Like any Western Hockey League athlete, Doug Quinn’s goal was to play in the NHL.
The Red Deer minor hockey product appeared to be headed in that direction when he was selected by the Vancouver Canucks in the 1983 NHL draft. But a year later, those plans were pretty much scuttled through no fault of his own.
“I wanted to play pro hockey as a career, but I was in a real bad car accident when I was 19,” said Quinn, the wildly successful head coach of the Red Deer Optimist Rebels midget AAA team.
The automobile crash left the New Westminster Bruins defenceman with a broken femur and broken bones in his lower back.
“As a result I missed a good part of that season,” he reminisced this week. “Vancouver released me and in a round-about way, it might have been a blessing in disguise. I went on to play at the University of Calgary and ended up going into the family business.”
After securing his BA in economics with a management minor at the U of C, Quinn returned home to work for Quinn Pumps, founded by his father Jim. When his father retired in 1996, Quinn took over as the company’s CEO and president and helped build the company into a major player in the oilfield business.
While he never realized his dream of collecting an NHL paycheque, Quinn’s playing career wasn’t void of success. He was a standout rearguard with the U of C Dinosaurs and played two games with the Canadian national team during the 1989-90 season.
“That was one of the highlights of my career, especially the one game we played against a touring team from Russia, which had played the Calgary Flames about three days before,” he remembered. “I watched them skate that morning and I thought ‘Just don’t get embarrassed tonight.’ As it turned out, we ended up beating them in overtime so that was kind of an exciting time for me.”
These are also exciting times for Quinn, whose team is chasing a third provincial title in as many seasons with the 46-year-old at the helm.
A captain of the Red Deer midget AAA club — the Optimist Chiefs — in the early 1980s, Quinn’s journey back to an association with the team started in 2002 when he ventured into coaching as an assistant with the North Star Chiefs of the newly-formed Southern Alberta elite 15-year-old loop.
“Rob Hamill and I were helping (head coach) Peter Anholt, who had taken over the team halfway through the season,” said Quinn. “We were there about three weeks when Peter got the (head coaching) job in Prince Albert (with the WHL Raiders), so the North Star team didn’t have a head coach. I had basically no experience and Rob had coached the year before so he was the head coach and I was the assistant.”
Quinn still had the coaching itch the following season and took over as the North Star bench boss when Hamill was too busy with his Dairy Queen business to assume the post. Dave Leonard came on board as an assistant and the duo worked wonders.
“I had run only one practice myself and Dave didn’t have a bunch of experience and we ended up winning the championship that year,” said Quinn.
Quinn continued to coach at the 15-year-old level for another two years — winning another championship along the way — and then moved down to coach his son Jordy at the atom and peewee levels.
When the Red Deer Minor Hockey Association was seeking a head coach for the midget AAA Optimist Rebels in 2009, Quinn’s interest was piqued.
“When the opportunity to coach this team came up, I jumped at it,” he said. “And coaching at this level is probably the most fun I’ve had.”
Quinn guided the Optimist Rebels to the Alberta and Pacific Region (Alberta-B.C.) crowns in the spring of 2010 and a berth in the Telus Cup — the national championship tournament. Last year, the Rebels again won the provincial title but fell to the host Vancouver Northwest Giants in the Pacific Region final.
His success as the Optimist Rebels bench boss speaks for itself, yet Quinn deflects the credit.
“I think a lot of it, and I do this in business too, is that I surround myself with quality individuals,” said the head man, whose coaching staff consists of Hamill, Dion Zukiwsky, Al Parada and Peter Friestadt.
“It’s difficult for these guys to be here on a full-time basis because they have their own jobs and businesses, but they manage and they’re all quality people. We work well together and they certainly provide a lot of insight into the game. By having a good group of people around you, it’s easier to have some overall longtime success. I have worked with Rob almost from Day One and have also worked very closely with Al and Peter. Dion has come on board the last two years and it’s been a really good group.”
Red Deer Minor Hockey Association manager Dallas Gaume said Quinn’s track record as a coach is the result of his ability to soak up knowledge as well as his dogged work ethic and attention to detail.
“Doug was a very accomplished player, an all-star, in university hockey and he was exposed to some very good coaches at that level — guys like Mike Johnson and George Kingston — and I think he learned a lot,” said Gaume.
“Combine his playing experience and the fact he’s a student of the game with the work ethic and detail that he puts into everything from his practices to his game plans to how he communicates with the kids . . . that makes for a pretty good recipe for success. Doug puts a lot of effort into the position and spends a lot of time thinking about it. He runs a real good practice. He’s demanding, yet he’s fair and the kids like playing for him.”
Optimist Rebels captain Brady Bakke is a big fan of his coach.
“He’s a coach who knows when to push and when to back off,” said Bakke. “He’s a players’ coach almost. He gets to know you on a personal level and then he brings out the best in you.
“He’s shown me stuff that some coaches would have never thought to show me. He’s a guy who can really think the game and he’s really smart with what he does. He’s elevated my game to a whole new level after playing under him for two years.”
Quinn insisted that he does not adhere to a mystical or obscure coaching style. He simply asks that the players perform to their maximum abilities.
“I just want the kids to work hard for me,” he said. “That’s what I’ve always looked for. I want them to have positive attitudes. If they do those things for me, then I’m going to go out of my way to support and to teach them how to play this game, to support them in their personal lives. It’s amazing the kind of connections you can develop with the players over the years.
“I’m demanding as far as what I expect . . . every time you come out I want you to be better. It’s kind of a philosophy that I’ve even used in business. You can’t expect people to be perfect, you just want them to be better, to try their hardest. I know it’s a pretty simplistic view of things, but really, I just think that if you put effort into what you do, in the long term you’re going to have success.”
Quinn is certain he’ll be back in the same role next season.
“I think I’m going to do one more year,” he said. “I enjoy coaching this age group and the quality of players who will move up next season is very good. The coaches of both 15-year-old teams are friends of mine so I certainly have a good feel for the type of player who is coming up.”
Would he be interested in taking his coaching skills to the junior A ranks or even to the WHL in the future?
“I’ve never really thought about that,” said Quinn. “Certainly I’ve been very involved in business over the years and that’s taken up a lot of my time. I don’t know. I’ll never say never because I certainly enjoy coaching. Who knows, maybe down the road I may look for other challenges.”
Quinn, whose daughters Maddi, 18, and Mackenzie, 20, are volleyball players at Notre Dame high school and Red Deer College, sold Quinn Pumps Canada to a Texas-based company in December but is still involved in the day-to-day operation of the business.
“I’m a person who always needs to be doing something,” he said. “I need to stay active and I’ve always thought that as individuals we should always be learning and growing. Long -term, I’m definitely going to jump back into business and maybe I’ll build something else.”
Born and raised in Red Deer, Quinn appreciates everything about the city and has been generous with his financial support of various charities as well as Red Deer College and the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre, for starters.
“This community has provided myself and my family with a lot of success and a great place to live,” he said. “I just feel that there’s a responsibility for everybody to give back, whether it’s through volunteering their time or in other ways.”
Quinn has not only repaid the community financially, but through coaching a midget AAA hockey team with which he played so many years ago.
“My coach back then was Dave Manning and today he’s my lawyer, he’s my friend and my mentor,” said Quinn. “It’s kind of interesting how things work out.”
gmeachem@www.reddeeradvocate.com