Prince Albert hero had major impact on
Raiders’ bench
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| Dave Manson works the Raiders bench in February 2016. |
On Thursday, the 55-year-old was named an assistant coach with the NHL’s Edmonton Oilers. He was promoted from his assistant coach position from the Oilers AHL affiliate in the Bakersfield Condors.
When the Oilers host the New York Islanders at Rogers Place on Friday, Manson will be behind an NHL bench for the first time since he played defence with the Toronto Maple Leafs way back in the 2001-02 campaign.
In NHL circles, Manson is remembered as a solid defensive defenceman that played in two NHL all-star games and was one of the toughest to ever lace up the skates on the circuit. From 1986 to 2002, Manson played 1,103 career regular season games collecting 102 goals, 288 assists and 2,792 penalty minutes with the Chicago Blackhawks, Oilers, Winnipeg Jets, Phoenix Coyotes, Montreal Canadiens, Dallas Stars and Maple Leafs.
Of course, Manson became an assistant coach with the Oilers after they made some major changes in their coaching ranks.
On Thursday, the Oilers fired head coach Dave Tippett and associate coach Jim Playfair.
That opened the door for the Oilers to promote Condors head coach in 45-year-old Jay Woodcroft to Oilers head coach and Manson to the role of assistant coach.
The promotion of Manson to assistant coach was an under the radar move that was overshadowed by what happened at the head coach position. It might be the best move the Oilers ever made in recent years.
Following the end of his NHL playing days, Manson and his wife Lana settled back in their hometown stomping grounds in the Prince Albert area with their four children. Oldest son Josh, oldest daughter Meagan and twins in son Ben and daughter Emma grew up in a stable environment playing sports of all sorts in one community area.
Josh is currently a veteran defenceman with the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks.
Dave and Lana wanted to make sure their kids weren’t being constantly uprooted, which happens a lot in the pro sports environment.
In Prince Albert, Dave Manson is a forever hero cemented by his playing days with the WHL’s Raiders. His time with the Raiders started by being called up for six games in the 1982-83 campaign.
Manson followed that call up by playing three full seasons with the Raiders.
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| Dave Manson delivers instructions on the Raiders bench in 2015. |
After the franchise’s third season in the major junior ranks, Manson helped the Raiders win a WHL championship and junior hockey’s ultimate prize in the Memorial Cup as CHL champions in 1985.
His #4 was retired by the Raiders and hangs in the rafters of the legendary Art Hauser Centre next to the #9 of Mike Modano.
After settling back in the Prince Albert are following his NHL playing days, Manson rejoined the Raiders as an assistant coach part way through the 2002-03 campaign. He left the Raiders briefly to be an assistant coach with the Prince Albert Mintos under-18 AAA team for two full seasons from 2009 to 2011.
Manson rejoined the Raiders as an assistant coach in 2011 and took on the role of associate coach before the 2012-13 season. He remained with the Raiders to the end of the 2017-18 campaign.
With Josh, Meagan, Ben and Emma all having graduated high school, Dave Manson joined the Condors as an assistant coach for the start of the 2018-19 season.
During his time as a Raiders coach, Manson was a big influence in helping the Raiders players with their games on the ice and their personal lives.
Those that have played under Manson are pretty unanimous in agreeing he was one of their favourite coaches.
His knowledge for playing the defence position in hockey is vast and impressive. Manson is able to give defencemen all sorts of little tips that help them make big strides in improving their games.
While he wasn’t on the Raiders staff when they won the WHL championship in the 2018-19 campaign, Manson played a major role in helping shape veteran defencemen in captain Brayden Pachal, Zack Hayes, Jeremy Masella, Max Martin and Sergei Sapago into the standouts they were that season.
Kaiden Guhle had a head start on being a solid 16-year-old rookie defenceman in 2018-19 thanks to being called up for eight games in and working with Manson in the 2017-18 campaign.
All the Oilers have to do is let Manson do his thing and even the defencemen they have now will get a lot better.
At the moment, the Oilers sport a 23-18-3 record and sit six points behind the 23-16-9 Ducks for the final wildcard berth in the NHL’s Western Conference. The Oilers have four games in hand on the Ducks.
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| Dave Manson addresses the Raiders during a timeout in 2018. |
Many have said the Oilers are wasting the talents of superstar centres Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Draisaitl is also an alumnus of the WHL’s Raiders.
Manson’s promotion to assistant coach won’t be the one thing that cures all that ails the Oilers. His arrival is one piece of the puzzle that needs fixing.
Still, the Oilers will be better off having Manson behind the bench than they were when he wasn’t there.
Super Bowl team stories easy to follow, other notes
It should be easy to engage the casual fan in this year’s Super Bowl.
Super Bowl LVI set for Sunday in Los Angeles when the host Rams take on the Cincinnati Bengals. It is a contest that features a team that has everything to lose against a team that has everything to gain.
The Rams are the team that has everything to lose. They pushed all their chips to the centre of the table to win right now with the Super Bowl being held in their home park of SoFi Stadium.
During the off-season leading up to the 2021 campaign, the Rams acquired star quarterback Matthew Stafford in a trade from the woeful Detroit Lions in exchange for standout signal caller Jared Goff, a third-round selection in the 2021 NFL Draft, a first round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft and a first round choice in the 2022 NFL Draft.
The Rams had selected Goff first overall in the 2016 NFL Draft. Goff guided them to the Super Bowl following the 2018 season.
On February 3, 2019, the Goff led Rams fell 13-3 in Super Bowl LIII to the Tom Brady led New England Patriots in Atlanta, Georgia.
After not returning to the Super Bowl following the 2019 and 2020 campaigns, Rams management believed they had a better chance of going all the way if they acquired Stafford, who had a stronger arm than Goff.
The Lions selected Stafford first overall in the 2009 NFL Draft. He played 12 seasons for the Lions making them look more respectable than they should have qualifying for the post-season three times.
Stafford put up passing numbers with the Lions that alone should get him elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He also took a physical beating with the Lions, who never had the supporting cast to help him win an NFL title.
The Rams acquired Stafford with the promise that they now had the quarterback that could take them to the Promised Land.
If the Rams don’t win the Super Bowl, they will be heaped with piles of criticism. It is remarkable the Rams posted a 12-5 regular season record to win the NFC West Division title despite facing huge pressure week after week.
Anytime they lost, the team was written off as being finished.
Even during the Rams three playoff wins to get to the Super Bowl, it seemed like the vultures were circling overhead waiting the pounce and proclaim the team as being a crappy organization.
If the Rams win the Super Bowl at home, the critics will become bandwagon jumpers and talk about how they believed in that team all along that they could accomplish a glorious championship season. In the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, the Rams and their critics are enjoying a honeymoon state, but that can all changed with a loss in the Super Bowl.
The Bengals are the team with nothing to lose and everything to gain.
They reached the Super Bowl with a number of people asking the question, “How did you guys get here?”
Entering the 2021 campaign, the Bengals hadn’t won a playoff game since early January of 1991 and hadn’t made the post-season since the 2015 campaign.
The Bengals enjoyed a Cinderella season in 2021 posting a 10-7 record to win the AFC North Division title. They proceeded to win three exciting playoff games to make an unexpected Super Bowl appearance.
Cincinnati is led by second year quarterback Joe Burrow, who might be the signal caller with the most swagger since Joe Namath was the quarterback of the New York Jets in the 1960s and 1970s.
The Bengals selected Burrow first overall in the 2020 NFL Draft after he piled up all sorts of Godly statistics leading the Louisiana State University Tigers football team to an NCAA championship in 2019 as the Heisman Trophy winner.
Burrow was injured in the Bengals 10th game of his rookie season in 2020 tearing his anterior cruciate ligament and medial collateral ligament in his left knee. He claimed the NFL Comeback Player of the Year honours for his sensational play in the 2021 campaign.
Burrow and his Bengals believe they can win the Super Bowl right now. If the Bengals win the Super Bowl on Sunday, Burrow will sit alone as the team’s all-time leader in playoff victories.
So who is going to win?
Will it be the Rams who face all sorts of pressure to win right now? Will it be the Bengals who are playing with house money?
Those two storylines alone make the Super Bowl intriguing and must watch TV.
- On Wednesday, I created new content that went live on the Howe Happenings blog. The feature piece was about four members of the Saskatoon Lions Speed Skating Club cracking the Top 30 RBC Future Olympians list. That piece can be found by clicking right here. The new content also contains the latest photo round up of pictures I shot at the Complex. It can be found by clicking right here.
- On Thursday, the Spokane Chiefs fired Adam Maglio as the team’s head coach. The Chiefs sit last in the WHL’s B.C. Division with a 12-26-3-1 record. Associate coach Ryan Smith takes over as the Chiefs interim head coach. Part time assistant coach Dustin Donaghy moved into a full time assistant coach role.
- On Thursday, star right-winger Connor McClennon had a hat trick to lead the Winnipeg Ice to a 6-2 victory over the Brandon Wheat Kings in a WHL regular season contest held at the Wayne Fleming Arena in Winnipeg. The Ice improved to 30-6-2-1 with the win, while the Wheat Kings fell to 21-15-2-2.
- Going into Friday’s action, Saskatoon Blades star left-winger Kyle Crnkovic is still leading the WHL in scoring. He has 29 goals and 37 assists for 66 points appearing in all of the Blades 42 regular season games.
If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.
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