U.S. coach David Quinn gets second chance to go to Olympics

David Quinn walked into Boston University coach Jack Parker’s office in the summer of 1987 and got news that destroyed his Olympic dream.

Quinn learned he was a hemophiliac and was told his hockey-playing career was over.

“It was a big blow,” said Quinn, now 55. “It was devastating in a lot of ways, life-altering. People have put up with a lot worse than I have in life, that’s for sure, but at 20 years old still a tough pill to swallow.”

More than three decades since the rare blood disorder kept him from playing at the 1988 Games in Calgary, Quinn is getting a second Olympic opportunity as the U.S. coach in Beijing. It’s also a chance of another kind for Quinn to get back into coaching after being fired last summer by the New York Rangers following three seasons dedicated to a rebuild.

“I really think Quinny can be a great coach in the NHL,” said veteran defenseman Brendan Smith, who played for him for three years in New York. “The situation he was put in was an unwinnable situation, really, and I’m excited for him to go over there. I think he will do a very good job.”

Much of Quinn’s coaching philosophy stems from his playing career and the diagnosis that took it away.

He was a first-round pick of Minnesota in 1984, played on the 1986 world junior team that won the first U.S. medal in that tournament’s history and was a a top college defenseman with legitimate pro prospects.

A handful of injuries that were all blood-related pushed Quinn to get tested. Knowing how bright Quinn’s future was, BU teammate and now U.S. Olympic assistant Scott Young said of the abrupt end: “Nobody saw that coming. That was just a shock to everybody.”

“After you throw a pity party for yourself, I think you try to figure out what’s next,” Quinn said. He reflected on how Parker and previous coaches like Ben Smith, Larry Pietila and Peter

Bragdon made up such a big part of his support system at a difficult time. He wanted to follow that same path to stay in hockey.

Quinn gave it a go for 79 more games in the minors in the early ‘90s thanks to a barrage of new medications and tried and failed to make the Olympic team in 1992. With his playing career over for good, he became an assistant at Northeastern in 1993 before moving on to Nebraska-Omaha and returning to BU.

Three years as an American Hockey League coach and one as a Colorado Avalanche assistant led him back to BU as coach for five seasons before getting the job with the Rangers in 2018.