Mike Babcock
Mike Babcock ( born April 29, 1963 in Manitouwadge, Ontario ) is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey player and current coach. He currently coaches the Detroit Red Wings in the National Hockey League.
As a world champion in 2004, Stanley Cup winner in 2008 and winner of the Olympic gold medal in 2010 and 2014 Babcock is currently the only coach to a member of the Triple Gold Club.
Career
Mike Babcock played in his youth in the Canadian Junior Football League WHL, but was never discovered by an NHL team. In 1983 he went to McGill University for their Ice Hockey team, he also played. At times, he led the team as captain on the ice. In 1987, he graduated with a Bachelor 's degree in Physical Education and finished after that courses in sports psychology.
Then he went to England, where a year he worked as a player-coach in the British Hockey League, scoring 34 goals and 98 assists in 36 games. In 1988 he returned to North America and coached for three years, the ice hockey team of the Red Deer College in Alberta, Canada. In 1989 he won with the team the college championship of the province, and he was named Coach of the Year.
In 1991, Babcock the job as head coach of the Moose Jaw Warriors in the WHL, but had no great success. From 1993 he worked for a year as coach of the University of Lethbridge and won the Canadian College Championship, before he received a contract with the WHL Spokane Chiefs team. 1996 and 2000 he led the Chiefs to the finals of the WHL playoffs.
In 2000 he received a contract as coach of the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks AHL. The team functioned at this time as a farm team of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and the Detroit Red Wings of the NHL. For two years he held the job in Cincinnati.
Between 2002 and 2005 he was head coach of the NHL team Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, with whom he had once in the first season reached the final of the Stanley Cup, but after seven games to the New Jersey Devils defeated. In July 2005, he rejected a contract extension with the Ducks. On July 15, Babcock became the new head coach of the tradition-rich franchise Detroit Red Wings, replacing the former coach Dave Lewis.
In his first year in Detroit, the team completed on the first place in the NHL after the regular season and won the Presidents' Trophy. In the playoffs, the Red Wings failed but already in the first round. 2006/ 07 went to the playoffs successful and the Red Wings made it to the Western Conference Finals, but where they failed to Babcock's former team from Anaheim, which eventually won the Stanley Cup. In the 2007 /08 season he reached for the third time in a row the mark of 50 wins this season and won with the Red Wings in 2005/ 06 for the second time the President's Trophy as the best team in the regular season and in the subsequent playoffs and the Stanley Cup.
With the Canadian national team, he won the 1997 gold medal at the Junior World Championships in Geneva, in 2004 the gold medal in the Men's World Championship in Prague and the Olympic gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. In 2014 he was able to repeat winning the gold medal at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi with the national team.
Private
Mike and his wife, Maureen, have three children: Allie, Michael and Taylor.