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| Mike Babcock pictured in a Sports Illustrated from 2010. |
As the
lunch hour started in Saskatchewan, TSN’s Darren Dreger reported that all-world
coach Mike Babcock was expected to be announced as the new head coach for the
University of Saskatchewan Huskies men’s hockey team in the coming week.
Just short
of an hour later, Huskie Athletics put out a release that Babcock, who grew up
in Saskatoon and is a graduate of Saskatoon’s Holy Cross High School, will
indeed become the Huskies next head coach.
Babcock
will lead the Huskies on a full-time volunteer basis for the next two seasons.
Babcock
will be taking over for legendary Huskies head coach Dave Adolph, who announced
on Dec. 7, 2020 that he would be retiring. Adolph, who holds the U Sports
career record for coaching victories at 488, will officially retire on May 1,
and Babcock will take over the head coach role from that point.
In an interview with Kevin Mitchell of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Babcock said he was a transfer coach and his goal was to work with Dave King, who is still the greatest coach the Huskies men’s team has ever had, and a hiring committee to find a new long-term head coach for the program.
Babcock, who has been working as a studio analyst for NHL broadcasts produced by NBC Sports, also stressed to Mitchell that he wants to win in the short term.
Babcock’s
coaching career is long and distinguished. It began back in 1988, when he was
head coach of the Red Deer College Kings men’s hockey team that plays out of
the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association.
The
highlights of the 57-year-old’s time behind the bench include guiding the NHL’s
Detroit Red Wings to a Stanley Cup title in 2008.
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| Mike Babcock shown in a Sports Illustrated from 2010. |
Babcock played one season on defence for the Huskies way back in 1981-82 and received an honourary doctor of Laws from the U of S in 2016.
As impressive as all those accomplishments are, Babcock’s best work as a coaching likely took place during the 1993-94 season, when he was the head coach of the now defunct University of Lethbridge Pronghorns men’s hockey team.
With the Pronghorns not having that much success in their history, Babcock guided them to a first place finish in the Canada West Conference with a regular season record of 19 wins, seven losses and two ties. The Pronghorns moved on to down the University of Guelph Gryphons 5-2 in the U Sports national championship game to capture the David Johnston University Cup at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
Babcock and
his wife, Maureen, have often returned to Saskatoon and visited the Emma Lake
area during summer months in the off-season. The bench boss was often involved
in community fundraisers including one for the Leslie & Irene Dube Urology
Centre of Health at St. Paul’s Hospital in 2014 and the One Voice fundraiser to
raise money for the Neural Health Project at the U of Saskatchewan in 2015.
The hope of
the Neural Health Project is to develop a more complete approach to the
treatment of mental illness through a combination of conventional and
alternative therapies. Babcock had a big hand in helping raise over $1-million
at the One Voice fundraiser held on July 24, 2015 at TCU Place.
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| Collin Shirley is tabbed to return to the Huskies. |
It was also
noticeable that the last team Babcock coached in the NHL was the Toronto Maple
Leafs for four complete seasons and a partial fifth campaign from 2015 to 2019.
The Leafs fired Babcock on Nov. 20, 2019 with the team having lost six straight
games to sit at 9-10-4.
In the aftermath of the firing, media reports came out that Maple Leafs right-winger Mitch Marner was asked to rank his teammates in order of how hard he though they worked back in his rookie campaign in 2016-17 by Babcock. Babcock later revealed the list to Marner’s teammates.
Babcock confirmed that report, expressed regret asking Marner to participate in something like that wasn’t a good idea and apologized to Marner at the time.
Shortly
after the situation with Marner’s rookie season became public, Swedish
right-winger Johan Franzen, who played for Babcock in Detroit, accused the
bench boss of verbally abusing him. Chris Chelios, who is one of the all-time
top defencemen to play in the NHL and one of Franzen’s former teammates, said
the verbal abuse to Franzen did happen.
Chelios
believed Babcock didn’t treat some of the Red Wings veterans well and dropped
criticism there.
Within 50
minutes of the Huskies posting a Twitter post on Babcock’s hiring, the post
attracted 65 responses and 151 quote retweets. Most of the responses had harsh
words for the hiring, but most didn’t appear to come from Twitter handles from
Saskatoon and area.
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| Evan Fiala is expected to return to the Huskies back end. |
Other harsh
responses were troll type comments putting down the quality of play in U Sports.
On that front, the truth is U Sports is indeed a high-quality league when it
comes to competition and the level of play in men’s and women’s hockey is quite
outstanding.
Usually in
most cases, Huskie Athletics might get five replies at most to a Twitter post.
The quote retweets on the Babcock post were more split in reaction.
On the Huskies Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, a sizable number of the likes were from accounts I recognize from Saskatoon and Saskatchewan.
I personally
believe those situations that were talked about in the aftermath of Babcock’s
firing from the Maple Leafs are not that big of a deal. I believe a lot of the
troll comments are from ultra-passionate Maple Leafs fans who can’t get over
the fact their team hasn’t won the Stanley Cup since 1967.
Babcock apologized in the Marner case and it is impossible for any coach to be liked by every single player he or she has coached.
In the case of Chelios, he built a reputation for running his mouth over his hockey career, so him not having anything nice to say is not new.
On a
personal front, Babcock has always been great to me. I moved to Saskatoon in
the summer of 2014, and we had lengthy visits at the fundraiser for St. Paul’s
Hospital in 2014 and the One Voice fundraiser in 2015.
Our talks mostly
revolved around stories regarding mutual friends in hockey. Even in our first
meeting, I was comfortable enough to talk with him about the issues with
anxiety I dealt with, when they arose when I worked as a sports reporter with
the Medicine Hat News in 2012.
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| Layne Young was a breakout forward with the Huskies in 2019-20. |
The One
Voice fundraiser in 2015 was one of the best and most positive energy nights
out I’ve ever had in my life.
For anyone
that battled mental health issues, that night at the One Voice fundraiser was
basically the night out we needed.
I believe
Babcock has come to help the Huskies out of the goodness of his heart.
Let me
repeat myself, I believe Babcock has come to help the Huskies out of the
goodness of his heart.
Saskatoon
is a community he cares a lot about, and he has a lot of ties to this
community. He wants to help get the Huskies going with some positive momentum, when U Sports returns from its pause that started in March of 2020 due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The
ultra-passionate fan type trolls elsewhere can say what they want, but I am
confident enough to say that view isn’t shared by most of those in Saskatoon or
Saskatchewan as a province.
Babcock coming to coach the Huskies is a great homecoming moment for “The Bridge City.”
When he gets here, I believe he will enjoy working with some quality returnees and high-character players like Collin Shirley, Evan Fiala and Layne Young. It should be noted the last time the Huskies skated on home ice they won the Canada West Conference title back on Feb. 29, 2020 at Merlis Belsher Place.
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| The Huskies celebrate their 2020 Canada West title win. |
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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