The highest-paid coach in the NHL will be back on a staff next season, but not at the professional level. Mike Babcock has taken a volunteer position as an “advisor” with the University of Vermont’s coaching staff. Babcock joins head coach Todd Woodcroft and assistants Jeff Hill and former NHL defenseman Mark Stuart.
Babcock will not be paid by Vermont, but still receives his salary from the Toronto Maple Leafs after he was fired as head coach earlier this season. The veteran coach is still under contract through the 2022-23 season, though a new position in the NHL could take over part of that deal or buy it out completely.
For now, he’ll be helping shepherd the young men coming through the college level. Babcock does have experience with student-athletes from his days as head coach of the University of Lethbridge in 1993-94.
The Vermont release terms Babcock’s role as “a resource for the coaching staff, lending his experience and perspective as one of the top hockey minds in the world.” He has previous experience with Woodcroft form their time together with Team Canada in 2004, when they won a gold medal as part of the coaching staff at the IIHF World Championship. At that tournament, however, Babcock was the head coach and Woodcroft just a video coach–things will be different this time around.
The perfect tutor to mentor the young kids. I wonder if he’ll ask the rookies who they think works the least hard and then out them to the team?
@manos – Episode 2 of “Babs & The Babsox, The Adventure Continues” He’ll get invited back to OverDrive, then as soon as he says he has the dirt on somebody, the boys on the control board will magically hit the mute button again. “Hello…Hello…Hello?” ;)
Let the old ways of coaching die, kill them if you have to.
@The Mistake – Yeah, but you still have to make it look like an “accident”… ;) Hey, here’s a novel thought: Old-ways-bad-ways coaches need their own version of Robidas Island.
The rehabilitation of Babcock begins.