Pat Ford 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

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

head coach A head coach, senior coach or manager is a professional at training and developing athletes. They typically hold a more public profile and are paid more than other coaches. In some sports, the head coach is instead called the "manager", as in assoc ...

, most recently leading the

Findlay Oilers The Findlay Oilers are the athletic teams that represent the University of Findlay, located in Findlay, Ohio, in NCAA Division II intercollegiate sporting competitions. The Oilers currently compete as members of the Great Midwest Athletic Confer ...

in their final season as a Division I program.

Career

Pat Ford played four years at

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

in the mid 1980s, winning the

WCHA The Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) is a college athletic conference which operates in the Midwestern United States. It participates in the NCAA's Division I as a women's ice hockey-only conference. From 1951 to 1999, it operated a ...

tournament in his senior season. After graduating with a degree in bacteriology Ford briefly was a member of both the Canadian National Team and

Swindon Wildcats The Swindon Wildcats are a professional ice hockey team based in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. They play in the National Ice Hockey League (NIHL). Since their inception, the Wildcats have played their home games at the 1600-capacity Link Centre ...

before retiring as a player. In 1990 he started his coaching career as an assistant at Madison Edgewood while also working as a graduate assistant with his alma mater. He became a full-time assistant with Northern Michigan in 1992 and two years later returned to

Madison Madison may refer to: People * Madison (name), a given name and a surname * James Madison (1751–1836), fourth president of the United States Place names * Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital of Wisconsin and the largest city known by this ...

to take the same position with the Badgers. In the summer of 2002 Ford was hired as an associate coach for Findlay shortly after his former boss

Jeff Sauer Jeffrey Sauer (March 10, 1943 – February 2, 2017) was an American ice hockey player and coach. Sauer was the head coach at the University of Wisconsin from 1982 to 2002 and Colorado College from 1971 to 1982. While at Wisconsin, he led the Bad ...

announced his retirement. While things appeared to be heading in the right direction for Ford, a year later the administration at Findlay changed and he soon was named as head coach after former bench boss

Craig Barnett Craig Andrew Barnett (born 16 July 1974) is an Australian model and former international modelling pageant finalist, best known as "Mr Australia 2007" at the 2007 Manhunt International World Final. He was the national title holder of Manhunt A ...

resigned. by January the following year Findlay announced that the team would be reduced to club status once more but Ford provided one final achievement for the program, winning their only playoff game in the 2004 CHA Men's Ice Hockey Tournament. Rather than continue to search for coaching opportunities Ford hung up his whistle after the season was over and continued his career working for Hellenbrand Water, a company in Waunakee, Wisconsin.

Personal life

Pat Ford has three sons with his wife Cammie, Jason, Keegan and Kevin. Jason is entering his junior year with

. Keegan had attended Wisconsin in 2014 but, after playing only twelve games, left the program and transferred to

Michigan Tech Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech, MTU, or simply Tech) is a public research university in Houghton, Michigan, founded in 1885 as the Michigan Mining School, the first post-secondary institution in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. ...

where he is set to begin playing in the fall of 2016. Kevin is currently playing junior hockey for the Kirkland Lake Gold Miners. (as of 2016)

Head coaching record

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ford, Pat Living people 1964 births Ice hockey people from Saskatoon Canadian ice hockey coaches Findlay Oilers men's ice hockey coaches Wisconsin Badgers men's ice hockey players