NHL coaches agree Drake worthy of Hockey Hall of Fame
‘Father of Canadian coaching’ changed game as University of Alberta bench boss
Clare Drake, who’s been a road map for a score of NHL coaches with his coaching foresight, keeps saying his storied life will be just fine, thank you, if he doesn’t get that elusive Hockey Hall of Fame selection.
At 88, he’s comfortable in his own skin, well aware that Ken Hitchcock, Barry Trotz, Mike Babcock, Dave King, Perry Pearn, George Kingston and others have been beating the drum for Coach Drake for some time now to get their favourite mentor the final recognition as a hockey builder.
They’re giving it one last push to see if the winningest coach in Canadian college history whose methods of killing penalties and how to work a power play have been copied by coaches everywhere.
Drake has been in the running for half a dozen years in the builder category.
They’re hoping on Monday he gets his HHOF recognition when the vote’s being held. He’s been nominated several times by members on the selection committee but hasn’t yet received the 75 per cent vote count to get in. He’s been in the running, with his disciples badly wanting him saluted.
“I do hope he gets in and if he does, there’s going to be a big cheer from a whole lot of NHL coaches,” said Trotz, the Washington Capitals bench boss who has 709 career wins, sixth best all-time.
“I was laughing when I went to a (coaches) presentation in 2016 and out trotted the same defensive zone coverage that Clare had presented in 1983.”
And this was an NHL coach who put that out there. Same terminology, same wording as Clare had used.
“Talk about everlasting,” said Hitchcock, back in Dallas as their head coach, with 781 NHL career wins, fourth most.
Pearn, an NHL assistant for 22 years, said: “I remember going to symposiums where NHL coaches would attend and when Clare did a presentation the NHL coaches were all listening. I can’t say that for some other guys.
“Clare’s greatest influence was sharing his ideas, which were ahead of the time with other coaches. He made so many of us coaches better. We’re all the benefactors of everything he knew. We’re all disciples. I know from my standpoint when I first got the job at NAIT I called Clare to see if he’d come and talk to us. He’s passed it forward.”
“Clare brought a terminology and a system of play to what was organized chaos ... it was work, work, try harder, play physical. He brought structure and he changed special teams. Nobody recognizes that,” said Hitchcock, who used to hang out at U of Alberta when he was in his 20s to watch Drake’s practices. “Clare was the first guy to introduce the 1-3-1 on the power play, and he was the guy who instituted a really aggressive penaltykill. Everything we do 30 years later, I first saw in the 1980s. It was a cautious counter-attack type of hockey and Clare saw the impact of the Oilers and brought that impact to the game, both offensively and defensively.”
Trotz coached against Drake’s U of Alberta Golden Bears when Trotz was at U of Manitoba. It was a masters course in how to play the game from behind the bench.
“He’s the father of Canadian coaching, he was always ahead of the curve. When everybody else was trapping, he was pressuring the crap out of everybody,” said Trotz. “Clare was the guy we all tried to keep up with. Usually, he’d kick your butt, but he’d always have time for you after the game. He’d want to talk hockey and where it was going.
“Everybody who was around Clare, George Kingston, Dave King, Wayne Fleming, Willie Desjardins, we all wanted to talk hockey with Clare, because he was the godfather of the modern game.
Usually, he’d kick your butt, but he’d always have time for you after the game. He’d want to talk hockey and where it was going.
Where before, players stayed in their lanes, Clare preached not backing up, he wanted his players to go after people. He did the opposite and gave everybody fits. He forced you to think out of the box and become better coaches,” said Trotz.
Hitchcock says he was a visionary.
“His presentations on penaltykilling are still being used today. He also saw the value of the slot on the power play and how much more useful it would be keeping a player there. He started to build the 1-3-1,” said Hitchcock.
“He was the first guy who coached the pack-mentality, five guys up, five guys back. And the thing was he’d share it with you after he kicked your butt on Friday night, then go and kick your rear-end again on Saturday night (college game).
“We learned how to coach from Clare.”