
Winnipeg Jets alumni coach Tom McVie picks Teemu Selanne to take the penalty shot as Ab McDonald listens, against the Edmonton Oilers during the first period of the NHL Heritage Classic alumni game in 2016. McVie, a former coach of the original Maine Mariners, has died. He was 89. John Woods/The Canadian Press via AP
BOSTON — Tom McVie, who coached the Winnipeg Jets to the 1979 World Hockey Association championship over Wayne Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers in the final year before the franchises were absorbed into the NHL, has died. He was 89.
McVie coached the original Maine Mariners from 1982-1987. His stint with the Mariners was interrupted during the 1983-84 season when he replaced Billy McMillan as coach of the New Jersey Devils, the Mariners’ parent club. Maine won the Calder Cup championship that year.
McVie was also the Jets’ first coach in the NHL and the Devils’ second after they moved from Colorado in 1982. He also coached the Washington Capitals, compiling an overall NHL record of 126-263 with 73 ties in parts of eight seasons from 1975-92.
The Trail, British Columbia, native joined the Bruins as an assistant coach in 1992 and got his name on the Stanley Cup as a team ambassador when it won the 2011 championship.
“Tom was a huge part of our Bruins family, having served as coach, scout and ambassador for more than 30 years,” said Boston president Cam Neely, whose playing career overlapped with McVie’s coaching tenure. “His hockey mind, colorful personality, gruff voice, and unmatched sense of humor livened up every room he entered, and he will be dearly missed.”
McVie made his NHL head coaching debut when he succeeded Hall of Famer Milt Schmidt in Washington on New Year’s Eve in 1975, but he never finished higher than fourth before heading to the WHA. He took over the Jets, whose roster included a 40-year-old Bobby Hull, and won the 1979 Avco World Trophy.
“Coach McVie was an historical figure in Winnipeg’s pro hockey history as the coach of the last team to ever win the Avco Cup in the World Hockey Association, as well as the first coach in the team’s National Hockey League history back in 1979,” the Jets posted on X on Monday.
“Tom’s personality, voice and knowledge of the game transcended his title and time in our city as the team made the transition from the WHA to the NHL. His ability to tell a story only added to the legend of the hockey club’s arrival on the big stage. We’d like to extend our deepest condolences to the many friends and loved ones of Coach McVie.”
McVie told the Boston Globe after joining the Bruins’ organization in 1992 that he was proud to be a hockey lifer.
“If I wasn’t coaching hockey,” he said, “then I’d probably be driving the Zamboni.”
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