Alf Pike

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CanadaCanada  Alf Pike Ice hockey player
Alf Pike
Date of birth September 15, 1917
place of birth Winnipeg , Manitoba , Canada
date of death March 1, 2009
Place of death Calgary , Alberta , Canada
Nickname The Embalmer
size 183 cm
Weight 85 kg
position Defender , Center / Left Wing
Career stations
1935-1937 Winnipeg Monarchs
1937-1939 New York Rovers
1938-1939 Philadelphia Ramblers
1939-1943 New York Rangers
1945-1947 New York Rangers
1948-1949 Winnipeg Nationals

Alfred George Pike (born September 15, 1917 in Winnipeg , Manitoba , † March 1, 2009 in Calgary , Alberta ) was a Canadian ice hockey player and coach who played for the New York Rangers six seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL).

Career as a player

Pike played as a junior player for the Winnipeg Monarchs in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League (MJHL). In his second season with the team (1936/37) he played in the position of center forward and won the league and the Memorial Cup with his team .

In 1937 he signed a contract with Lester Patrick and played for two years with the New York Rovers in the Eastern Amateur Hockey League . The team shared the Madison Square Garden stadium with the New York Rangers. When the Rovers won the EAHL championship in 1938/39, he was team captain. For the Philadelphia Ramblers he played two games in the International American Hockey League (IAHL) in the same season .

As a rookie , he played for the Rangers in the 1939/40 season together with Wilbert Hiller and Clint Smith in attack. Pike scored two game- winning goals in the 1940 Stanley Cup . He scored the winning goal in overtime of game 1 and in the last third of game 6 the 2-2, which led to overtime . Bryan Hextall senior then decided the game in favor of the Rangers with his goal in overtime.

Pike was most successful in the 1941/42 season with 27 points (8 goals, 19 assists ). The following year he was retrained as a defender . From 1943 to 1945 he had to pause his ice hockey career and was stationed in his hometown for the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War . He then played two more seasons for the Rangers, the last as a left winger in the 1946/47 season . This made him one of the few professional ice hockey players who played in three different positions. In total, he scored 119 points (42 goals, 77 assists) in 234 games in the NHL.

Before the end of his playing career, he played for some games in the Winnipeg Nationals in 1948 and 1949.

Career as a coach

CanadaCanada  Alf Pike
Coaching stations
1949-1954 Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters
1954-1959 Winnipeg Warriors
1959-1961 New York Rangers
1961-1963 Calgary Stampeders
1963-1965 Los Angeles Blades
1967-1970 Phoenix Roadrunners

His first job as a coach Pike had in the 1949/50 season with the Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters , which were represented as the youth club of the Rangers in the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA). The high point of his five-year career at Guelph was 1952, when the team with Andy Bathgate and Harry Howell won both the league and the Memorial Cup. From 1954 to 1959 he was the coach of the Winnipeg Warriors , with whom he won a title in the Western Hockey League (WHL) and in 1956 the Edinburgh Trophy .

In the 1959/60 season he returned to the Rangers for 18 games. His personality contrasted with his predecessor, the spirited Phil Watson ( Muzz Patrick was interim trainer for two games). After two years, Pike was replaced by Doug Harvey in 1961 .

Before he retired in 1970, Pike worked for three other clubs in the WHL: From 1961/62 to 1962/63 with the Calgary Stampeders , from 1963/64 to 1964/65 with the Los Angeles Blades and from 1967/68 to 1969 / 70 at the Phoenix Roadrunners .

Pike died in Calgary on March 1, 2009, at the age of 91.

Achievements and Awards

  • 1937 Turnbull Cup Winner (MJHL) with the Winnipeg Monarchs (as a player)
  • 1937 Memorial Cup winner with the Winnipeg Monarchs (as a player)
  • 1939 Eastern Amateur Hockey League winner with the New York Rovers (as a player)
  • 1940 Stanley Cup winner with the New York Rangers (as a player)
  • 1952 J. Ross Robertson Cup winner (OHA) with the Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters (as coach)
  • 1952 Memorial Cup winner with the Guelph Biltmore Mad Hatters (as coach)
  • 1956 Lester Patrick Cup winner (WHL) with the Winnipeg Warriors (as coach)
  • 1956 Edinburgh Trophy winner with the Winnipeg Warriors (as coach)
  • Member of the Manitoba Hockey Hall of Fame
  • In the book 100 Ranger Greats , published in 2009 , he was ranked 69th of all 901 New York Rangers players in the first 82 seasons

NHL coaching statistics

Regular season Playoffs
season team league Sp S. N U Pt space Sp S. N result
1959/60 New York Rangers NHL 53 14th 28 11 39 6th not qualified
1960/61 New York Rangers NHL 70 22nd 38 10 54 5. not qualified
NHL overall 123 36 66 21st 93 0 division title - - - no Stanley Cup

( Legend for coach statistics: Sp or GC = total games; W or S = wins scored; L or N = losses scored; T or U = draws scored; OTL or OTN = losses scored after overtime or shootout ; Pts or Pkt = points scored ; Pts% or Pkt% = point rate; Win% = win rate; result = round reached in the play-offs )

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jeff Z. Klein: Alf Pike, Member of Rangers' 1940 Stanley Cup Team, Dies at 91 , The New York Times , Wednesday March 11, 2009. Retrieved March 11, 2009.
  2. ↑ Jeff Z. Klein, "Andy Bathgate Remembers Alf Pike" Slap Shot ( The New York Times Blog), Tuesday March 10, 2009.
  3. ^ Huston Horn (October 17, 1960): Gentle Iceman At Work . Sports Illustrated .
  4. ^ Alf Pike Coaching Record - Hockey-Reference.com.
  5. ^ Alf Pike, member of 1940 Rangers, dies at 91 ( March 12, 2009 memento ), New York Rangers , March 6, 2009. Retrieved March 9, 2009.
  6. ↑ Russ Cohen, John Halligan, Adam Raider: 100 Ranger Greats: Superstars, Unsung Heroes and Colorful Characters . John Wiley & Sons , 2009, ISBN 0470736194 (Retrieved February 4, 2020).

Web links

Commons : Alf Pike  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Pike, Alf
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pike, Alfred George
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian ice hockey player and coach
DATE OF BIRTH September 15, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH Winnipeg
DATE OF DEATH March 1, 2009
Place of death Calgary