| Herb Brooks | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hockey Hall of Fame, 2006 (Builder) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Brooks with theNew York Rangers in 1983 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | (1937-08-05)August 5, 1937 Saint Paul,Minnesota, U.S. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Died | August 11, 2003(2003-08-11) (aged 66) nearForest Lake,Minnesota, U.S. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Coaching career | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Biographical details | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | University of Minnesota | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Playing career | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1955–1959 | Minnesota | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1970–1971 | Minnesota (assistant) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1971–1972 | Minnesota Junior Stars | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1972–1979 | Minnesota | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1980 | US Olympic Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1980–1981 | HC Davos | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1981–1985 | New York Rangers | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1986–1987 | St. Cloud State | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1987–1988 | Minnesota North Stars | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1991–1992 | Utica Devils | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1992–1993 | New Jersey Devils | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1995–2002 | Pittsburgh Penguins (scout) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1998 | France Olympic Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1999–2000 | Pittsburgh Penguins | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2002 | US Olympic Team | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2002–2003 | Pittsburgh Penguins (Dir. of Player Development) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Head coaching record | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Overall | 192–107–19 (.634) (NCAA) 219–222–66 (.497) (NHL) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tournaments | 8–1 (.889) | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Accomplishments and honors | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Championships | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1974Big Ten Champion 1974WCHATournament Champion 1974NCAANational Champion 1975 Big Ten Champion 1975 WCHARegular Season Champion 1975 WCHA Tournament Champion 1976 WCHA Tournament Champion 1976 NCAA National Champion 1979 Big Ten Champion 1979 WCHA Tournament Champion 1979 NCAA National Champion 1987NCHA Regular Season Champion | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Awards | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1974WCHACoach of the Year | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Herbert Paul Brooks (August 5, 1937 – August 11, 2003) was an Americanice hockey player andcoach. His most notable achievement came in1980 as head coach of the gold medal-winningU.S. Olympic team atLake Placid. At the Games, Brooks'American team upset the heavily favoredSoviet team in a match that came to be known as the "Miracle on Ice".
Brooks also coached multipleNational Hockey League (NHL) teams, as well as theFrench team at the1998 Winter Olympics. He ultimately returned to coach the U.S. men's team to a silver medal at the2002 Winter Olympics inSalt Lake City. When Brooks died in a car accident in 2003, he was the director of player personnel for thePittsburgh Penguins.
Brooks was inducted into theUnited States Hockey Hall of Fame in 1990 and theIIHF Hall of Fame in 1999. He was honored posthumously with theWayne Gretzky International Award in 2004 and inducted into theHockey Hall of Fame in 2006.
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Brooks was born inSaint Paul, Minnesota, to Pauline and Herbert David Brooks. He attendedJohnson High School, where his team won the1955 state ice hockey championship.[1]
Brooks continued his ice hockey career with theUniversity of Minnesota Gophers from 1955 to 1959.[2] He was a member of the1960 Olympic team, only to become the last cut the week before the Games started. Three weeks later, Brooks sat at home with his father and watched the team he almost made win gold inSquaw Valley. Afterwards, Brooks went up to the coach,Jack Riley, and said, "Well, you must have made the right decision—you won". This humbling moment served as further motivation for Brooks, an already self-driven person.[3]
From 1960 to 1970, Brooks set a record by playing for the U.S. national team eight times, including the1964 and1968 Olympic teams.[4] While playing for theRochester Mustangs in theUnited States Hockey League in the 1961–62 season, he formed part of the highest-scoringforward line in USHL history at the time, along withBill Reichart andKen Johannson.[5]
After retiring as a player, Brooks first tried his hand at selling insurance.Lou Nanne, who played with Brooks on the 1968 team for the United States, helped recruit Brooks to become a coach. He was brought on to coach the freshmen at his alma mater, theMinnesota Golden Gophers in 1970. He coached the Minnesota Junior Stars from 1971 to 1972.[6] Brooks was hired as head coach of Minnesota in 1972. He would lead them to threeNCAA championship titles in 1974, 1976, and 1979. Nine members of the 1979 team that won the championship in March would be recruited for the1980 Olympic team, which Brooks was already recruited to coach.[7]
Brooks had been hired due to lobbying from Nanne and USA Hockey executiveWalter Bush (afterJack Parker declined the position). Hand-picking his team, he named several of his Minnesota players to the team, as well as several from their rivals,Boston University and theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison. To compete with theSoviet Union team specifically, Brooks stressed peak conditioning, believing that one of the reasons the Soviet team had dominated international competition was that many of their opponents were exhausted by the third period. Brooks gotJack Blatherwick to work with him on testing the team in conditioning, as he had done for Brooks with testing the1978–79 Minnesota Golden Gophers team on the ice and in a laboratory setting.[8] The two worked on developing practice plans and drills to get the team in the best condition possible. Then, working with team doctorGeorge Nagobads, shifts would be timed on the bench to make sure no one would be on the ice longer than 40 seconds to keep them ready to endure the Soviets in crunch time.[9] The schedule for the team would be 63 games long, considerably longer than previous US Olympic teams. One particular game inspired a famed exercise when the team had a 3–3 tie with Norway. Brooks had his team do a sprint from the goal line to the first blue line and then back before then getting them to go to the red line and back, then making them go from the goal line to the second blue line before finally having them go from the goal line to the other goal line, which was called a "Herbie". It lasted for over an hour, even after the rink lights were turned off. The practice of doing a "Herbie" was not new to Minnesota players, as the team would do the practice at least once every two weeks, usually on the Monday after playing games on the weekend.[10] The schedule saw them play the Soviet team two weeks before the Olympics, which saw the U.S. lose 10–3. The American team went into the February 22 game for the Olympics having not lost once (with a tie to Sweden). They were tied 2–2 after one period and trailing 3-2 entering the third period before rallying with two unanswered goals to win 4–3. The victory was labeled bySports Illustrated in 1999 as the greatest moment in 20th century sports. Two days later, the U.S. beat Finland to formally clinch the gold medal.[11]
After his team's Olympic gold medal win, Brooks moved to Switzerland to coachHC Davos in theNational League A. However he resigned from this position in January 1981, only six months after being hired, with the team having a poor record and Brooks facing criticism for what were described as "rough practices".[12]
From 1981 to 1985, he coached in theNational Hockey League for theNew York Rangers, where he became the first American-born coach in Rangers' team history to win 100 games. Brooks was fired on January 21, 1985 by the Rangers, where he was replaced by general managerCraig Patrick (his assistant for the 1980 Olympic Team) after the team was 15-22-8 and struggling in the Patrick Division alongside strife with team captainBarry Beck.[13] In July 1985, after failed negotiations with theMinnesota North Stars, Brooks stated that he was through with coaching and would take a job as a national sales representative forJostens, a memorabilia manufacturer.[14]
Brooks was offered the position to coach atSt. Cloud State University, anNCAA Division II school (as presided by university president Brendan McDonald, who had ideas of elevating the program to Division I in the future) in May 1986 and turned it down initially. However, he was convinced byJohn Mariucci (head coach at Minnesota for Brooks in the late 1950s) to take the position because Mariucci (who died the following year) felt Brooks could get the school to think about elevating itself to Division I in the future; at the time, the state of Minnesota had just two Division I programs for hockey. Brooks took the job with the condition that the team would elevate itself from its status at NCAA Division II to Division I level along with start work to try to build a new arena. Brooks spearheaded funding for an arena with sheets of ice in Olympic size in his one season with the team. With practices dedicated to the power play and penalty kill on a constant basis as opposed to the norm of dedicating to it once a week, the team won 25 games, a team record for over a decade and won theNorthern Collegiate Hockey Association tournament to reach the NCAA Division II Tournament for the first time, where they went all the way to the Third Place game; Brooks later called it the most enjoyable year he had had in coaching.[15] Brooks left the team after the season, with his assistantCraig Dahl stepping in as head coach, where he would coach for the next 18 years before being succeeded byBob Motzko, who was also an assistant to Brooks at St. Cloud State. The team would play as a Division I independent for the next three seasons and move to a new arena in 1989, which saw them reach theNCAA Division I Tournament for the first time in school history.[16]
Brooks returned to the NHL to coach theMinnesota North Stars in 1987 on a two-year contract. His hiring by the North Stars in 1987 was the last time a college coach was selected to coach an NHL team untilNorth Dakota coachDave Hakstol was tapped to coach thePhiladelphia Flyers in May 2015.[17] However, management fired him in the summer of 1988 afterone season, which both saw them finish as the worst team in the league but also finish one point out of a playoff spot due to the playoff structure that had them narrowly behind theToronto Maple Leafs for the fourth spot of theNorris Division.[18]
Brooks was hired to coach theUtica Devils of theAmerican Hockey League on July 11, 1991, which raised speculation he could be tapped to coach the NHL affiliateNew Jersey Devils (who had four head coaches since the 1987–88 season) in the future.[19] This came to pass on June 5, 1992, when he was announced as the new head coach of the NHL Devils to replaceTom McVie. He stressed a need for youth and speed to build a winner but argued with players such asClaude Lemieux, who was both the leading scorer on the team and one that Brooks labeled midway through the season as a "cancer". A perception of having little support from general managerLou Lamoriello and ownerJohn McMullen did not help matters for Brooks. The team won 40 games and finished tied for third place in the division but lost to Pittsburgh in five games. Despite a three-year contract, Brooks resigned on May 31, 1993, citing differences over what the team needed to get to the next step in the playoffs; two seasons later, the Devils won theStanley Cup.[20]
After leaving the Devils, Brooks became a scout for the Penguins. Twenty-five games into the 1999–2000 season in December 1999, Brooks was hired by general manager Craig Patrick to replaceKevin Constantine as head coach of the Penguins.[21] On January 13, 2000, Brooks confrontedColorado Avalanche announcerJohn Kelly for suggesting thatMatthew Barnaby faked an injury after being hit byAlexei Gusarov with 27 seconds left.[22] He was suspended two games for that confrontation on January 18, having been suspended indefinitely since January 15.[23][24] The night before Brooks got suspended, Gusarov was suspended two games for the hit.[25][26] Brooks stepped down after finishing the season to be a scout again whileIvan Hlinka was named the new coach in 2000. In 2002, Brooks turned down an offer to potentially coach the New York Rangers. Instead, Brooks accepted an offer to serve as the Director of Player Development of the Penguins, which he served until his death.[27][28]
Brooks also coached two more Olympic hockey teams: Team France at the1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, and the U.S. hockey team again at the2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The bringing in of Brooks in 2001 to coach the team along with Patrick as general manager saw a handful of players retained from the 1998 team, which had lost three of four games. Brooks had asked the NHL to cancel its 2002 All-Star Game to get days for players to practice before the Olympics, but this was denied by the league, which gave the teams one day to work together before the tournament. The 2002 team defeated the Russians in the semi-finals on the road to a silver medal, losing in the gold medal game toCanada. The U.S. win over Russia came exactly 22 years to the day after the famous 'Miracle on Ice' game.[29][30][31]
Brooks was inducted into theUnited States Hockey Hall of Fame in 1990,[32] and theIIHF Hall of Fame in 1999. He was honored posthumously with theWayne Gretzky International Award in 2004, and inducted into theHockey Hall of Fame in 2006.[32][33][34]
After he was fired by theMinnesota North Stars, Brooks then spent two years doing TV color commentary forSportsChannel America alongsideJiggs McDonald.[35][36][37][38]
Brooks married Patricia Lane, known as Patti, in 1965. They had two children, Dan and Kelly.[39]
On the afternoon of August 11, 2003, six days after his 66th birthday, Brooks died in a single-car accident onInterstate 35 nearForest Lake, Minnesota.[40][41] It is believed that he fell asleep behind the wheel before the accident, and neither drugs nor alcohol was responsible. Brooks was not wearing his seat belt at the time of the crash and, according to theMinnesota State Patrol, it is likely he would have survived the crash if he had been.[42][43][44][40][45]
George Nagobads was the team physician when Brooks coached the US men's national team and Minnesota Golden Gophers men's ice hockey, and described Brooks by saying, "I really appreciated the way Herbie always treated the players, and for me, he was just like my son."[46]
In 2004,Disney released a film about the 1980 Olympic team calledMiracle featuringKurt Russell playing the part of Brooks.Karl Malden had previously played Brooks in a 1981television film calledMiracle on Ice. Brooks served as a consultant for the Disney film duringprincipal photography, which was completed shortly before his death. At the end of the movie there is a dedication to Brooks. It states,"He never saw it. He lived it."[47]
On the 25th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice, the Olympic ice arena inLake Placid, New York, where the United States won the gold medal, was renamedHerb Brooks Arena. A new statue of Brooks was christened in downtownSaint Paul, Minnesota in 2017 to replace a smaller one that was relocated to be in front ofSchwan Super Rink (a place for which Brooks was a leading advocate) inBlaine, Minnesota.[48] The Herb Brooks Award is awarded at the conclusion of theMinnesota State High School League's state hockey tournament to "the most qualified hockey player in the state tournament who strongly represents the values, characteristics, and traits that defined Herb Brooks."[49]
The Herb Brooks Training Center is located atBlaine, Minnesota.[50]
TheNational Hockey Center atSt. Cloud State University in Minnesota was renamed for Brooks in April 2013.[51]
In 2006, Brooks was posthumously inducted into theHockey Hall of Fame in the Builders' category. The inscription reads: "A man of passion and dedication, Herb Brooks inspired a generation of Americans to pursue any and all dreams."[32]
Brooks's original expressions were known by his players as "Brooksisms", some of which were included inMiracle. According to Olympians John Harrington,Dave Silk, andMike Eruzione, these are a few.[52]
| Season | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Postseason | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Minnesota Golden Gophers(WCHA / Big Ten)(1972–1979) | |||||||||
| 1972–73 | Minnesota | 15–16–3 | 12–13–3 / 5–4–3 | 6th / 3rd | WCHA First Round (WIS) | ||||
| 1973–74 | Minnesota | 22–11–6 | 14–9–5 / 5–4–3 | 2nd / t-1st | NCAA National Champion (MTU) | ||||
| 1974–75 | Minnesota | 31–10–1 | 24–8–0 / 8–4–0 | 1st / 1st | NCAA Runner-Up (MTU) | ||||
| 1975–76 | Minnesota | 28–14–2 | 18–13–1 / 4–8–0 | 3rd / 3rd | NCAA National Champion (MTU) | ||||
| 1976–77 | Minnesota | 17–21–3 | 13–16–3 / 5–7–0 | 7th / 3rd | WCHA Semifinals (UND) | ||||
| 1977–78 | Minnesota | 22–14–2 | 18–13–1 / 6–6–0 | 4th / 3rd | WCHA First Round (CC) | ||||
| 1978–79 | Minnesota | 32–11–1 | 20–11–1 / 10–2–0 | 2nd / 1st | NCAA National Champion (NMU) | ||||
| Minnesota: | 167–97–18 | 119–83–14 / 43–35–6 | |||||||
| St. Cloud State Huskies(NCHA)(1986–1987) | |||||||||
| 1986–87 | St. Cloud State | 25–10–1 | 13–6–1 | t-1st | NCAA Third Place Game (Win) (BSU) | ||||
| St. Cloud State: | 25–10–1 | 13–6–1 | |||||||
| Total: | 192–107–19 | ||||||||
National champion Postseason invitational champion | |||||||||
†Minnesota played jointly in the Big Ten and WCHA from 1959 to 1981
Note: G = Games, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, Pts = Points
| Team | Year | Regular Season | Postseason | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G | W | L | T | Pts | Finish | Result | ||
| NYR | 1981–82 | 80 | 39 | 27 | 14 | 92 | 2nd inPatrick | Lost in Division Finals (NYI) |
| NYR | 1982–83 | 80 | 35 | 35 | 10 | 80 | 4th in Patrick | Lost in Division Finals (NYI) |
| NYR | 1983–84 | 80 | 42 | 29 | 9 | 93 | 4th in Patrick | Lost in Division Semifinals (NYI) |
| NYR | 1984–85 | 45 | 15 | 22 | 8 | (38) | (fired) | — |
| MIN | 1987–88 | 80 | 19 | 48 | 13 | 51 | 5th inNorris | Missed playoffs |
| NJ | 1992–93 | 84 | 40 | 37 | 7 | 87 | 4th in Patrick | Lost in Division Semifinals (PIT) |
| PIT | 1999–2000 | 58 | 29 | 24 | 5 | (63) | 3rd inAtlantic | Lost in Conference Semifinals (PHI) |
| Total | 507 | 219 | 222 | 66 | 504 | 5 playoff appearances | ||
Note: GC = Games coached, W = Wins, L = Losses, T = Ties, OL = Overtime loss, Pts = Points, Pct = Winning percentage
| Season | Team | League | GC | W | L | T | OL | Pts | Pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1980 | USA Olympic Men's Team | IIHF | Gold Medal | ||||||
| 1980–81 | HC Davos | Swiss-A | 28 | 11 | 16 | 1 | — | 23 | 0.411 |
| 1991–92 | Utica Devils | AHL | 80 | 34 | 40 | 6 | — | 74 | 0.463 |
| 1998 | France Olympic Men's Team | IIHF | 11th-place finish | ||||||
| 2002 | USA Olympic Men's Team | IIHF | Silver Medal | ||||||
| Sporting positions | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Head coach of the New York Rangers 1981–85 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Head coach of the Minnesota North Stars 1987–88 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Head coach of the New Jersey Devils 1992–93 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins 1999–2000 | Succeeded by |
| Awards and achievements | ||
| Preceded by | WCHA Coach of the Year 1973–74 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Hobey Baker Legends of College Hockey Award 2011 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
