Iron Mike

The must-read autobiography of one of the NHL''s most controversial and successful coaches, winner of the 1994 Stanley Cup with the New York Rangers. In the fraternity of NHL coaches, some stand out for their winning records, some for their big personalities and some for their unprecedented methods. Mike Keenan stands out on all counts, and more. ;;;;Breaking into the NHL as head coach of the Philadephia Flyers in 1984, Keenan got instant results. The Flyers hadn''t won a playoff round in three seasons; he led them to the Cup Final in his first year. In 1987, he coached a fractious Team Canada to victory in the Canada Cup using a strategy few of his peers had to master: if your team doesn''t get along, give them somebody to hate, together. Keenan instilled unity in his teams by making sure they all wanted to show him up. The wins took care of themselves. ;;;;Keenan''s teams won at every level. With championships in the OHL and AHL, it seemed only a matter of time before his resume would include the ultimate prize, and in typical Mike Keenan fashion he would win it on the grandest of stages. The NHL''s most valuable franchise, the New York Rangers, hadn''t won a Cup in 54 years. At the time, it was the league''s longest championship drought. But with five-time Stanley Cup champion Mark Messier now captain of a star-studded Rangers lineup, there was only one thing missing for a championship run on Broadway: a coach who could focus all the talent and desire on victory. After a season of controversy and clashing egos, many of them involving the team''s bedevilling new coach, in 1994 the Stanley Cup finally returned to Madison Square Garden, considered by many to be the greatest Cup win by a US-based NHL team. ; ; In the hands of veteran journalist and bestselling author Scott Morrison, <Iron Mike< takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most;explosive runs to the Cup in NHL history, one that has never been told like Keenan at long last shares in this book. Fans also get their long-awaited chance to understand what one of hockey''s greatest and most confounding coaches was up to. There is only one Iron Mike in hockey, and love him or hate him, his memoir is a must-read for any fan of the game....

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Mike Keenan and Scott Morrison

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**AN INSTANT NATIONAL BESTSELLER

The must-read memoir of one of the NHL's most controversial and successful coaches—winner of the 1994 Stanley Cup with the New York Rangers.

In the fraternity of NHL coaches, some stand out for their winning records, some for their big personalities and some for their unprecedented methods. Mike Keenan stands out on all these counts, and more.
Breaking into the NHL as head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers in 1984, Keenan got instant results, leading them to the Stanley Cup final in his first year. In 1987, he coached Team Canada to victory in the Canada Cup using his intuitive bench management, putting superstars Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux together on a line at key times to great, winning results.
Keenan’s teams succeeded at every level. With championships in university athletics, the OHL and AHL, it seemed only a matter of time before his resumé would include the ultimate prize. One of the NHL’s most valuable franchises, the New York Rangers, hadn’t won a Cup in fifty-four years—the league’s longest championship drought at the time. But with five-time Stanley Cup champion Mark Messier as captain of the star-studded Rangers lineup, there was only one thing missing for a championship run on Broadway: a coach who could focus all the talent and desire on victory. After a season of much controversy, in 1994 the Stanley Cup finally returned to Madison Square Garden, considered by many to be one of the greatest Cup wins by a US-based NHL team.
In the hands of veteran sports journalist and bestselling author Scott Morrison, Iron Mike takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most explosive runs to the Cup in NHL history, one that Keenan shares at long last. There is only one Iron Mike in hockey, and love him or hate him, his memoir is an essential read for any fan of the game.

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Chapter 1. I Really Am a Bastard: Family and Hockey
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I really am a bastard. There, I said it. Over my six decades as a coach and general manager, in a variety of leagues, from high school to junior to the pros, in several countries and continents, players have referred to me in many different languages, using many different terms, most of them not terribly flattering. And, no doubt, I deserved most of them. But it was my good friend, Jay Greenberg, who summed it up best.
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Jay, for those not familiar, was the hockey beat writer for the Daily News in Philadelphia when I got my first job as a head coach in the National Hockey League, with the Flyers in 1984. He was a great guy and great writer, with a quick wit, and he was honoured by the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2013. Jay was originally going to write this book with me, but he passed away at the age of 71 on August 12, 2021, of complications from, of all things, West Nile virus. So very tragic and sad.
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Jay once said to me that of all those names the players had muttered and sometimes screamed, “One is correct by dictionary definition.”
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Jay was right. I was born out of wedlock on October 21, 1949. Yes, I was a bastard. Still am. Of course, for many of those play­ers, I was also a bastard of a coach. But more about that later.
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I was born in Bowmanville, Ontario, to Thelma Chatterton, who was 19 at the time and previously married, and Ted Keenan. Bowmanville is about a one-hour drive east of Toronto. And it was a stone’s throw from Oshawa, where my parents had lived until the pregnancy, which was not a proud moment for a very Catholic family! Anyway, after I came along they moved back to Oshawa, and over time along came my sister Marie, two years younger, then brother Patrick and sister Catherine. All my sib­lings came after Thelma and Ted got married.
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Dad, like so many in Oshawa and like most of his family, including two uncles and my grandfather George, worked at the General Motors plant. Once Catherine started school, my mom worked in the men’s department at Eaton’s, a famous department store that is no longer around. Because our family didn’t have a lot of money, it helped that Mom was able to get us clothes at a discount.
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Sadly, when I was four, Patrick passed away. He was born prematurely, and at just two months old he died from complica­tions from pneumonia. I was too young to really comprehend the tragedy, but I do remember when the police officer came to our home to tell my parents about Patrick’s death (he was in hospital and we didn’t have a phone). My mom was, understandably, crushed and hysterical. My dad, too. I remember at the funeral kneeling beside my father in front of Patrick’s casket. Even at that young age, it’s something you don’t forget. I’m sure that tragedy somehow pulled my sisters and me together. We got along well growing up and still do.
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The year Patrick passed, my dad took me skating for the first time, outside of course. I fell in love with hockey at that early age, playing day after winter day on a frozen patch of Lake Ontario, which was only a few miles from our apartment. Because our family had limited means (we ate a lot of hot dogs or ketchup sandwiches for lunch), my grandmother, Helen Chatterton, bought me my first pair of skates. For a long time, we didn’t have a television, so I would watch Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday nights at her home. She was a special woman, very street-smart, a huge influen…