Perhaps former Vancouver
Canucks' head coach and general manager Hal Laycoe summed up best the role
that veteran Orland Kurtenbach brought to the expansion Canucks in 1970.
"There is no question in my mind we simply could not have had a better
team captain. When you put any group together, there will always be one
whose voice will carry more weight than the others, whose presence will
command respect. That was Kurt with us those first two years," said Laycoe.
"In all the years I have been in hockey, I have never seen one man
contribute so much on his own to a team's success as Kurt did then."
Kurtenbach's stint with the NHL's Canucks came at the end of a long and
distinguished pro hockey career.Born in Cudworth,
Saskatchewan in September of 1936, he was tabbed as a "Million dollar
prospect" when he graduated from a junior career with the Prince Albert
Minots in 1955. Kurtenbach then began a pro hockey odyssey that included
stops with the NHL's New York Rangers, Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple
Leafs, as well as minor league stops in Saskatoon, Buffalo, Springfield,
Providence, San Francisco, Omaha and Vancouver, where he was named the
Western Hockey League's Coast Division Rookie of the Year in 1958.
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Kurtenbach was picked up by
the Canucks from the Rangers in the 1970 expansion draft and became the
first captain in the history of the NHL Canucks.
Knee injuries forced Kurtenbach to retire four seasons later, but he had
already made his mark on the ice and in the hearts of Vancouver fans.
With his playing days behind him, Kurtenbach turned to coaching, with
stops in Seattle and Tulsa, before returning to the NHL, as head coach of
the Canucks from 1976 to 1978.
Kurtenbach also used his coaching prowess to help guide the careers of a
number of junior players, where he also helped the B.C. Junior Hockey
League's Richmond Sockeyes capture the Centennial Cup national junior A
hockey championship in 1987.
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