I used to do these feature kinds of articles years ago. This is maybe my last. I'll keep adding to it, time permitting. Tippett has been one of my favorite coaches for years, I was thrilled when the Oilers got him.
I go back along ways with Tippett, with the Hartford Whalers. I'm an ex WHA fan still fascinated with that league all these decades later so I followed every bit of what was going on with the Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques and the former Winnipeg Jets. Tippett was part of a lunch bucket no nonsense crew that played the game right and yielded several coaches and solid 200ft players.
This is Tippett with the Whalers rocking the stache;
Leadership material even back then. Tippett as a player exemplified his mantra as a coach. I guy with meager talent by NHL standards that got by on hard work, perseverence, doing anything asked, and mucking about. Team mates were guys like Ron Francis, Joel Quenneville, Kevin Dineen, Ray Ferraro, Dave Babych, Mike Liut. Chances are if you weren't playing hockey the right way you'd be hearing about it in the room. That Hartford Whalers teams was viewed as a hockey coach learning ground. This is a good read on that team being an NHL coach assembly line;
Hartford Whalers' impact still felt in coaching circles
Hartford was regarded as an NHL small town, a backwater, and some of the players commented on that. There being not much to do. This wouldn't have been the case for Dave Tippett, hailing from Moosomin Saskatchewan. Hartford would have seemed like NY. This is Moosomin
The tallest building in town would be a grain elevator;
Like many boys that end up going places Dave had an older brother, Brad Tippett, who was a sports standout in Moosomin, they even look alike and unmistakable. Brad did well in hockey and Soccer and rode hockey all the way to the AHL, but never got into the big show. Brad also turned into a hockey coach in the WHL. Like the dynamic with many boys the older boy taught the younger boy so well that the younger boy went farther.. Brad would have to have been a big role model for Dave all those years growing up.
Brad Tippett – Athlete | Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame
So standard prairie town stuff. For a kid growing up in Saskatchewan it means sports was king. You grew up playing hockey or football or both and those towns are factories for players. Tippett was no exception, but interestingly his early success was in Soccer, and he was a star player going all the way to a Soccer World skills competition in Paris France. could you imagine a young kid from a prairie town riding the sports elevator all the way to Paris competition? Clearly Tippett got a taste of the world, some aspirations, and that sports can take you anywhere. Interesting read here;
Dave Tippett – Athlete | Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame
So Dave was a star player, one of the best in his province, in either Soccer or Hockey. Heady days for him even back then.
Dave Went onto be a winner, captain, at basically every level of hockey he played. Off to the NCAA, to play for, and later captain an NCAA championship team. he spent 2 seasons there.
Dave then played as Captain for Canada's National team in the Sarajevo Olympics. With famed Dave King as head coach. According to King, Tippett was "the was the most coachable player he ever worked with". King worked with a tonne of good to great players. The focus being captain of a hard working National team got Tippett attention at NHL draft where he was picked up by the Hartford Whalers. Really a perfect hard working NHL squad for a kid like Tippett to land. Sometimes fortune just falls into place. Two young players on that team, Tippett and Quenneville, would go on in hockey meeting each other and being fraternity forever.
Tippett was never anything close to a star player but he was a player always in the lineup. His first 5 seasons in Hartford he never missed a game. He landed in the NHL and made enough of an impression that he was always in the lineup, never scratched, never hurt, never sent down. He played 454 consecutive games for the Whalers. Talk about hitting the NHL running. Tippett though had the misfortune of playing in the era of the best team in hockey history, the 80's Oilers. Those games generally were not fun for a team like Hartford but in Tippetts inaugural season this infamous game occurred with the famous scoreline Hartford 11 Edmonton 0. This being a scoreline where even the Hartford papers had numerous calls about getting the scoreline wrong, or mixed up. Most callers assumed it must have been Edmonton with the 11 goals..
Whalers Drill Oilers, 11-0, Flood Record Books
"The only positive thing is it can't get any worse" quipped coach Glen Sather. I don't know if Tippett played that game, I don't think so and I believe he was with Canadian National team right then but its symbolic of the team he played for. This is the collective scoreline between Hartford and Edmonton during the Oilers juggernaut, and Dave Tippetts tenure in Hartford;
Primary team Hartford/Carolina: 6-13-2 in these games.
Goals for Hartford/Carolina: 80
Goals against Hartford/Carolina: 90
Note that the overall score margin was close, and most of the games were, and Hartford came out on the winning end as much as anybody could reasonably expect. The vaunted Oilers didn't slaughter the Whalers once in those games. Which the Oilers did to many other teams.
Tippett had his best NHL seasons with the Hartford Whalers, as many players do with the teams that drafted them. He went on to play for Washington, Pittsburgh, Philly, but never having the same sense of team he had around him in Hartford. The Whalers too eventually moved on to become the Carolina Hurricanes. A sad day for me as like I said I loved those former WHA teams and when the Nordiques, Jets, Whalers were all out of the NHL it just seemed wrong.
Anyway, must have been a bit surreal for Tippett to end his playing career in the IHL one season with the Houston Aeros as this was the namesake of the former WHA Houston team that had famously featured Gordie Howe and his Howe sons in one of the most famous father and son travelling acts ever in the annals of hockey. So Dave ends up in Houston, again a hockey backwater, in less illustrious times but goes onto be a star player there in his one season being a near ppg player. Tippett ends up retiring as a hockey player and the org indelibly spots that theres coaching potential in Dave. He spends one season as assistant coach and then is immediately promoted to head coach and his team wins the IHL championship within 4 seasons. Tippett takes a ragtag bunch that was out of playoffs his first season and turns them into a league champion.
(cont. please see part 2 of the Tippett story below in this thread)
I go back along ways with Tippett, with the Hartford Whalers. I'm an ex WHA fan still fascinated with that league all these decades later so I followed every bit of what was going on with the Edmonton Oilers, Hartford Whalers, Quebec Nordiques and the former Winnipeg Jets. Tippett was part of a lunch bucket no nonsense crew that played the game right and yielded several coaches and solid 200ft players.
This is Tippett with the Whalers rocking the stache;
Leadership material even back then. Tippett as a player exemplified his mantra as a coach. I guy with meager talent by NHL standards that got by on hard work, perseverence, doing anything asked, and mucking about. Team mates were guys like Ron Francis, Joel Quenneville, Kevin Dineen, Ray Ferraro, Dave Babych, Mike Liut. Chances are if you weren't playing hockey the right way you'd be hearing about it in the room. That Hartford Whalers teams was viewed as a hockey coach learning ground. This is a good read on that team being an NHL coach assembly line;
Hartford Whalers' impact still felt in coaching circles
Hartford was regarded as an NHL small town, a backwater, and some of the players commented on that. There being not much to do. This wouldn't have been the case for Dave Tippett, hailing from Moosomin Saskatchewan. Hartford would have seemed like NY. This is Moosomin
The tallest building in town would be a grain elevator;
Like many boys that end up going places Dave had an older brother, Brad Tippett, who was a sports standout in Moosomin, they even look alike and unmistakable. Brad did well in hockey and Soccer and rode hockey all the way to the AHL, but never got into the big show. Brad also turned into a hockey coach in the WHL. Like the dynamic with many boys the older boy taught the younger boy so well that the younger boy went farther.. Brad would have to have been a big role model for Dave all those years growing up.
Brad Tippett – Athlete | Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame
So standard prairie town stuff. For a kid growing up in Saskatchewan it means sports was king. You grew up playing hockey or football or both and those towns are factories for players. Tippett was no exception, but interestingly his early success was in Soccer, and he was a star player going all the way to a Soccer World skills competition in Paris France. could you imagine a young kid from a prairie town riding the sports elevator all the way to Paris competition? Clearly Tippett got a taste of the world, some aspirations, and that sports can take you anywhere. Interesting read here;
Dave Tippett – Athlete | Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame
So Dave was a star player, one of the best in his province, in either Soccer or Hockey. Heady days for him even back then.
Dave Went onto be a winner, captain, at basically every level of hockey he played. Off to the NCAA, to play for, and later captain an NCAA championship team. he spent 2 seasons there.
Dave then played as Captain for Canada's National team in the Sarajevo Olympics. With famed Dave King as head coach. According to King, Tippett was "the was the most coachable player he ever worked with". King worked with a tonne of good to great players. The focus being captain of a hard working National team got Tippett attention at NHL draft where he was picked up by the Hartford Whalers. Really a perfect hard working NHL squad for a kid like Tippett to land. Sometimes fortune just falls into place. Two young players on that team, Tippett and Quenneville, would go on in hockey meeting each other and being fraternity forever.
Tippett was never anything close to a star player but he was a player always in the lineup. His first 5 seasons in Hartford he never missed a game. He landed in the NHL and made enough of an impression that he was always in the lineup, never scratched, never hurt, never sent down. He played 454 consecutive games for the Whalers. Talk about hitting the NHL running. Tippett though had the misfortune of playing in the era of the best team in hockey history, the 80's Oilers. Those games generally were not fun for a team like Hartford but in Tippetts inaugural season this infamous game occurred with the famous scoreline Hartford 11 Edmonton 0. This being a scoreline where even the Hartford papers had numerous calls about getting the scoreline wrong, or mixed up. Most callers assumed it must have been Edmonton with the 11 goals..
Whalers Drill Oilers, 11-0, Flood Record Books
"The only positive thing is it can't get any worse" quipped coach Glen Sather. I don't know if Tippett played that game, I don't think so and I believe he was with Canadian National team right then but its symbolic of the team he played for. This is the collective scoreline between Hartford and Edmonton during the Oilers juggernaut, and Dave Tippetts tenure in Hartford;
Primary team Hartford/Carolina: 6-13-2 in these games.
Goals for Hartford/Carolina: 80
Goals against Hartford/Carolina: 90
Note that the overall score margin was close, and most of the games were, and Hartford came out on the winning end as much as anybody could reasonably expect. The vaunted Oilers didn't slaughter the Whalers once in those games. Which the Oilers did to many other teams.
Tippett had his best NHL seasons with the Hartford Whalers, as many players do with the teams that drafted them. He went on to play for Washington, Pittsburgh, Philly, but never having the same sense of team he had around him in Hartford. The Whalers too eventually moved on to become the Carolina Hurricanes. A sad day for me as like I said I loved those former WHA teams and when the Nordiques, Jets, Whalers were all out of the NHL it just seemed wrong.
Anyway, must have been a bit surreal for Tippett to end his playing career in the IHL one season with the Houston Aeros as this was the namesake of the former WHA Houston team that had famously featured Gordie Howe and his Howe sons in one of the most famous father and son travelling acts ever in the annals of hockey. So Dave ends up in Houston, again a hockey backwater, in less illustrious times but goes onto be a star player there in his one season being a near ppg player. Tippett ends up retiring as a hockey player and the org indelibly spots that theres coaching potential in Dave. He spends one season as assistant coach and then is immediately promoted to head coach and his team wins the IHL championship within 4 seasons. Tippett takes a ragtag bunch that was out of playoffs his first season and turns them into a league champion.
(cont. please see part 2 of the Tippett story below in this thread)
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