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TODAY’S TRAINING INSPIRATION:
DOUG LIDSTER

Today’s Colin Timberlake Training Inspiration is a man who helped lay the leadership foundation for a team, then was traded away the year that team’s potential was realized in a run to the Stanley Cup finals.

Doug Lidster was the greatest offensive defenseman the Vancouver Canucks had ever produced, and also one of its greatest leaders.

In 1986-87, the eventual team captain set a club record that still stands with 52 assists and 63 points by a defenseman.

Two years later, when Trevor Linden made his debut as a teenage rookie, Doug Lidster was one of the key figures involved in teaching him the ropes of the professional game. The end result was the creation of one of hockey’s all-time great captains in Linden, who also went on to become the president of the NHL players’ union.

At the end of the 1992-93 season, Lidster was traded to the New York Rangers, and the next year, the Canucks made a run all the way to game seven of the Stanley Cup finals.

It was the Rangers, however, that the Canucks met in the finals, and Lidster was a contributor to New York ending its 52-year drought without a Stanley Cup. Lidster was reunited with his old friends and teammates, but as their worthy opposition.

In 1999, Lidster’s 16th and final year, he again won the Stanley Cup, this time with the Dallas Stars. In all, Lidster played 897 games, during which he scored 343 points.

He has since gone on to coaching, as many of the great on-ice leaders do. He has coached in the junior ranks and also for the Canadian women’s national team.

TODAY: REHAB and REST

Total Sets: None

TRAINING NOTES

The beginning of this training period is called the Tree of Woe after a point in Conan the Barbarian where Arnold Schwarzenegger gets tied to a giant oak and must remain immobile as he is trapped in a mental prison.

I am in a period of inactivity as I let my back and other nagging injuries heal, so in my case, the challenge for the moment is to not be a physical entity…

BACK TO Index of Inspirational Role Models for Training

There are only two jerseys retired in the Vancouver Canucks organization, with #12 Stan Smyl and #16 Trevor Linden having made unparalleled contributions to the leadership of the hockey club.

But when the discussion turns to any other players who might warrant the honor, the names thrown around are typically Markus Naslund (#19), Cliff Ronning (#7) and Doug Lidster (#3). The former Canucks captain set the club record for points by a defenseman in a single season (63) in the mid-1980s, a record that still stands. He is also arguably the most talented and graceful skater ever to lace up the skates in Vancouver.

He played for the Canucks from 1983 through 1993, before finishing up his career with the New York Rangers and Dallas Stars, where he contributed to a pair of Stanley Cups. These made for some lofty accomplishments for a player who was drafted 133rd overall (7th round) in 1980 and didn’t don an NHL jersey until three years later.

But his NHL career was sandwiched by two stints with the Canadian National Team, where he played 66 games in 1983-84, and then another 38 in 1998-99. Over these 104 games, he scored 47 points in international competition.

In recent years, Lidster has taken to coaching, with stints as an assistant with Medicine Hat in the WHL, and as a head coach with the OHL’s Saginaw Spirit. Of particular note is that he will be serving Canada again with his hockey expertise, this time as a coach. Lidster has signed on to coach the Canadian women’s Olympic hockey team at the 2010 games in Vancouver, providing another opportunity for one of the Canucks’ all time greats to put on a familiar display of leadership and patriotism.