Jim Rutherford Started his Journey to the Hockey Hall of Fame in Windsor
This is the first of a two part series.
Jim Rutherford’s hockey ties to Windsor go back nearly four decades and the newly appointed president and interim general manager of the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks has had no shortage of memories from the launch of his hockey management career with the then-Windsor Compuware Spitfires.
Just days after announcing his retirement as a player (goaltender) from the National Hockey League, thirty-three year old Jim Rutherford, joined the Compuware Corporation, a software company located in Detroit, as the company’s director of hockey operations in the spring of 1983.
“I knew that I wanted to stay in the game in some capacity,” Rutherford recalled in an interview with this journalist in 2019. “From the very beginning (Compuware owner) Pete Karmanos let it be known that he wanted to own an Ontario Hockey League club and a National Hockey League team one day and that he wanted me to be part of both.”
Compuware took over the Spitfires in time for the 1984-85 OHL season when the team was struggling both on the ice and at the box office and was actually teetering on the verge of bankruptcy and Rutherford quickly started making inroads to change the team’s fortunes both on and off the ice. It was the launch of what is now a Hockey Hall of Fame career as a general manager.
“After taking over as GM in Windsor and learning just how the position works I quickly realized that being a general manager was what I wanted to do in the next phase of my hockey career,” Rutherford claimed.
Since joining the then-Ontario Major Junior A Hockey League in 1975-76, the Spitfires did have problems attracting American players to play in Windsor but that situation was soon rectified under Rutherford’s management.
“A lot of the American kids were familiar with the Compuware hockey program under the leadership of Pete Karmanos so they were familiar with the OHL,” Rutherford claimed. “Windsor’s proximity to Detroit and the Midwestern United States was a big advantage for the team but I don’t think they had used it much before.”
“Bringing in skilled hockey players not only from Detroit but from other areas of the United States was a way we thought we would not only allow us to compete quicker nut also to build towards a championship,” he continued. That game plan resulted in great results for the Compuware Spitfires for seasons under Rutherford’s guidance and the impressive start to managerial career would soon see him back in the National Hockey League.