THE IRISHMAN WILL FOREVER HOLD A SPECIAL PLACE IN OUR HEARTS
Quinn turned laughingstock of a team into an innovative, progressive, successful operation
The meeting, which took place under the cover of darkness in San Diego, was into its second hour when Pat Quinn leaned in and fixed Frank and Arthur Griffiths with that stare which could melt diamonds.
“What is it you want from me?” asked Quinn, who was then in the employ of the Los Angeles Kings.
“Just bring respectability back to the team,” said the Frank, the patriarch of the family which owned the Vancouver Canucks.
Quinn thought for a moment, drew on a cigar the size of a canoe, then answered.
“I think I can do that.”
Pat Quinn was always a man of his word.
There have been a handful of pivotal moments in the 50-year history of the Vancouver Canucks, all of which have or will be covered in this series, but there isn’t one which surpasses the hiring of Quinn for both its short- and long-term impact on the franchise.
Beginning in December 1986 with that clandestine meeting at the Del Coronado Hotel, the big Irishman elevated a team which had been largely a laughingstock to one of the most innovative, progressive and, ultimately, successful operations in the NHL. His reign lasted a decade and it ended as bizarrely as it began but, in his time here, Quinn, the Canucks and this province became one. And if that’s laying it on a little thick, listen to the people who were there.
“We were a team people cared about and Pat brought a sense of pride to the organization,” said Trevor Linden. who took time from a skiing holiday in Japan to talk about the man who was instrumental in shaping his life and career. “He was a proud man and he wanted to bring back the pride and respect to Vancouver hockey.”
Brian Burke, whose history with Quinn went back to the Philadelphia Flyers’ organization in the late ’70s, was one of the first hirings of the new regime when Quinn took over the Canucks.
“It raised some eyebrows when I got hired,” said Burke, one of the first lawyers to become a front-office executive in the NHL. “But that was Pat. We were the first team with a strength coach. We were one of the first teams to give laptops to coaches and scouts. I had to laugh when (former Canucks GM Mike) Gillis brought in the sleep doctors. Pat brought in sleep experts in the late ’80s to talk to the team.
“The city got behind the team and it was because everyone loved Pat.”
And it all started with that meeting in San Diego.
The Canucks, who hadn’t iced a .500-team for 12 seasons, were midway through another dismal campaign when the Griffiths trained their sights on Quinn at the suggestion of Coley Hall, the Runyanesque former team president. After the initial contact, the Griffiths sought to lock up their man who was on an expiring contract with the Kings. At the morning skate of a Kings-Canucks game, a member of the Canucks’ training staff passed Quinn an envelope containing a cheque for $100,000.
“You might do things differently today,” Arthur Griffiths admits. What would be the fun in that? Tom Larscheid, then the sports director at CFUN, broke the story a week or so later and stuff hit the fan. NHL president John Ziegler suspended Quinn for the remainder of the season — “expelled,” was the term used in the judgment — and barred him from coaching for three seasons. The Kings and team owner Jerry Buss sued the Canucks for tampering. Quinn sued the NHL.
Ultimately, he was reinstated in May 1987 and became the Canucks’ president and GM. But Quinn, who believed he was in the right all along, was scarred by the experience.
“In my heart, that black mark will always be there,” he told The Vancouver Sun’s Iain MacIntyre.
Still, it didn’t seem to affect his performance. His first big move from the corner office was a deal with New Jersey which brought 21-year-old goalie Kirk McLean, who’d played all of six NHL games to that point in his career, and winger Greg Adams from New Jersey for centre Patrik Sundstorm and a fourthround pick. This was shortly after Quinn had acquired goalie Darren Jensen from the Flyers.
“We were just looking for a goalie,” shrugged Burke.
“I think Gus (Adams) was the player they really wanted,” said McLean.
In truth, the Canucks weren’t much better in those early years under Quinn and head coach Bob McCammon — but pieces were slowly being put in place. Adams scored 36 his first year in Vancouver and McLean played 41 games. In 1988, Linden was drafted second overall and the team made the playoffs that season. The Igor Larionov-Vladimir Krutov experiment didn’t have the desired effect but at the 1991 trade deadline, Quinn made one of his signature moves, acquiring Geoff Courtnall, Sergio Momesso, Cliff Ronning and Robert Dirk and, importantly, a fifth-round pick for Garth Butcher and Dan Quinn.
“(Quinn) was going back and forth with (Blues GM) Ron Caron and he insisted on the draft pick,” Burke recalled. “I was getting mad because it put the trade in jeopardy but Pat said, ‘(Caron) will call back. He wants (Butcher).’ ”
The next day, Caron called back and the trade was consummated.
“You look at Pat’s trade record and it was scary good,” said Burke.
Pat Quinn loved to coach. In 1979-80, his first full year as the Flyers bench boss, he guided a patchwork assembly of former Broad Street Bullies, minor league call-ups and rising stars in Ken Linseman, Brian Propp and Behn Wilson to a 116-point season and the Stanley Cup Final. Along the way, the Flyers went on a 35-game undefeated streak, a record which still stands.
Flyers icon Bobby Clarke, then in his 11th season with the team, says Quinn essentially invented the modern NHL game that season with his uptempo, free-flowing game.
“He had this great imagination and believed that was the way the game should be played,” says John Paddock, who played for Quinn in Maine the season before, with the Flyers in ’79-80 and has been involved in the game as a coach and manager ever since. “I remember breaking the (undefeated) record in Boston and (Bruins centre) Peter McNab said we were playing a different game than the rest of the league.
“The first time I thought about coaching was after playing for Pat. I played for some very good coaches but Pat was just a little bit different.”
But he was never supposed to coach the Canucks. Quinn was hired by the Griffiths as a superboss, an executive who would oversee each and every facet of the organization. The problem was late in the ’90-91 season, the Canucks were underachieving yet again under McCammon.
“I said to Pat, ‘What do you want to do?’ I think you’re the best coach who’s not working,’ ” Burke said. “He was reluctant, not because he didn’t love coaching or doubted his ability. But the GM/coach model was virtually dead by then.”
The reluctant Quinn stepped behind the bench anyway. In his first game, the Canucks were drubbed 9-1 by the Kings.
The next season, the Canucks finished first in the Smythe with a franchise-record 96 points and Quinn won the Adams as the NHL’s coach-of-the-year.
OK, the Canucks turned the corner largely because Pavel Bure arrived in November of that season following a twisted journey which went from the 1989 draft, to the NHL offices to, of course, the courthouse.
But Quinn also assembled a team which maximized the Russian Rocket’s bountiful talents. An artless, stay-at-home blueliner in his playing days, Quinn openly embraced the modern, speed-and-skill game and the Canucks were an embodiment of his philosophy. They would feature seven 20-goal scorers that season, including Courtnall, Ronning and Momesso in their first full season in Vancouver. Larionov, in his last year with the Canucks, fashioned a 21-goal, 65-point campaign. Bure finished with 34 goals in 65 games and won the Calder.
But the coach wasn’t completely evolved from his own playing days as a bruising blueliner. The ’91-92 team also had Gino Odjick (348 penalty minutes), Gerald Diduck (229) and Momesso (198) and four other players who hit triple digits in penalty minutes.
“Calgary owned us for a couple of years,” said Linden. “They were a big, heavy team and hard to play against.
“We played them early in the season and Pat gave this speech. He was pretty animated and we didn’t see that side of him a lot. We beat them pretty badly (5-2). It was as signature moment. We finally were a team that could be respected.”
Which was the commitment Quinn made to the Griffiths five years before.
That post-season, the Canucks came back from a 3-1 deficit to beat the, sigh, Winnipeg Jets in seven games before falling to the Oilers in the divisional finals. They improved to 101 points the next season and went out in the second round again. In 1994, they made it to the Cup final.
Then things started to get weird under John McCaw’s ownership.
But that three-year run was a golden time for the franchise and hockey fans in the province; a time when the Canucks were transformed into something new and wonderful. It started with Quinn the general manager. It reached its apex with Quinn, the coach.
“You didn’t want to disappoint Pat,” said Burke. “He was like your father.”
“We knew when he meant business,” added McLean. “He didn’t yell or scream. It was just a look and we all knew it.”
Linden, who forged a deep and enduring relationship with Quinn which lasted until his death in 2014, said his mentor loved the game, loved its characters and all its idiosyncrasies. But, mostly, he loved coaching.
“That was his passion,” Linden said. “He loved to coach, the tactics of the game, the interaction with the players. And he was a teacher. He loved to teach. He was happiest when he was behind the bench.
“I think it was hard on him to give that up.”
Outside Rogers Arena, a statue has been erected of Quinn. He’s holding a lineup card in his left hand and looking down at a bench; a coach as he once was, a coach as he’ll always be.