Wings' Babcock in famous McGill footsteps

If the Red Wings win the Stanley Cup this season, he will join Jean Perron and Mike Keenan as coaches who have won both the University Cup and the Stanley Cup.

Perron was the first coach to accomplish the feat, winning the University Cup as head coach of the University of Moncton in 1980-81 and 1981-82. Perron later captured the Stanley Cup in his first NHL season as coach of the Montreal Canadiens in 1985-86.

Keenan won the 1984 CIS title with the University of Toronto Varsity Blues at Trois-Rivieres, Que. The previous year, Keenan won the AHL championship, guiding Rochester to the Calder Trophy title. After his back-to-back titles, Keenan joined the NHL coaching ranks with Philadelphia in 1984-85 and later won the Stanley Cup with the Rangers in 1994.

Babcock, the third McGill Redmen player to coach an NHL team (Lester Patrick guided the N.Y. Rangers; George Burnett served in Edmonton), was a two-time all-star rearguard at McGill from 1983-84 to 1986-87, where he also served as team captain and won the Bobby Bell trophy as team MVP. He graduated in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in physical education and also did some post-graduate work in sports psychology. He played 146 career games with the Redmen and tallied 107 points with 301 penalty minutes, graduating as the second-highest scoring rearguard in school history.

Babcock has had a distinguished coaching career and entered the 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs with a lifetime 656-470-114 regular season coaching record, including a 231-132-47 mark in five NHL seasons. He also guided Team Canada to gold medals at the 1997 world junior championships in Geneva and the 2004 IIHF world hockey championships in Prague.

Detroit marks the seventh coaching stint for the nomadic Babcock, a 45-year-old native of Saskatoon, Sask., who was born in Manitouwadge, Ont., and has lived in six Canadian provinces and four states in the U.S.A.

He began his coaching career in England in 1987 as a player-coach for Whitley Warriors, them moved on to coaching stints with Red Deer College (1988-91), the Moose Jaw Warriors (1991-93), University of Lethbridge Pronghorns (1993-94), Spokane Chiefs (1994-2000), Cincinnati Mighty Ducks (2000-02) and the Anaheim Mighty Ducks (2002-05) before joining the Red Wings.