Bernie McKinnon was a Canadian

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 ...

lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport played with a lacrosse stick and a lacrosse ball. It is the oldest organized sport in North America, with its origins with the indigenous people of North America as early as the 12th century. The game was extensively ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

and

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

coach for

St. Lawrence Saint Lawrence or Laurence ( la, Laurentius, lit. " laurelled"; 31 December AD 225 – 10 August 258) was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome under Pope Sixtus II who were martyred in the persecution of the Christians that the Roma ...

for over 30 years. He was the head coach both men's and women's teams for most sports as well as for freshman teams when varsity status was limited to three years.

Career

Bernie McKinnon arrived at Canton in 1953, playing for the freshman ice hockey team before joining the elite varsity squad for the 1954–55 season. McKinnon helps the Saints to a 19-win season and their second NCAA tournament appearance. After a disappointing 4th place finish McKinnon's Saints found themselves back in the tournament in

1956 Events January * January 1 – The Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Anglo-Egyptian Condominium ends in Sudan. * January 8 – Operation Auca: Five U.S. evangelical Christian Missionary, missionaries, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Ed McCully, Jim ...

, narrowly losing in overtime to eventual champion

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

before soundly defeating

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

in the consolation game. In his senior season McKinnon was one of three team captains but the squad slumped just enough to be left out of the NCAA tournament. McKinnon returned to

in 1965 as a graduate assistant and was tasked with coaching the freshman ice hockey squad. He eventually added the responsibility of freshman lacrosse coach to his resume before taking over the varsity ice hockey team on an interim basis while head coach

George Menard George Francis Menard (September 2, 1927 – April 18, 1990) was an American ice hockey coach. He was the head coach of St. Lawrence during their renaissance after World War II taking them to five Frozen Fours during his tenure. Career As many ...

earned an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...

. When Menard retired in 1971 McKinnon was the natural choice to replace him and while his results weren't poor, McKinnon could not arrest the slide of the men's team that had started in the late 60s. Over five seasons McKinnon could only get the program to post one winning season and resigned as the ice hockey coach in 1976 to focus on the other sports he was tasked with heading. That summer, his women's tennis team recorded an undefeated season, going 33–0. In 1978 coach-of-all-trades McKinnon accepted the head coaching duties of the women's ice hockey team which began sponsoring the varsity program the following year. In 1980 he took over the women's soccer team (promoted to varsity in 1982) and led both until his retirement in 1996. while his ice hockey squads only had moderate success, he was able to get the soccer team to two NCAA tournaments, amassing a record of 138–92–24 in the process. After his retirement McKinnon received the Joe Burke Award for his contributions to women's ice hockey. and was inducted into the St. Lawrence Athletic Hall of Fame in the same year that he lost his battle with

bone cancer A bone tumor is an abnormal growth of tissue in bone, traditionally classified as noncancerous (benign) or cancerous (malignant). Cancerous bone tumors usually originate from a cancer in another part of the body such as from lung, breast, thyro ...

Career statistics

Head coaching record

Ice hockey

Men's

Women's

Women's Soccer

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McKinnon, Bernie Year of birth unknown 2000 deaths Canadian ice hockey coaches Ice hockey people from Halifax, Nova Scotia St. Lawrence Saints men's ice hockey players St. Lawrence Saints men's ice hockey coaches St. Lawrence Saints women's ice hockey coaches St. Lawrence Saints men's lacrosse coaches St. Lawrence Saints women's soccer coaches St. Lawrence Saints men's tennis coaches St. Lawrence Saints women's tennis coaches Sportspeople from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Canadian ice hockey forwards Canadian soccer coaches