Roger Nielson Passes Away

[Urban Warfare 0]

NHL coaching great Roger Neilson has passed away.

 

 

 

Roger Neilson's coaching successes were noticed almost immediately when he led the Ontario Hockey Association's Peterborough Petes behind the bench in 1966. His junior teams finished in the top three of the league standings eight times and the Petes also reached the 1972 Memorial Cup final. His peers tagged him "Rule Book Roger" as Neilson took advantage of weaknesses in existing hockey rules.

 

 

 

 

 

Neilson also had his players doing on-ice aerobic training long before it was an accepted practice in game preparation. But perhaps his biggest contribution was breaking down videotaped games, a coaching technique that earned him the nickname "Captain Video." Neilson was known for spending hours going over game tape, often spending all night doing so.

 

 

 

 

 

Neilson's NHL career - a storied one to say the least - began 23 years ago when he took the head coaching job with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Toronto native made an immediate impact on the team, highlighted by an upset over the heavily favoured New York Islanders in the playoffs.

 

 

 

 

 

But with the Maple Leafs mired in a horrible slump the following season, owner Harold Ballard took it upon himself to fire the popular coach. In a now-famous story, Ballard rehired him several days later, but wanted Neilson to walk out to the bench at the Montreal Forum with a bag over his head.

 

 

 

 

 

Neilson never gave in to that request, and joined Scotty Bowman in Buffalo as an assistant after two seasons with Toronto. He was later promoted to head coach for the 1980-81 campaign.

 

 

 

 

 

Neilson then moved to Vancouver as an assistant to Harry Neale with the Canucks. He assumed the head coaching duties late in the season and later led the Canucks against the Islanders in the Stanley Cup Final. It was in that great playoff run of 1982 that Neilson created the infamous "white towel affair" in protest of a suspected bias by referees against his team.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Neilson was later contracted as a video analyst with Edmonton during the 1984 playoffs. His assistance proved to be an ingredient of success as the Oilers won their first Stanley Cup.

 

 

 

 

 

He served as an assistant and scout in Chicago for five seasons before being hired by the New York Rangers as head coach in 1989. Neilson ran the bench for three and a half seasons, winning the Patrick Division title in his first year and Presidents' Trophy in 1991-92. After two seasons as the first-ever head coach of the Florida Panthers, Neilson was hired by Blues head coach (and former Petes alumnus) Mike Keenan as an assistant in 1995.

 

 

 

 

 

While staying in St. Louis, Neilson worked with rookie head coach Joel Quenneville for the 1996-97 and 1997-98 seasons. In spring of 1998, Neilson took over the head coaching reigns for the Philadelphia Flyers and stayed with the team until the conclusion of the 1999-2000 season. Neilson's served his most recent coaching stint as an assistant to Jacques Martin with the Ottawa Senators. Martin stepped aside for the final two games last season to allow Neilson to reach his 1000th regular season NHL game as a head coach.

 

 

 

 

 

His career record as a head coach includes 460 wins and 159 ties. In the parts of the 16 NHL seasons that Neilson served as a head coach, Neilson sported a winning record 11 times.

 

 

 

 

 

Neilson showed no signs of slowing down during his career despite his recent battles with cancer. He overcame bone marrow cancer in 2000 and in January 2001 he was diagnosed with a serious form of skin cancer, malignant melanoma. Neilson established the Roger Neilson Forever Hockey Fund to help bring children and hockey and fun together.

 

 

 

 

 

His legacy complete, Neilson was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame on November 4, 2002. In addition to that honour, the Senators announced in January that Neilson was appointed to the Order of Canada, the country's highest honour for lifetime achievement.

 

 

 

 

 

Being fired from more coaching posts than most anyone else, and enduring such life-altering health conditions could be enough to bring down the spirits of any individual. Yet, Neilson remained a humble and upbeat man that showed up at the rink every day with a smile on his face. As long as there was hockey to play and valuable lessons to each on and off the ice, every day was a great day.

 

 

TSN.ca

Edited June 21, 2003 by hockey_fan

[Guest bob_barron]

That's a shame about Roger Nielson.

 

I remember when the Sens let him coach those two games- Very classy move on their part.

 

RIP Roger

[Guest redbaron51]

thats ashame

 

RIP Capt. Video

[Guest MaxPower27]

RIP Roger.

[Guest Brush with Greatness]

I actually met Roger at his Coaches Clinic in June 2000 and talked with him briefly about his career track at that point. He was very approachable and just a great guy, giving me the time of day, even though the questions I asked him had probably been asked to him 100 times before. He also sends out a Christmas card each year to everyone who attended his clinic. Very classy guy.

 

I think one article said it best when it read along the lines of "Roger will be remembered as a great friend and person first, and as a great coach secondly."

 

Here's to you Roger, a great coach, and an even greater human being. RIP.

[Guest meanmaisch]

Living in the Philadelphia area, I got to be familiar with Neilson. The man seemed like a total class act, the kind of guy the team needed during the petty Lindros/Clarke battles. The world of hockey has definitely lost one of its best.

[Guest BifEverchad]

I just heard of Roger's passing on TheScore.

 

He was a great coach, and one of the most memorable hockey figures I knew as I grew up watching the NHL.

 

 

RIP

[Guest nl5xsk1]

Neilson is one of the guys that you've never heard a bad thing about, and it's a shame that cancer ultimately won the long battle.

 

Didn't Phillly fuck him over when he got sick? If my memory serves me correctly, he was coaching them while he was really sick but Clarkie told him to take some time to get better, and that they'd hire someone as the interim replacement until Neilson was healthy enough to coach again, but when Neilson wanted to come back, he was refused?

[Guest treble charged]

Yeah, they brought in Wayne Cashman (who I think was an assistant to Nielson) to take over while Nielson was out taking cancer treatment, yet when he was ready to come back to the team, they were on a roll and Clarke decided to keep Cashman on as the coach.

 

Reason #1542 why Bobby Clarke is a worthless piece of shit.

[Guest Brush with Greatness]

Actually it wasn't Wayne Cashman. Craig Ramsay was an assistant coach under Roger Neilson and took over as Interim Head Coach for Roger when he started undergoing treatments. The team got on a role and right around playoff time Roger felt ready to come back. However, Clarke basically told him no (saying something along the lines of take some more time) and Roger was relegated to an assistant coach role in the press box for the rest of the season.

 

Come season's ended, I believe Roger's contract expired (he may have walked) and the Flyers decided not to renew it, instead opting to drop the interim title from Ramsay's name and leaving Neilson out of a job.

 

Something along those lines.

[Guest The Czech Republic]

I remember them mentioning in game 6 of Sens and Devils that Roger had given the team a big inspirational speech and how he couldn't make it to the game in Jersey. Even though I'm not the biggest Senators fan on account of my primary team being the Hawks, that instance made me more of a Senators fan, because I had a bad feeling Roger wouldn't make it to next season.

 

It's a shame whenever a sport loses such a great person.