Mike Keenan

Michael Edward Keenan (born October 21 1949 in Bowmanville, Ontario) is the current head coach of the Calgary Flames of the National Hockey League, and former General Manager of the Florida Panthers. He is 5'11" and weighs 198 lbs. Keenan was a player for the St. Lawrence University Skating Saints (1969-72), the University of Toronto (1972-73), the Roanoke-Valley Rebels (1973-74), and his native Whitby Warriors (1976-77). He began his coaching career with the Peterborough Petes before moving on to the Rochester Americans, which he guided to the American Hockey League championship in 1983. He returned to University of Toronto to lead it to the CIAU title. He then landed his first high-profile job with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1984, then the Chicago Blackhawks in 1988. In 1993, he took the job as New York Rangers head coach, and led the franchise to its first Stanley Cup win since 1940. After leaving the Rangers, Keenan went on as coach & general manager of the St. Louis Blues (1994-96), and coached the Vancouver Canucks (1997-98), and the Boston Bruins (2000-01). While coaching the St. Louis Blues, he refused to dress his team in a newly designed alternate jersey because of how horrible they looked. He was named head coach of the Panthers on December 3, 2001 before becoming its GM. On September 3, 2006, Keenan resigned his position and was replaced by head coach Jacques Martin. Currently, he is 5th all time in NHL wins. Keenan's teams never missed the playoffs until 1998. His tough coaching style and attitude towards his players have earned him the nickname "Iron Mike". On April 24, 2007, Keenan accepted the position of Senior Advisor to the Swedish Ice Hockey Association.^[1] On June 14, 2007, Keenan was named the new head coach of the Calgary Flames. ^[2]

Controversy

Despite Keenan's coaching record his inability to maintain working relationships with players and team organizations has resulted in a lack of long term coaching positions. His coaching resume includes abrupt terminations or resignations from coaching or general manager positions, sometimes at bafflingly inopportune, or peak, moments of his career. Keenan was unceremoniously dismissed from the Philadelphia Flyers a year after leading them to the 1987 Stanley Cup Finals. After taking the Chicago Blackhawks to the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals, Keenan was forced to focus solely on his GM duties when longtime Blackhawk player and assistant coach, Darryl Sutter, was being courted by other teams to be their head coach. Owner Bill Wirtz did not want to lose Sutter, especially since Keenan had stated, in July, 1992, that he wished to focus solely on his duties as general manager after the 92-93 season. Keenan lost a power struggle with Senior V.P. Bob Pulford after the 1992-93 season, resigned his position, and was soon hired by the New York Rangers. Incidentally, Darryl Sutter resigned as head coach of the Blackhawks in 1996 after Jeremy Roenick made derogatory, and, well-publicized, comments on a local sports-radio show. Keenan managed to coach the Rangers to the Stanley Cup in his first and only year as head coach, but was unable to coexist long enough with general manager Neil Smith and resigned weeks later, citing a violation of his contract by the Rangers. After taking over as the Vancouver Canucks coach a move some claim was pushed for by Mark Messier who teammates claim didn't work under Pat Quinn and Tom Renney basically waiting for them to get fired in order to bring Keenan to Vancouver, Keenan traded away the remainder of the 1994 Western Conference Champion Canucks team that was left on the roster. In one of the worst moves and most classless moves in franchise history Keenan verbally abused long time fan favorite (Mr. Canuck) Trevor Linden in both the media and in person (largely due to Linden make the 1998 Olympic team over Keenan favorite Messier). After 2 months of the verbal sniping from Keenan, Linden was traded to the New York Islanders. Many rumors also abound that Keenan and Messier are the main reason Pavel Bure held out from the Canucks and demanded a trade. Very unremarkable stops as coach or general manager in St. Louis, Boston, and Florida (twice) followed. In September of 2006, Keenan again attracted headlines when he abruptly resigned as general manager of the Florida Panthers. Keenan's resignation came shortly after he dealt Florida Panthers' franchise goaltender Roberto Luongo along with defenseman Lukas Krajicek to the Vancouver Canucks for struggling forward Todd Bertuzzi, goaltender Alex Auld, defenseman Bryan Allen, and a draft pick. It was speculated that Keenan had lost a power struggle with head coach and longtime friend, Jacques Martin, over personnel decisions. Martin succeeded him as general manager upon his resignation. "Iron Mike" was also notorious for pulling or switching his goaltenders, sometimes multiple times in a period. In game 4 of the first round of the 1987 playoffs, Keenan pulled his goalies, Ron Hextall and Glenn Resch, a total of five times in a single game (the 5th time to gain a man-advantage in the last minute of play). Goaltender Roberto Luongo said the following regarding Keenan's penchant for pulling his goalies while a member of the Florida Panthers in 2002:

“Not a big deal. [Keenan] does it so much that we expect it. If he’s your coach and you’re an NHL goalie on the bench, you have to be ready, just in case.”

Career Record

References