On This Day In Canucks History: November 13

by Yankee Canuck on Nov 13, 2009 1:36 PM PST in Canucks History Comment 7 comments

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!! [THN]

November 13, 1997: Days after GM Pat Quinn was fired, Head Coach Tom Renney and Assistant Coach Terry Bangen are both fired. Mike Keenan is hired to replace Renney, becoming the 14th Canucks coach in history.

In 101 games coached, Renney lead the Canucks to a 39-53-9 record, missing the playoffs in his only full season. That team had a good deal of promise - Mogilny lead in goals, Gelinas, Bure and Mike Ridley weren't far behind in points - but couldn't make it work on the ice. Renney would resume his coaching career with the Rangers in 2003 and had far better success until he was relieved of his position this past summer. He's now an assistant coach (and Pat Quinn the head coach) with the Oilers.

Terry Bangen, as best I can tell, is currently the Director of Player Personnel and Assistant GM with the Tri-City Americans of the WHL.

Iron Mike didn't fare much better. In his season and a half with Vancouver, he coached 108 games and ended up with a 36-54-18 record. His GM record is hit or miss, but as his first act as head of a five head GM consortium (along with Steve Tambelini, Mike Penny, Steve Bellringer and Stan McCammon) they moved Kirk McLean and Martin Gelinas to Carolina for Geoff Sanderson, Sean Burke and Enrico Ciccone. Fun fact: all three players Vancouver received would be gone by the trading deadline that same season.

After being shown the door, Keenan would later land in Boston and fail for a season, move to Florida and fail for three more (and traded a certain goalie for a certain Vancouver winger) and finally ended up in Calgary where he did better, but still failed. These days he - like pal Mark Messier - can be seen hanging around MSG clinging to his last vestiges of relevancy.

You can't ask for a much better Friday the 13th moment than that.

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I always hated that he got rid of a heart and soul guy like Gelinas, but McLean was turning into a suck by then.

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by Sean Zandberg on Nov 13, 2009 1:40 PM PST reply actions

Gelinas wasn’t much better that time either was he?

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by Yankee Canuck on Nov 13, 2009 1:43 PM PST up reply actions

Judging by his career stats, he had a 35 goal season the year before and 30 goal season the year before that. In 1997-98 he only played in 24 games and had 8 points. I forget what the serious injury was.

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by Sean Zandberg on Nov 13, 2009 1:48 PM PST reply actions

Keenan

Seems like one of those guys you bring in to be a hardass. He always trades the fan favorites wherever he goes, and then tends to get fired for it not too long after. I guess if you hire Keenan, you have someone waiting in the wings for the long term but you don’t want them tainted by the trades.

by WebBard on Nov 13, 2009 2:42 PM PST reply actions

Yeah that’s why I said his record as a GM was hit and miss. The Linden deal is a prime example: most fans hated it and yet it was a slam dunk in the long run.

And another footnote from that time, courtesy of Canucks Central:

Gino Odjick soon joined Linden on Long Island, being swapped for D Jason Strudwick on March 23. Interestingly, the two teams met the next night and, while it was Linden’s name on the marquee, Odjick stole the headlines by getting into a scrap on his first shift . . . with Strudwick.

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by Yankee Canuck on Nov 13, 2009 3:03 PM PST up reply actions

They did have to bring in a hardass. Tom Renney acted like a passive hippy and it was fucking annoying. After every loss he’d preach this buddhism-type shit to the media. He was in over his head.

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by Sean Zandberg on Nov 13, 2009 3:35 PM PST reply actions

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