Born: 7 Dec 1927, Winnipeg MB (d. 2002)
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Regular Season & Playoff Coaching Record (key)
| Regular Season | Playoffs |
| year | team | finish | finish | |||||||||
| 1972-73 | Winnipeg | DNF | ||||||||||
| 1973-74 | Winnipeg | 4-W | QF | |||||||||
• Coach of Winnipeg while Bobby Hull was awaiting word of his legal playing status through November 14, 1972.
• Assumed full coaching duties from Bobby Hull on March 11, 1974.
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Mickoski Big Man for Jets • no byline • The Hockey Spectator • September 1972
The ingredients for building a hockey team are basic. Take Bobby Hull, add 20 more players and the result should be a contending team in the World Hockey Association, that dream men once were chasing but now have caught. The Winnipeg Jets, without Bobby Hull, spent three luxurious weeks in Northern Ontario's lush vacationland and presented themselves back in Winnipeg as a bona fide major league hockey team. If that's what the Jets can present without Hull, then what will we class the end result? Hull is the most prolific scorer the game of shinny has ever known. But scoring won't be enough. Hull is shouldered with the responsibility of making a team and a league, but if faith means anything the job is already done. Hull may be the foundation of the Jets, but it can be said that the man who made the Jets what they are on ice today is Nick Mickoski, a National Hockey Leaguer from yesteryear. Hull is the coach, at least that's one of his official titles, but court proceedings delayed his arrival and that mixture of 20 players was left in the constructive hands of Mickoski. It can be said here and now, although the officia! announcement is still forthcoming, that Mickoski will be Hull's right hand man this year. The official title will be assistant coach, but it goes deeper than that, If Hull had come to the Jets as a player only, Mickoski would have been named as the coach. As it was, a $2.75 million contract called for something more than just getting a hockey player. So, Hull works as a player, he works as a coach and he also works as the league's public image. Hull will make some coaching decisions, but he won't make them without first conferring with Mickoski. Mickoski has put the Jets together as one, big, happy unit. All he needs to make it successful is Hull. His three weeks in Kenora were spent conditioning the players and passing on knowledge he acquired in the big time. Billy Sutherland has been a hockey player for 17 years and has had lessons from such learned people as Punch Imlach, Toe Blake, Floyd Curry and Scotty Bowman. "Nick runs just as good a camp as any of those guys," says Sutherland, who is the grand old man of the team. Mickoski has been a frustrated junior coach for Jets owner Benny Hatksin the past few years and coaching "the pros" has always been the apple of his eye. "I could tell the difference as soon as I had these guys together," said Mickoski. "You take a junior hockey player and tell him something and you have to tell him 10 more times. You take a pro and tell him once. These guys know what's all about. This is their life and the attitude goes accordingly. "This will be a pretty good hockey team because it has the right balance of experience and youth. It also has Bobby Hull." |
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Excerpts from Zander Hollander's Guide to Pro Hockey, 1973-74 (by Reyn Davis & Charley Hallman)
Although Bobby Hull is technically coach of the Jets, it is Mickoski behind the players bench... Learned his game under Frank Boucher, Lynn Patrick, Tommy Ivan, Milt Schmidt and others ... A minor-league player who went on to direct the senior program in Newfoundland ... Teamed with Ben Hatskin as the coach of the Jets of the WCJHL five years ago ... After four seasons as coach, Nick was named Hull's assistant ... Also serves as a scout. |
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