A former Shuswap Totems hockey player continues to collect accolades in the hockey world.
The Totems were Salmon Arm’s first Junior A team, and Tim Coghlin played a prominent role during that inaugural 1982-83 season.
Moving south of the border since then, Coghlin has been at the helm of St. Norbert’s Division III Men’s hockey program at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin for 28 years. His Green Knights have won 600 games and five national championships.
In December 2021, in a special pre-game ceremony, Rink 1 at the community centre where the teams play was named the Tim Coghlin Rink to honour his legacy.
Salmon Arm’s Gord Mackintosh, who landed the Totems Junior A team for the town and served as general manager, raves about him.
The town was lucky to get Coghlin, he said. Penticton was the dominant team in the league at the time but Coghlin chose Salmon Arm.
“He was such a great guy. We were really lucky – we were a first-year expansion team so to get a guy like him to come… He was a natural leader, he was the first captain of the team.”
At that time, the Totems played in the Memorial Arena - now used mostly for soccer.
Mackintosh said Coghlin was a great ambassador for Salmon Arm and the team, and it was clear he was going to be successful in his career.
Coghlin, who’s from Summerland, was presented in 2018 with the B.C. Hall of Fame’s Pat Quinn Coaching award for his outstanding success with the St. Norbert varsity team.
He also holds a phenomenal overall coaching win record of .771, or 77 per cent.
In an interview with the Observer in 2014, Coghlin said he recruits heavily from B.C. and still keeps in touch with his billet family and others in Salmon Arm.
Read more: Shuswap Totems hockey team gone but not forgotten
Read more: Former Shuswap Totem receives B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame coaching honours
martha.wickett@saobserver.net
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