Former Windsor Spitfire Claude Julien Named Head Coach of Team Canada for 2022 Beijing Olympics
Editor’s note: In the first of a two-part feature, John Humphrey looks at the playing career of Claude Julien, the head coach of the Canadian men’s hockey team at the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics that start next month
The man given the daunting task of serving as head coach of the Canadian men’s hockey team at the upcoming Beijing Olympics is a former Windsor Spitfire who played parts of three seasons here decades ago.
Sixty-year-old Claude Julien, who had an extensive minor pro hockey career as a player and a couple of brief stints in the National Hockey League with the Quebec Nordiques (now Colorado Avalanche) before moving into coaching, was named to the post earlier this month. Retired NHL star Shane Doan was named Team Canada’s general manager.
The pair were named to their respective positions suddenly after the NHL backed out of an agreement to send its players to the Olympics last month.
Julien, who was a hard rock defenceman who has had considerable offensive scoring ability in his junior hockey days with the Windsor Spitfires was acquired by the Spits early in the 1978-79 Ontario Major Junior A Hockey League (OMJHL – now OHL) in a trade with the Oshawa Generals.
Julien came to Windsor along with fellow blueliner Vic Morin in a deal that saw rearguard Jim Mellon move to Oshawa.
Then Spitfires head coach and general manager Wayne Maxner made the deal, essentially, to shore up a defence corps that included star rookie rearguard J.P. Leroux, who scored 19 goals and added 41 assists in his 64 games. The diminutive Leroux, who stood a mere five-foot-three while weighing 156 pounds.
Julien scored six goals and added 20 while picking up 69 minutes in penalties in his first season in Windsor and was named team captain of the 1979-80 Spitfires, a clear indication of both his leadership and playing skills, before the start of his second (and only full) season with the Spitfires. He was again a top four defenceman for the Spitfires, along with Morin,
The Spitfires finished the ’79-’80 regular season in first place with 36-31-1 record and won the grouping in the playoffs before bowing out in the OMJHL championship in four straight games to the Peterborough Petes, who were the defending Memorial Cup champions and coached by future NHL bench boss Mike Keenan.
Julien finished the ’79-’80 season in Windsor by scoring 14 goals and adding 37 assists, along with 148 penalty minutes while playing in all 68 regular season games.
Despite a stellar season while captaining the Spitfires, he was overlooked in the 1980 NHL Entry Draft and Julien returned to Windsor for his third – and overage – season with the Spitfires. After once again being named team captain, Julien played in just three games before signing as a free agent with the Port Huron Flags of the International Hockey League. The IHL, which then had its head office in the Medical Arts building on the corner of Ouellette Avenue and Erie Street that is now home to Windsor and Essex County Health Unit, at the time was regarded as a tough guy league where games often featured more fights than goals.
Julien went on to play semi pro hockey in addition to a handful of games with the Nordiques before turning to coaching as a new career.
Next week: Part two of this series takes a look at Claude Julien’s NHL playing and coaching career.