Former Spokane Jets Coach, Nhl Star Rollins Dies At 69
Al Rollins, who reached stardom as a goaltender in the National Hockey League for nine seasons and later coached the Spokane Jets to their first international senior amateur championship, died Saturday.
Rollins, 69, died early Saturday morning in Calgary. He had suffered from heart trouble.
Born in Vanguard, Saskatchewan, on Oct. 9, 1926, Rollins broke into the NHL in the 1949-50 season with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Four years later, he established a hockey first by winning the Hart Trophy as the NHL’s most valuable player - on a last-place team, the Chicago Blackhawks.
The Maple Leafs won the 1951 Stanley Cup with Rollins recording a league-record 1.75 goals-against average. The record remains untouched.
He last played in the NHL in 1960 for the New York Rangers.
His earliest mark in coaching came with the 1969-70 Spokane Jets, who flourished under Rollins’ organized approach. The Jets were the first U.S.-based club to win the Allan Cup as the top senior amateur team in North America.
Vince Collins, a standout defenseman on that club, said, “He really built the guys up. He made you feel that you were somebody out there, that you were doing a job on the ice and were worthwhile to the community.
“He was only here a short time, but he sure left a mark on the town, with the friends he made,” Collins added. “And he kept coming back. Where he really felt at home, I think, was here. You think of all the places he had been, and all the fellows he played with, and he felt most at home here with a lot of the guys who played for him.”
Rollins coached the Jets for three seasons, leaving in 1971 to become coach and general manager of the Salt Lake club in the then-professional Western Hockey League. He later coached in the World Hockey Association and the Central League with stops in Houston, Phoenix and Tulsa.
After sitting out a year, he was back in 1982 as coach and general manager of the senior-amateur Spokane Chiefs, a job he held for 2 seasons before turning the coaching post over to former player Gail Holden.
Senior amateur hockey gave way in Spokane in 1985 to major junior hockey, when the Kelowna Wings of the Western Hockey League moved into the Spokane Coliseum and became the Chiefs.
Rollins was living with his first wife, Bert, at the time of his death. They had three children - Susan, Jerry and David.
Jerry Rollins, who lives in San Diego, played professional hockey as a defenseman. Al Rollins remained close to his second wife, Peggy, who lives in Spokane.
“He was a wonderful, wonderful man,” Peggy Rollins said, “very loyal to his friends and family. As a coach, he never played favorites. That was his style. Sincerity was one of his strong qualities.”
Rollins combined toughness with an emotional side. As a goalie before goalies wore facemasks, his face mirrored the rigors of his game. His nose, as described in a 1984 Spokesman-Review story, was lumpy and battle-scarred.
But when his 1970 club was named Inland Empire team of the year, and he was the area’s coach of the year, Rollins’ voice was breaking with emotion as he accepted the awards.
Collins quipped at the time, “Al cries when he watches Walt Disney movies.”
On the ice, “he was all business,” said Vern Kneeshaw, an associate of Rollins with the Spokane hockey old-timers group. “He wasn’t a hilarious, kneeslapping kind of guy. Al brought the Allan Cup here. He did an excellent job, managing and coaching.”
After his professional playing career ended, Rollins coached for five season at the University of Calgary while playing senior amateur hockey. He won an Allan Cup with Drumheller in 1966 before taking over the Jets in ‘68.
His three Jets teams went 135-49-8. His ‘82-83 Chiefs club struggled in fifth place in the Western International League, but Rollins had them back on top in 1983-84.
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