Vancouver Giants' head coach Don Hay nears 400th coaching win

When the Vancouver Giants host the Brandon Wheat Kings on November 1 (7 p.m. at Pacific Coliseum), the local Western Hockey League team will not only be looking to push its early season record to an impressive12-0-3 through its first 15 games. The hockey club will also be out to add to the legend of head coach Don Hay by earning him his 400th career WHL coaching victory.

To put that accomplishment in perspective, only eight other men have cracked the 400-win mark in the 42-year history of the junior league. By season’s end, Hay will have moved into seventh on the all-time wins list. If he coaches the Giants again next season, he has a very good shot of working his way into 4th spot on that elite list.

Hay started his coaching odyssey in Kamloops (146 wins) and continued it in Kennewick, Washington with the Tri-City Americans (67 victories). Now he’s into his fifth campaign at the helm of the Giants, with whom he’s won 186 games. Between those stops, he had a couple of stints as an NHL head coach in Phoenix and in Calgary.

Hay’s numbers at the junior level speak for themselves, but the number he would most certainly be proudest of—along with three Memorial Cup titles and a World Junior gold medal—is the number of players he’s helped along their way to the NHL: Darcy Tucker, Shane Doan, Jarome Iginla, Brad Lukowich, Jason Strudwick, Nolan Baumgartner, Scott Gomez, Brad Ference, Gilbert Brule, Anrdej Meszaros, Mark Fistric, and Milan Lucic just to name a few.

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