It is a sad day in the world of hockey as both Pat Quinn and Viktor Tikhonov passed away today, both legends in the world of coaching the game of hockey.
Pat Quinn carved a decent niche in the National Hockey League where he played nine seasons on the blue line for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Vancouver Canucks and Atlanta Flames, but it was behind the bench where he would gain his greatest fame.
The year after he retired as a player, Quinn would become an assistant coach for future Hall of Fame coach, Fred Shero in Philadelphia. And the following season he would gain his first head coaching gig on the professional level, helming the Flyers minor league affiliate, the Maine Mariners, though that would be short lived as he would be called up to take over the reigns of the main club. In his first full season with the Philadelphia Flyers (1979-80), Pat Quinn would oversee a team that had a thirty-five game unbeaten streak, a record at the time. The New York Islanders in the Stanley Cup Finals would upset the Flyers, but Quinn would win the Jack Adams Trophy as the Head Coach of the Year.
He would be fired in 1982 by Philadelphia but any former Coach of the Year is always on the market. He was snatched by the Los Angeles Kings and helped them improve but in what Quinn viewed as a lapse of contract (claiming L.A. did not pick up the contract), he signed with the Vancouver Canucks to take over as their Head Coach and General Manager in early 1986.
The NHL President, John Ziegler, citing tampering ruled that Quinn could not coach again until 1991 and that he could not take over as the Canucks President and GM until June and as a Vancouver executive and his biggest splash was securing Pavel Bure in the NHL Draft. Once his suspension from coaching was lifted he took over as the Canucks Head Coach and won another Jack Adams Award (1992) and took Vancouver to the Stanley Cup Finals in 1994. Following that, Pat Quinn would step down as Head Coach and focus on only administration but a falling out with ownership led to his dismissal, though the Mecca of Professional Hockey was waiting in open arms.
Joining the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1998, he guided the squad to continued improvement and took them to the Conference Finals in 2002, which has been the best showing in Toronto in the last forty-five years. Again, upper management would force him out, but he was the active Head Coach with the most wins by far before he was forced out.
Jack Adams trophies and Stanley Cup appearances are nice, but it is never the same as accruing a championship. Quinn did win the big one, and many hockey fans in Canada would say the biggest one ever, when he was the Head Coach of Team Canada in the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City, the first Canadian team to win the Gold Medal in 50 years. Quinn would repeat it again on the International level by taking the Canadians to a win the World Cup of Hockey in 2004.
Overall Pat Quinn had a 684-524-154-34 coaching record in the NHL, and was the Chairman of the Hockey Hall of Fame induction committee at the time of his death. He died at the age of 71 due to respiratory illness.
Like Pat Quinn, Viktor Tikhonov was a defenceman in his playing days, but it was a Head Coach that gained him his greatest fame. After a lengthy stint of coaching the Dynamo Riga in the Soviet League, Tikhonov would take over the coaching duties of the CKSA Moscow and the Soviet National Team in 1978.
He was known for a heavy disciplined style, and was a complete authoritarian; a general himself in the Soviet Army. American fans know him mostly for his loss at the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” to the United States, but that was a rare loss for Tikhonov who would win the Olympic Gold in 1984, 1988 and 1982, and helmed the Soviets to a huge International win at the 1981 Canada Cup tournament. He would also win the Soviet league championship twelve straight times and is a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame.
He was 84 years old.
We here at Notinhalloffame.com would like to offer our condolences to the friends and family of both Pat Quinn and Viktor Tikhonov at this time.
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