Harris was a standout player with the Maple Leafs, enjoyed three Stanley Cups in the early 1960’s. Courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator.

Billy Harris

Toronto hockey great coached in Hamilton with the Red Wings

A former standout with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Billy Harris coached the hapless Hamilton Red Wings during the 1970-71 season.

After playing with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the 1968-69 season, the former Maple Leaf  center entered into talks with Red Wings owner Nick Durbano.

“Billy is interested in coaching but he wants to wait until after Christmas to talk about the job,” Durbano said in a December 1970 Spectator interview.

By the first week of January of 1971, Harris was ready for his first practice with the OHA Junior A club.

“The first thing I have to do is get them in the right frame of mind,” Harris noted. “I talked to them collectively before the practice and I hop to spend 10 or 15 minutes with two or three players each day for the next couple of weeks.”

Harris was hoping to put Hamilton at the top when he took over the Red Wings in 1971. Courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator.

Harris took over as coach mid-way in the Red Wings 62-game schedule, and was the team’s fourth coach in a frustrating year for the team, which had suffered its seventh consecutive loss when Harris came aboard.

Harris mentioned he had a lot of work to do.

“The key to a good team is good goaling and good defence. We have a good goalie but I’m going to have to work with the defence. Out goals-against record is atrocious. The defence has good size and they’re willing to hit. This encourages me. I think we’ll get better providing we can keep away from those cheap penalties.”

And although by April Harris had taken the team to seven wins in the teams’ next nine games, slide continued, and the Wings compiled a 22-35-5 record for the 1970-71 season, placing seventh in the 10-team division.

Harris played with Pittsburgh before moving over to coaching . Courtesy of the Hamilton Spectator.

Harris, who scored 126 goals in 769 NHL games, also played with the Detroit Red Wings and the Oakland Golden Seals as well as Toronto and Pittsburgh.

After his short term with Hamilton as a coach, he coached the Ottawa Nationals of the newly-formed World Hockey Association for the 1972-73 season, which then became the Toronto Toros. He also coached the Canadian National team, was assistant coach of the Edmonton Oilers and of Sweden’s team in the 1976 Canada Cup tournament, and was head coach of the OHL’s Sudbury Wolves for the 1982-83 and 1983-84 seasons.

Born in Toronto in 1935, the former center died in September of 2001 at the age of 66 after being admitted to a Toronto hospital with a rare form of leukemia.

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