Hall doors swing open for Hay

From The Daily News of Wednedsay, Jan. 9, 2008 . . .

When Don Hay got into the coaching game, the B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame was the furthest thing from his mind.
But it will be the only thing on his mind July 25 when he is inducted into the Penticton-based hall.
“It’s quite an honour,” Hay, the Kamloops native who is in his fourth season as head coach of the WHL’s Vancouver Giants, said Tuesday evening. “When Hitch asked me to help I said I’d try it for one year and it’s turned into 22 years.”
Hay was a Kamloops fire fighter when Kamloops Blazers head coach Ken Hitchcock asked him to join his coaching staff.
Eventually, Hay took over as the Blazers’ head coach and guided them to back-to-back Memorial Cups in 1994 and 1995. He won his first Memorial Cup as an assistant with the Blazers in 1992 and won another last season with the Giants.
In fact, he and former Blazers forward Ryan Huska are the only two people to have won four Memorial Cups. Huska, now the head coach in Kelowna, won three with the Blazers and one as an assistant coach with the Rockets.
Hay also has coached in the NHL, with the Phoenix Coyotes, Calgary Flames and Anaheim Ducks. And he was head coach of Team Canada as it won the 1995 World Junior Championship.
“This was kind of unexpected,” said Hay, as he prepared to board the Giants’ bus for a 20-hour trip to Regina and the start of an East Division swing. “I’m really excited. It’s something to be very proud of. I’ve got a lot of people who helped me along the way so it’s a real credit to them.
“I don’t think you ever think about getting an award like this. It’s about coaching and teaching and it’s just year to year. That’s why this really surprised me.”
Also in this induction class are former NHL star Steve Yzerman, who was born in Cranbrook and lived in Kamloops for a couple of years as a youngster; former WHL star Cliff Ronning; hockey administrator Allan Matthews of Kimberley; and, Penticton native Larry Lund, who played in the professional Western Hockey League and the World Hockey Association and is a founder of the Okanagan Hockey School.
Tom Renney, a former Blazers head coach who now is head coach of the NHL’s New York Rangers, and former Blazers defenceman Doug Bodger were among the 2007 inductees into the B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame.
gdrinnan@kamloopsnews.ca