"We got to know each other well at the 2019 World Championships. "I didn't know him all that well," Hakstol said. Within four years, he was an NHL head coach with Buffalo.īut their paths converged again in the spring of 2019, when they were both selected to be assistant coaches for Team Canada at the IIHF World Championships in Slovakia. Ruff played 12 seasons in the NHL, and upon retirement, he immediately jumped back into the league as a Florida Panthers assistant. To see him move up from North Dakota to Philly to where he is now - and he had a hell of a year this year - I'm extremely happy for him." "You know another guy from a small town who is able to have success. "When you're from Warburg, you know the other person," Ruff said. Hakstol then jumped into coaching, rising the ranks from the Sioux City Musketeers of the United States Hockey League to a UND assistant to the UND head coach to the NHL. Randy is nine years older, Lindy eight and Marty five. Brent was an unbelievable young guy, a good buddy."īrent was the closest in age to Hakstol of the four Ruff brothers. It would be a late night, then right to an early morning game that Brent and I played. "We'd drive down there for a few hours, get to watch Lindy and the Broncos play, then drive right back. "I can remember Lindy's dad grabbing us on a weekend, jumping in a car and we'd go watch the Lethbridge Broncos play," Hakstol said. Hakstol remembers, at about age 10, going on five-hour road trips with the Ruff family to watch Lindy play Western Hockey League games. Although Brent was two years younger than Hakstol, he was so good he was frequently moved up to play with older players. Leeson and Shirley Ruff had four hockey-playing sons - Randy, Lindy, Marty and Brent.ĭave Hakstol grew up playing on youth hockey teams with Brent Ruff, the youngest of four brothers. It's a no-stoplight town.įamilies know each other, including the Hakstols and Ruffs.Įd and Theresa Hakstol had three children - Dave, Brian and Sandra. Located a little over an hour southwest of Edmonton, Warburg had a population of 438 when Hakstol and Ruff were growing up in the 1970s, roughly the same size as Emerado, N.D. It goes back five decades to the small farming community of Warburg, Alberta.
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