Jim Bedard (ice hockey, born 1956)
James Arthur Bedard ( born November 14, 1956 in Niagara Falls, Ontario ) is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey goaltender and current goalkeeping coach of the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League.
Career
Jim Bedard began his career in junior leagues unterklassigen before he moved to the Sudbury Wolves in 1973 in the Canadian Junior Football League OHA, a year later renamed to OMJHL. In Sudbury Bedard was able to convince with good benefits. In 1975, his team already to the semifinals of the playoffs and a year later they were beaten by the Hamilton Fincups only in the finale. Bedard received after the 1975/76 season also the Dave Pinkney Trophy for the fewest goals and was elected to the First All -Star team in the league.
Through its services Bedard had made the professional teams attention to himself, and he in 1976 in the sixth round selected by the Washington Capitals in the NHL Amateur Draft at position 91 and at the same time by the Edmonton Oilers in the WHA Amateur Draft in the tenth round at position 106 was drafted. Bedard chose the Washington Capitals to play, spent the following season but in the IHL with the Dayton Gems.
For the season 1977/78 he was appointed to the NHL squad of Capitals and played as a goalkeeper most of the games, but won only eleven of 43 games. The following year he made with Gary Inness and Bernie Wolfe the goalkeeper team from Washington, but the season was almost as unsuccessful as the previous one. The following season, Bedard no longer belonged to the NHL squad of capital and denied the 1979/80 season with several teams in lower leagues.
In the summer of 1980 he moved to Finland, where he was taken from TPS Turku of the SM- liiga under contract. With TPS, he finished 1981 ranked third in the league and in 1982 vice-champion. 1982/83 he played for Ketterä Imatra in the second Finnish league, before he spent four seasons at TuTo hockey in the second division. In 1987, Bedard within the league to HPK Hämeenlinna with which he ascended into the SM -Liiga and there a year goalkeeper was. Then he went back to the second division and played three years at KooKoo and a season at third division Turku HT before he played one last season as first-choice goalkeeper of TuTo Hockey and 1994 ended his career.
Bedard then returned to North America and was hired in summer 1994 as goalkeeping coach of the Niagara Falls Thunder of the Canadian Junior Football League OHL. The largely unsuccessful team moved to 1996 and changed his name to Erie Otters. Bedard followed the team and remained another year as Assistentztrainer before he was hired by the Detroit Red Wings of the NHL as a consultant for goalie Affairs 1997. In this position he was responsible in the following years, Chris Osgood, Manny Legace, Curtis Joseph and Dominik Hasek and the Red Wings were the Stanley Cup win in 1998 and 2002.
2002 Bedard was officially appointed goalkeeper coach of the Red Wings. Since the lockout and the failure of the 2004/05 season Detroit was in the following three seasons always to the three teams with the lowest Gegentordurchschnitt and 2007/ 08 were Chris Osgood and Dominik Hasek winning the William M. Jennings Trophy for fewest goals. Thus he also share in the new Stanley Cup victory in the summer of 2008. Besides supervising the NHL goalkeeper is responsible Bedard for the Goalkeeper of the AHL farm team of the Red Wings, Grand Rapids Griffins.