Gerald Wayne "Jerry" Welsh (born April 1950) 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 ...

former

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 h ...

player, and

college ice hockey College ice hockey is played principally in the United States and Canada, though leagues exist outside North America. In the United States, competitive "college hockey" refers to ice hockey played between colleges and universities within the g ...

head coach at

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

. He is a 2008 inductee of the Oshawa Sports Hall of Fame as both a player and a builder.

Career as player

NCAA

Born in Oshawa,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, Jerry Welsh played

at Ohio State from 1969-73. In 1971-72, Welsh led the team with 28 goals helping the Buckeyes earn their first and only

Central Collegiate Hockey Association The Central Collegiate Hockey Association (CCHA) is a college athletic conference that participates in the NCAA's Division I as a hockey-only conference. The current CCHA began play in the 2021–22 season; a previous incarnation, which the curr ...

regular season title and the school's first CCHA tournament title. In three of Welsh's four years at Ohio State, he was voted the team's most valuable player.

Professional

Following college, Welsh played briefly for the

Minnesota Fighting Saints The Minnesota Fighting Saints was the name of two professional ice hockey teams based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, that played in the World Hockey Association. The first team was one of the WHA's original twelve franchises, playing from 1972 to 19 ...

of the

World Hockey Association The World Hockey Association (french: Association mondiale de hockey) was a professional ice hockey major league that operated in North America from 1972 to 1979. It was the first major league to compete with the National Hockey League (NHL) ...

for his former Ohio State coach

Harry Neale Harold Watson Neale (born March 9, 1937) is a Canadian retired NCAA, NHL and WHA coach and general manager, and ice hockey broadcaster. Coaching career Following his playing career, Neale got his head coaching start at Hill Park Secondary Scho ...

in 1973. He spent the next two seasons (1973–75) in the North American Hockey League. In 1974-75, Welsh was alternate captain and second-leading scorer for the NAHL's Johnstown Jets that won the Lockhart Cup playoffs. The team and championship served as the inspiration for the movie ''Slap Shot''.

Career as coach

Following his playing career in minor league hockey, Jerry Welsh, just 25 years old, was hired as head coach at Ohio State in 1975. Welsh brought stability to an Ohio State program that had seen five different coaches in 11 seasons. Under Welsh, Ohio State finished in second place in the CCHA five times in six seasons between 1979 and 1984. In 1983, Welsh was named CCHA Coach of the Year after guiding the Buckeyes to a 21-7-4 conference record and a second place finish (based on points). Welsh helped elevate Ohio State to its first top ten national ranking in December 1978 and its first No. 1 national ranking for three of four weeks in November 1983 after beginning the 1983-84 season on a 13-game winning streak. The Buckeyes finished the 1978–79, 1979–80, 1982–83, and 1983-84 seasons nationally ranked in the top ten. Despite success on the ice, Welsh was one of the lowest paid head coaches in NCAA Division I ice hockey in 1984. Ohio State was also the only CCHA program without a full-time assistant coach. Welsh's frustration with funding for hockey at Ohio State led him to pursue other Division I coaching opportunities, which never came to fruition. Welsh was unable to maintain early success at Ohio State. He resigned on February 14, 1995 when Ohio State athletic director

Andy Geiger Ferdinand "Andy" Geiger (born March 23, 1939) is a former athletic director at six different institutions, most recently holding that position from May 10, 2012, to August 30, 2013, at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. His most notable time ...

informed Welsh his contract would not be renewed at season's end.

Personal

Jerry Welsh married the former Paula Konesny. Together, the couple owns and operates Garden Grove Bed & Breakfast in

Union Pier, Michigan Union Pier is an unincorporated community in Berrien County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated between the Lake Michigan shore and the Galien River about five miles north of the Indiana state border. The ZIP code is 49129 and the F ...

. They sold the B & B in 2020

Head coaching record

† Welsh resigned in January after losing 6 consecutive games.

Awards and honours

References

External links

* http://www.uscho.com/stats/coach/mid,491/jerry-welsh/ * http://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay.php?pid=8693 {{DEFAULTSORT:Welsh, Jerry 1950 births Living people Ohio State Buckeyes men's ice hockey players Ohio State Buckeyes men's ice hockey coaches Ice hockey people from Oshawa Canadian ice hockey forwards