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Inducted
into the Hall of Fame in 2007. Though born in
Canada, Mike Urquhart has been a loyal servant of the British
game as a player, coach or manager at club and national level for over
two decades. Since his career in the
UK began in 1983-84 as a defenceman with Nottingham Panthers, he
has worked to establish the game in
Chelmsford, Livingston and Guildford
. Earlier this season he was head
coach of the GB under-20 team that finished at its highest ever level in the
World Junior Championships. He
is currently working with junior players as the head coach of
Nottingham’s National Ice Centre. Mike was born in
Toronto on 9 April 1958
and played junior hockey in the WHL for Kamloops Chiefs. Among his team-mates was future NHLer Rocky Saganiuk who also later
played in this country. After four seasons with Nottingham
Panthers, during which he was successively team captain and
player-coach, he moved to the Oxford City Stars, where he met his future
wife, Laura, who was playing for the men’s B team. But on the ice, things didn’t
work out so he jumped at the chance to join the new Cardiff Devils where
he scored 50 points and helped them win the league title. The following season, 1987-88, he
was appointed assistant rink manager of the newly opened rink in
Chelmsford. His duties
included coaching the senior Chieftains and setting up a junior player
system. He put together a talented team, including Canadian Robin
Andrew and Brit Phil Adams, which finished as league runners-up while he
was the team’s top scorer. The Chieftains won the Autumn Trophy in
season 1990-91. Urquhart spent four seasons with
the Tribe, recording 119 goals and 255 points, good enough for tenth
place on the team’s all-time scoring list.
He won a club record 164 games as coach. Always ready for another
challenge, Mike accepted the opportunity to revive the fortunes of
flagging Scottish side, Livingston Kings, in season 1991-92. He
duly led the former last placed team to the Scottish League title. He returned south the following
season when Barry Dow, the owner of the newly formed Guildford Flames,
asked him to organise ice hockey at the Spectrum ice rink.
The late opening of the rink caused some difficulties for the new
team and its coach, but the Flames lost only six games on their way to
winning the English League’s B conference. After spells with Bracknell Bees
and Milton Keynes Kings - he iced in over 40 Kings’ games and was
voted the Most Sportsmanlike Player - Mike hung up his skates at the end
of the 1995-96 season to concentrate on coaching. Internationally, Mike has become a
highly respected coach. His
interest in the women’s game - encouraged by Laura, a long-time GB
women’s forward - began when he was at
Chelmsford. He persuaded
the rink to host the first women’s international staged in this
country when GB played the Netherlands
in March 1989. With our junior men’s teams, he
has been on the bench at four World Championships, twice as head coach
of the under-18s ( Britain topped their group in 2004), and twice with
the under-20s, culminating with this season’s unprecedented success in
Italy . Life has now turned full circle for Urquhart as he has returned to his first club at Nottingham. His junior organisation was recognised in 2005 with an award by the English Ice Hockey Association as the best run junior set-up in the region.
Compiled with research, provided April 2007. |
