Alex "Damps" Dampier (born ) is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

retired professional

ice hockey Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...

player and

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. He is a member of the

British Ice Hockey Hall of Fame The British Ice Hockey Hall of Fame was founded in 1948 and is the third oldest ice hockey Hall of Fame in the world, behind the Russian and Soviet Hockey Hall of Fame (also founded in 1948) and the International Hockey Hall of Fame (founded in 19 ...

Playing career

Born in

Nipigon, Ontario Nipigon () is a township in Thunder Bay District, Northwestern Ontario, Canada, located along the west side of the Nipigon River and south of the small Lake Helen running between Lake Nipigon and Lake Superior. Lake Nipigon is located approximate ...

, Dampier combined playing ice hockey with a

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course in

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at Lakehead University. He played for the

Cape Cod Cubs The Cape Cod Islanders were a Tier III junior ice hockey team from Massachusetts. They were most recently a member of the North American 3 Hockey League and played at the Falmouth Ice Arena in Falmouth, Massachusetts. In 2019, they announced the ...

in the

Eastern Hockey League The Eastern Hockey League was a minor professional United States ice hockey league. Eastern Amateur Hockey League (1933–1953) The league was founded in 1933 as the Eastern Amateur Hockey League (EAHL). The league was founded by Tommy Lockhart, ...

during the 1972–73 season before joining the Muskegon Mohawks in the International Hockey League the season after. Dampier moved to the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

in 1978 and joined the

Murrayfield Racers The Murrayfield Racers were an ice hockey team based in Edinburgh, Scotland who were founded in 1952 as the Murrayfield Royals before changing their name to the Murrayfield Racers in 1966. The team won the British Championship four times in ...

as a defender. He became the Racers'

player-coach A player-coach (also playing coach, captain-coach, or player-manager) is a member of a sports team who simultaneously holds both playing and coaching duties. A player-coach may be a head coach or an assistant coach. They may make changes to the sq ...

the following season and then only played intermittently for them from the beginning of the 1983–84 season until he retired from playing in 1985.

Coaching career

Club

Whilst still playing (and coaching) the Racers, the team won the Northern League in the 1978–79, 1979–80 and 1980–81 seasons; the Northern Autumn Cup in 1979 and 1980; and the Icy Smith Cup in 1979, 1980 and 1981. After he retired from playing he coached the Racers to the playoff finals in 1984 and 1985. In the summer of 1985 Dampier joined the

Nottingham Panthers The Nottingham Panthers are a British professional ice hockey club based in Nottingham, England. They are members of the Elite Ice Hockey League. Their main team sponsor is the Nottingham Building Society. The Nottingham Panthers have won four ...

as coach. In his second season with the Panthers they won the Norwich Union Trophy in 1986 and the Autumn Cup in 1991. They also won the playoffs in 1989, made the

playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

semifinals in 1990 and were losing finalists in the playoffs in 1992. Whilst with the Panthers, Dampier was twice named the British Ice Hockey Writers Association's

Coach of the Year Many sports leagues, sportswriting associations, and other organizations confer "Coach of the Year" awards. In some sports — including baseball and association football — the award is called the "Manager of the Year" award. Some of the ...

in 1987 and 1989. Dampier moved to the Panthers' arch-rivals, the

Sheffield Steelers The Sheffield Steelers are a professional ice hockey team located in Sheffield, England. They were formed in 1991 (see 1991 in sport) and play their home games at the Utilita Arena. They are currently a member of the Elite Ice Hockey League. ...

, in January 1993. Whilst with the Steelers, he guided them to promotion from the British Hockey League Division 1 and the following season, in the Premier Division, he took them to the playoff weekend at

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. He became the club's

General Manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

and hired Clyde Tuyl as the head coach. Together, Dampier and Tuyl guided the Steelers to the club's first league championship. The following season, 1995–96, the team again won the league championship (the final one before the formation of the

Ice Hockey Superleague The British Ice Hockey Superleague (BISL, also known as the Sekonda Ice Hockey Superleague from 1998 to 1999 for sponsorship reasons) was a professional ice hockey league in the United Kingdom between 1996 and 2003. Devised in 1995, it replaced ...

) as well as the playoffs and the

Benson & Hedges Cup The Benson & Hedges Cup was a one-day cricket competition for first-class counties in England and Wales that was held from 1972 to 2002, one of cricket's longest sponsorship deals. It was the third major one-day competition established in Englan ...

for the club's first grand slam. The Steelers again won the playoffs in 1996–97. At the end of the 1997–98 season, Dampier left the Steelers for the Newcastle Riverkings. He then rejoined the Panthers as Director of Hockey midway through the 1999–00 season and guided them to the finals of the

Challenge Cup The Challenge Cup is a knockout rugby league cup competition organised by the Rugby Football League, held annually since 1896, with the exception of 1915–1919 and 1939–1940, due to World War I and World War II respectively. It involves am ...

. The following season, 2001–02, he shared the coaching duties with

Paul Adey Paul Adey (born August 28, 1963) is a former ice hockey player and coach. Adey enjoyed a notable playing career in British ice hockey, playing 11 seasons for the Nottingham Panthers between 1988 and 1999 and 29 games for the Sheffield Steelers du ...

before he returned to the North East to join the

Newcastle Vipers From 2002–2011 the Newcastle Vipers were an ice hockey club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The club was a member of the Elite Ice Hockey League, and the British National League. History Predecessors Previously, the city was repre ...

for their inaugural season, 2002–03, in the British National League, again teaming up with Clyde Tuyl.

International

Dampier's first involvement on the international scene came in 1981 when he was the coach of the Great Britain team at the World Championships Pool C tournament in

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. It was an inauspicious start for his international coaching career as the GB team lost all their matches and did not take part in world competition again until 1990. However, Dampier was put in charge of the under-21 GB team between 1982 and 1988 when they won the bronze medal in Pool C twice. In 1990 Dampier was again made coach to the senior team for the World Championships Pool D tournament in

Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital and largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a Sir Caerdydd, links=no), and the city is the eleventh-largest in the United Kingd ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. The team won all four of the games and gained promotion to Pool C. Despite high expectations in 1991, the team only finished fifth in the nine team tournament held in

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Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark ...

. However, the following year, 1992, in Hull,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

the team gained promotion to World Championships Pool B and, in 1993, promotion into

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. However, in 1994 in

Bolzano Bolzano ( or ; german: Bozen, (formerly ); bar, Bozn; lld, Balsan or ) is the capital city of the province of South Tyrol in northern Italy. With a population of 108,245, Bolzano is also by far the largest city in South Tyrol and the third la ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, the team lost all their matches and were relegated back to Pool B.

Awards and honours

* BIHWA

for 1986–87 and 1988–89. *Inducted to the

in 1995.

Footnotes

External links

*
British Ice Hockey Hall of Fame entry
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dampier, Alex 1951 births British Ice Hockey Hall of Fame inductees Canadian ice hockey left wingers Canadian ice hockey coaches Cape Cod Cubs (EHL) players Ice hockey people from Ontario Living people Murrayfield Racers players Nottingham Panthers coaches Canadian expatriate ice hockey players in Scotland Canadian expatriate sportspeople in England