Our Great Coach on this episode is Doug Maclean. Doug is a former Ice Hockey Head Coach, GM, and sportscaster.
His coaching career started in his hometown of Summerside in 1977 with High School teams. By 1990 he had his first professional job leading the Baltimore Skipjacks.
A successful stint there, saw him move to the Detroit Red Wings as an assistant coach, and ultimately to the Head Coach role at the Florida Panthers in 1995. In his first season he led them to the Stanley Cup playoffs.
In ‘98 he moved to the Columbus Bluejackets as the GM and commenced the second phase of his career. Then in 2008 he rounded out his career in professional hockey by moving into broadcasting.
Doug is a great story teller and some of the highlights of our discussion were;
• How one of the most rewarding experiences of his life was starting a franchise from scratch.
• His view on being direct and that you can never be too honest, even though he once made a NHL player cry.
• And , how in a healthy team culture, players want to get to practice and they care about doing their bit for the group.
This was a wonderful conversation, and I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
And just before we go to the interview if you enjoy listening to the podcast and would like to learn more, you can head over to our website thegreatcoachespodcast.com.