Canada obliterated Team Canada and Wayne Gretzky played for both sides?

No? Not too many other people do either. I asked famed Wayne Gretzky jersey collector Shawn Chaulk about it, and he had no clue!

Canada's NHL best took on Canada's Olympic hockey team in an exhibition match one night in St. John's, Newfoundland in 1987.

The match, played on August 10th, was part of Team Canada's training camp in preparation for Canada Cup '87. The night before the two teams faced off in Sydney, Nova Scotia, with the NHLers winning 7-1.

The Newfoundland game featured a first period trade. The NHL stars had built up a 9-0 lead in the opening period, thanks in part to Wayne Gretzky's goal and four assists. In order to make things a little more interesting for the sold out crowd of 4200 at Memorial Stadium, the NHLers proposed the trade

Gretzky said when the five pros joined the Olympic squad they went to the neighboring dressing room with the idea of providing leadership and encouragement.

"We're out there for similar goals," he said. "We want to win the Canada Cup and they want to win the gold medal (at the Calgary Olympics). We're not here to embarrass anyone."

So Gretzky, Paul Coffey, Brian Propp, Rick Tocchet and Brad McCrimmon switched dressing rooms. Joining the NHLers were defencemen Serge Roy and Tony Stiles and forwards Ray Cote, Claude Vilgrain and Don McLaren.

Even Gretzky could not work much magic for the Olympians. He was unable to register a point as the game ended with a score of 12-1. The only goal for the Olympians was scored by Gretzky's former Oilers teammate Randy Gregg.

Still, it must have been a dream come true for Dave King. He spent years trying to upset the mighty Russians with speedy, undersized defensive forwards who couldn't score. To suddenly have the greatest offensive player in hockey history on his side must have been a thrill, even if it was for one night only.

I have been unable to find a photo of Gretzky in an Olympian jersey. Given that this "trade" was very spur-of-the-moment I suspect Gretzky did not have his usual 99 on the jersey.

New Hockey Heroes Coming to Pyeongchang and GreatestHockeyLegends.com

Canada's Olympic gold medal hockey hopes lie in the hands of Sean Burke.

It's not the first time.

Burke, of course, was a really good NHL goaltender with a number of really average-at-best teams over 18 seasons and 820 games. He was a regular workhorse for Canada on the international scene, representing Canada at the 1988 Olympics in Calgary and the '92 games in France, winning silver. He played another 130 games for Canada in various international tourneys, including World Championship teams in 1997 and 2003. He also was a back up goalie at the 1991 Canada Cup.

This summer Burke was named as General Manager of the Canadian Olympic team. A dream job, right? Well, yes, and I'm sure Burke - an up and coming star on the hockey management scene - certainly thinks so. But, in case you have not heard, he will not have NHL pros to choose from. He won't even have most AHL players available. And no, no junior stars. NCAA players and pros playing in European leagues are what we have to look forward to.

Burke was hired by Tom Renney. Renney, a junior coaching sensation with the Kamloops Blazers, joined hockey Canada shortly after the 1992 Olympics. Two years later he guided the team to another silver medal, losing to Sweden in a heart breaking shootout.

Renney would graduate to the NHL and coach in Vancouver, New York and Edmonton, and worked alongside Mike Babcock in Detroit. He remained close to Hockey Canada, serving in a number of capacities in 10 world championships, winning three gold. That included the 2004 tournament when he was head coach.

Fast forward to today.

Renney replaced Bob Nicholson as President and CEO of Hockey Canada in 2014.  Coming off of Nicholson's long string of many successes on and off the ice, it was always going to be a difficult challenge for Renney or for anyone else, for that matter. And Renney's job got significantly tougher in 2016 when the NHL opted out of sending it's talent to the Olympics.

Nicholson had it relatively easy. Hire the likes of Wayne Gretzky, Steve Yzerman, Pat Quinn and Mike Babcock and bring the NHL's best. Renney has to hire guys more-or-less unaffiliated with the NHL and bring in players that fall into two categories - has-beens and never-heard-ofs - to participate at the 2018 Olympics in Pyeongchang, Korea.

Renney allowed Burke to name his management team, which is full of some interesting connections.

Burke has brought aboard fellow goaltending legend Martin Brodeur, an assistant manager in St. Louis. The two time gold medalist's role is not quite as clear as everyone else's. One report suggest Brodeur would not be part of the European league scouting once the NHL season starts due to duties with the Blues. He's relatively new to the management scene, but he knows how to win - including memorable Olympic gold medals in 2002 and 2010.

The next hire was coach Willie Desjardins. Coach Willie has a fantastic coaching record in junior and the minor leagues, but struggled as time went on in his only NHL assignment with the rebuilding Vancouver Canucks. Before that he was a Memorial Cup champion in Medicine Hat, a Calder Cup champion in Texas (AHL), and World Junior Champion as Pat Quinn's associate coach in 2010.

Desjardins' coaching staff features up-and-comers Scott Walker (three time player at World Championships) and Craig Woodcroft (who played with the Canadian national team throughout his career but missed the 1994 Olympics as one of the last cuts), along with Hockey Canada legend Dave King.

Desjardins and King go back a long way.  Following a junior career in Moose Jaw, Swift Current and Lethbridge that did not lead to the pro ranks, Desjardins enrolled at the University of Saskatchewan where he continued to play under a mostly unknown head coach named Dave King. After graduating King helped to land him a spot with Vissers Nijmegen in the Netherlands. Desjardins became team captain and led the team to the Dutch championship. It was what Dave King did best - gave young players opportunities.

A good case could be built that King, an Olympic and IIHF Hall of Famer, could be head coach, as he was under very similar situations throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. King had a true national team to work with as he battled the not-so-amateur Soviet juggernauts at the 1984, 1988 and 1992 Olympics, as well as at five world championships. He rejuvenated the beloved Canadian national team program that Father David Bauer started in the 1960s.

Those national teams were generally built around something that Tom Renney, Sean Burke, and Dave King know all to well. Youth. Names like Glenn Anderson, Randy Gregg,  Jim Nill, Paul MacLean, Russ Courtnall, Kevin Dineen, Patrick Flatley, Dave Tippett, Kirk Muller, James Patrick, Dave Gagner, Doug Lidster, Bruce Driver, Brian Bradley, Zarley Zalapski, Trent Yawney, Tim Watters, Paul Kariya, Eric Lindros, Joe Juneau, and of course Burke himself.

Yet while they know youth was a real key for their relative success in the pre-NHL Olympic era, they are either unable to or unwilling to find a similar path for the 2018 games.

A look at Canada's list of invitees (all playing in Europe) to a couple of tournaments in Russia is kind of uninspiring. Kevin Poulin, Justin Peters and Ben Scrivens in net? Carlo Coliacovo could be Canada's number one defenseman? Mason Raymond still plays? Same goes for Gilbert Brule, Rob Klinkhammer, Derek Roy, Cam Barker, Max Talbot and Andrew Ebbett. But at least we have heard of these players. Who knows who Paul Szczechura is? How about Brandon Buck? Eric O'Dell? Chay Genoway? No offense, fellas.

I suspect a few of the invitees will actually make the team. Maybe we will see some NCAA talent?

While the 2018 Olympic tournament pales in comparison to the NHL-era games, new heroes will emerge. Just like they did King's days in the 1980s and 1990s, or Father Bauer's era back in the 1960s.

Remembering past Olympic heroes will be a major focus of GreatestHockeyLegends.com through out this season. I will focus a lot on Canadian players, but will look at international players, too.

Because every hockey player has a story worth telling.

I can tell you this has reinvigorated me a great deal. Stay tuned for some great hockey stories this season. Just like you will find great stories coming out of the NHL-less Olympics in 2018.

Summer Reading: King of Russia

My latest summer 2011 campfire read is McClelland and Stewart's 2007 release King of Russia: a Year in the Russian Super League. It chronicles Canadian hockey coaching legend Dave King's journey to the Ural Mountains to become the first Canadian coach in Russia. The book is based on King's daily diary, typically meticulous and refreshingly open, and polished up beautifully by The Globe and Mail's ace hockey reporter Eric Duhatschek.

Buy the Book: Amazon.ca - Chapters - Amazon.com
 

I personally consider Duhatschek to be the best hockey journalist out there for quite some time. Not only is he incredibly connected, thorough and respected, but he's got an easy to read and captivating writing style. So I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised how easily I was drawn into the text.

But I was very pleasantly surprised just how compelling and fascinating the text is. One biography or well written autobiography that I've always wanted to read is that of Coach King. He is a three time Olympic coach, and formerly the one man Canadian national team king-pin. He's also coached two NHL teams and teams all over the world. As one of the greatest - although also greatly underrated - bench tacticians ever, his story potentially has so much to offer a reader - about the Soviets, about the NHL, about Canadian hockey and about European hockey, and so much more.

King of Russia isn't that book. Instead is a look into a single season of King's career. I cracked the spine already disappointed because I knew it wasn't what I was looking for.

A few paragraphs later, I realized I had found quite possibly the leading candidate for best read of the new hockey book season.

Back when King was coaching in Calgary, the NHL had a great influx of eastern Europeans. One of them was Soviet great Sergei Makarov. We North Americans were never truly understanding of the hardships these guys faced. A whole new country, a whole new way of hockey, a whole new language, a whole new life. They understandably struggled, and we were quick to dismiss them as inferior, and never truly understood the incredible transition they had to go through.

Well now we can, but in reverse. It is the Canadian, King, pioneering his way into Russia. He had to deal with the strange new homeland, a language barrier, a cultural 180 degree turn and a stubborn and peculiar hockey system. Oh, and there's such 21st century hazards such as the Russian mafia. Finally Coach King understands Makarov's struggles all too well.

Through it all, King tries to finds the silver linings, but in his daily diary he is very open about wondering if he has made a big mistake. At times we get to see the rare vulnerable side of a hockey legend.

But we also get to see so much more. By the end of the book, I'm converted in to a Metallurg Magnitogorsk fan and am looking online to buy a jersey. I feel for many of the players, much like King. King looks to former NHLer Dimitri Yuskevich defenseman to be an early pillar, and an English ally. Swedish defenseman Anders Eriksson and Canadian goalie Travis Scott are also relied on heavily. Ilja Vorobiev becomes a favorite of Coach King and of any Canadian reader. Others on the team include gormer NHLer Igor Korolev, the wildly enigmatic Stanislav Chistov and teenage phenom Evgeni Malkin, who leads the team and the league, but will soon leave the league to join the National Hockey League.

Malkin's departure allows to better appreciate how the Russians feel about the NHL continually uprooting the country's top young players. It's a real eye opener for us Westerners, and maybe the Russians have a point when it comes to their continuing dispute about player compensation with the NHL-IIHF player transfer agreement.

King learns first hand why the Russians are able to develop incredible individual talents but poor international teams. Its a far cry from their glory days, that's for sure.

Through it all, King is continually open and perplexed, and as usual successful. Its an amazing look into just one year of an amazing life. I still want a great biography or autobiography of Dave King, but I now realize it would take volumes to cover his hockey insight.

Hockey Book Review: King Of Russia

I didn't know quite what to expect from McClelland & Stewart's 2007 release King of Russia: a Year in the Russian Super League. Let's just say I'm so impressed by this book that I'm almost overwhelmed.

King of Russia is about Canadian hockey coaching legend Dave King's journey to Siberia to become the first Canadian coach in Russia. The book is based on King's daily diary, typically meticulous and refreshingly open, and polished up beautifully by The Globe & Mail's ace hockey reporter Eric Duhatschek.

I personally consider Duhatschek to be the best hockey journalist out there for quite some time. Not only is he incredibly connected, thorough and respected, but he's got an easy to read and captivating writing style. So I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised how easily I was drawn into the text.

But I was surprised how compelling and fascinating the text is. One biography or well written autobiography that I've always wanted to read is that of Coach King. He is a three time Olympic coach, and formerly the one man Canadian national team king-pin. He's also coached two NHL teams and teams all over the world. As one of the greatest bench tacticians ever, his story potentially has so much to offer a reader - about the Soviets, about the NHL, about Canadian hockey and about European hockey, and so much more.

King of Russia isn't that book. Instead is a look into a single season of King's career. I cracked the spine already disappointed because I knew it wasn't what I was looking for.

A few paragraphs later, I realized I had found quite possibly the leading candidate for best read of the new hockey book season. | Full Review of King Of Russia |