Born: 5 Dec 1937, Kirkland Lake ON (d. 1991)
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Regular Season & Playoff Coaching Record (key)
| Regular Season | Playoffs |
| year | team | finish | finish | |||||||||
| 1972-73 | Los Angeles | 3-W | QF | |||||||||
| 1973-74 | Los Angeles | 6-W | DNQ | |||||||||
| 1975-76 | Cincinnati | 4-E | DNQ | |||||||||
| 1976-77 | Cincinnati | 2-E | QF | |||||||||
• Succeeded by Ted McCaskill on November 18, 1973, then succeeded Ted McCaskill on February 3, 1974.
• Brother of Peter Slater.
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Excerpts from Pro Hockey, WHA 1975-76 (by Dan Proudfoot)
Positive thinking, of course, is only one of the cerebral approaches for which Slater is noted. He studied psychology for seven years and takes pride in finding unorthodox ways to rouse his players. Hockey folks swap stories, late at night, over tricks Slater has pulled. Like the time he walked on to the ice in the middle of a game. "It was in Fort Wayne," he says. "We had a team that should have been winning easily. An important game, too. But here we were early in the third period, down 2-0 and the guys were doing nothing. I mean, it was like they were in a trance." "What could I do to catch their attention, get them going? Then I got an idea. Just as there was a line change. I walk out on the ice. It's crazy — 8,000 people are watching, wondering what I'm doing." "I slide up to the referee, a little guy, as I remember, and I shake my fist at him and I say, 'You're calling a great game, ref!' Of course, none of the fans knew what I said. The ref did, but he couldn't believe his ears. He didn't know what to say, but he had no choice but to throw me out." "Naturally, my guys came alive. There was no coach left behind the bench to run things for them. They woke up and they won." "The thing to remember is that you never do crazy things just for the sake of doing them. It's just that some situations call for it, and I'm always ready." |
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Excerpts from Zander Hollander's Guide to Pro Hockey, 1975-76 (by Reyn Davis)
Cigar-chomping and dynamic ... Landed on both feet in Cincinnati after getting lost in the shuffle of changing owners and cities in Los Angeles with the Sharks ... Built a rough and ready team in Los Angeles in 1972, signing many players from the two leagues he knew best, the International and Western ... This time, two years of thought and effort have gone into building the Stingers ... Not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars ... Though he doesn't have much depth, he has some of the richest young talent in the game today ... Not quite hockey's answer to baseball's Sparky Anderson, but certainly of the same vibrant nature. |
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