By The Associated Press’s Jimmy Golen
Boston (AP) In the final season before the teams were merged into the NHL, Tom McVie led the Winnipeg Jets to victory over Wayne Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers in the 1979 WHA championship. McVie passed away. He was eighty-nine.
Additionally, McVie was the first NHL coach of the Jets and the second for the Devils after they relocated from Colorado in 1982. Additionally, he was the coach of the Washington Capitals, who finished the eight seasons from 1975 to 1992 with a 126-263 total NHL record that included 73 ties.
The product of Trail, British Columbia, became an assistant coach for the Bruins in 1992 and was named a team ambassador on the Stanley Cup after the team won the 2011 title.
According to Boston president Cam Neely, whose playing career coincided with McVie’s coaching tenure, Tom was an integral member of our Bruins family, having worked for more than 30 years as a coach, scout, and ambassador. He would be sorely missed because of his amazing intellect, vibrant personality, rough voice, and unparalleled sense of humor, which brightened any space he walked into.
When he took over for Hall of Famer Milt Schmidt in Washington on New Year’s Eve in 1975, McVie made his NHL head coaching debut. However, he never advanced past fourth place until joining the WHA. He won the 1979 Avco World Trophy and took over the Jets, who had a 40-year-old Bobby Hull on their squad.
As the coach of the final club to ever win the Avco Cup in the World Hockey Association and the first coach in the team’s National Hockey League history back in 1979, Coach McVie was a significant figure in Winnipeg’s pro hockey history, the Jets wrote on X on Monday.
As the team moved from the WHA to the NHL, Tom’s character, voice, and game knowledge went beyond his title and his stay in our community. His storytelling skills only contributed to the hockey club’s arrival on the big stage mythology. We would like to offer Coach McVie’s numerous friends and loved ones our sincerest sympathies.
When McVie joined the Bruins organization in 1992, he told the Boston Globe that he was proud to be a hockey lifer.
“I’d probably be driving the Zamboni if I wasn’t coaching hockey,” he remarked.
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