Trent Yawney
Trent G. Yawney ( born September 29, 1965 in Hudson Bay, Saskatchewan ) is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey player and current coach. During his career he played for the Chicago Blackhawks, Calgary Flames and St. Louis Blues in the National Hockey League on the position of the defender. Since the summer of 2012, he is head coach of the Norfolk Admirals of the American Hockey League. Previously, he has organized the Chicago Blackhawks head coach and San Jose Sharks assistant coach.
- 3.1 As a player 3.1.1 International
Career
Yawney played at the age of 16 years, first at the Saskatoon J's in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, a second-rate Canadian junior league. Even during the 1981/82 season he came to his first stakes in the higher class gambling Saskatoon Blades of the Western Hockey League. From the season 1982/83 he was an integral part of the parent cadre. In his rookie season, he ran in 59 matches and was able to achieve as a defender 37 points scorer. In the following two years, Yawney game became one of the best, attack-minded defender of the WHL since it first increased to 59 and then to 67 points his point yield. However, success came with the team in the championship.
After he was chosen a year before finishing his junior career in the NHL Entry Draft in 1984 in the third round to 45th by the Chicago Blackhawks to Yawney decided in autumn 1985 for the time being against a change to the professional and joined the Canadian National Team at the line to head coach Dave King, that in the long run to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary wanted to prepare. By then in force amateur status for athletes at the Olympic games, the players were not contractually bound and could be so for three years to prepare for the games in the home country of Canada. Besides Yawney, who was captain of the team, also included Wally Schreiber, Brian Bradley, Zarley Zalapski, Andy Moog and Sean Burke for future Olympic squad. Nevertheless, the long preparation time took little, since only the team could reach the fourth place and thus remained without a medal. Yawney, who came to over 200 international matches by the long Olympic preparation later in his career, but was a great sport development, which he had taken in the three years under Dave King attested in retrospect.
Following the Olympic ice hockey tournament, the Chicago Blackhawks took the Olympians under contract, which he still came to his professional debut in the National Hockey League in the 1987/88 season. With ten points in 15 games in the regular season and four in five playoff games, he knew it quite convincing. Overall, the Canadians stayed three more years in the " Windy City" and reached at this time with the team twice the final of the Western Conference, but failed in each case to the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers. He also came in early 1991 to further appearances for the Canadian national team at the World Championships in Helsinki, Finland and returned with a silver medal won at the Blackhawks. This transferred him in December 1991 after they found no more use for him, for Stéphane Matteau to the Calgary Flames. There Yawney spent the next five seasons in which he made a solid defender who more focused compared to his time in the junior leagues on the defensive than on the offensive. At the end of the 1995/96 season his contract had expired, whereupon the defender joined as a free agent for one year to the St. Louis Blues. The Blues Yawney came during the season to only 39 missions. Since he had played only in the shortened by the lockout to 48 games season 1994/95 fewer games in an NHL season, he at the end of the season did not renew the expiring contract with St. Louis and returned to the game year 1997/98 to the Chicago Blackhawks back. While he was there not as regularly as in the beginning of his NHL career for use, but the team offered him the opportunity to continue to play at a high level. Then to an abrupt end career came in the 1998/99 season on January 9, 1999. During a game against the Colorado Avalanche Yawney injured so severely on his arm that he announced on February 24, the premature end of his active career.
With the retirement from active sports the appointment as assistant coach of the Blackhawks was simultaneously connected because the management was of the opinion that Yawney had sufficient experience to support the young head coach Lorne Molleken in his work. In spite of a trainer shortly after the start of the 1999/2000 season Yawney remained an assistant coach, before he was promoted in the summer of 2000 for the first head coach of the newly established franchises the Norfolk Admirals in the American Hockey League, which also functioned as a farm team of the Chicago Blackhawks. Yawney acted five seasons as the main person responsible behind the gang and was able to lead the team in every year in the playoffs, but where he could penetrate up to the Conference semi-finals. He also won in 2002 and 2003 the Division title and led during the five years of his term approach over 50 players to the NHL squad the Blackhawks. Due to its consistently good work with the Admirals, the imports in the five years under Yawneys directed only once less than half of the maximum achievable points, he was, after the dismissal of Brian Sutter as coach of the Chicago Blackhawks, in the summer of 2005 to the successor and thus 35th head coach in the history of the franchise appointed. On a higher level Yawney was not able to continue to continue his successful work as in Norfolk with the sparse Blackhawks squad. Although he had performed at the end of the season with only 65 points Chicago on the third to last place among the 30 teams, named him the Canadian Hockey Association Hockey Canada, in addition to the experienced Claude Julien, one of the assistants of Marc Habscheid, the Canadian national team at the World Championships 2006 in Latvia. At the start of season 2006/ 07 Yawney continued to work as head coach of Chicago, but was replaced after a weak start to the season with only 16 points from 21 games after the first season quarter by Denis Savard.
After a personal time off as a result of his dismissal in Chicago Yawney was appointed in March 2007 to coach the Canadian Under-18 Junior National Team for the upcoming World Championship in Finland. After an almost flawless first round, the team reached the fourth place and thus remained Yawney - as at the Olympic Winter Games in 1988 and the 2006 World Cup - without winning a medal. There was another pause before the Anaheim Ducks, the then reigning Stanley Cup winner, engaged him in August 2007 due to his vast experience as a scout. There, however, Yawney did not stay long in office, because he whose new coach Todd McLellan, next to Todd Richards and Jay Woodcroft, was engaged as an assistant coach in the summer of 2008 by the San Jose Sharks and. He worked there until the summer of 2011 mainly related to the defenders and the outnumbered specialists. He then moved on as a scout for the Anaheim Ducks. For the 2012/13 season Yawney returned after seven years with the Norfolk Admirals in the American Hockey League back to act in the role of head coach again in the new farm team of the Anaheim Ducks.
Awards and achievements
As a player
As a coach
- 2004 Best Minor League coach of the season (awarded by The Hockey News )
Career Stats
As a player
Internationally
Represented Canada at:
- Winter Olympics 1988
- World Cup 1991
- World Cup 1992
( Key to Career statistics: Sp or GP = Games Played, T or G = goals scored, V or A = achieved assists; Pts or Pts = scored points scorer, SM or PIM = received penalty minutes, / - = Plus / Minus balance sheet; PP = scored majority gates; SH = scored shorthanded goals, GW = achieved victory gates; Play-downs/Relegation 1 )