Those Were The Days: Alain Vigneault

No matter how you slice it, Alain Vigneault is a pretty successful NHL coach. But did you know he once played in the NHL too? Here's the photographic proof:

The St. Louis Blues drafted young Vigneault 167th overall in the 1981 NHL Amateur Draft. Over the next two seasons he played 42 games with the Blues. He score 2 goals and 7 points and picked up 82 PIMs including a fighting major with Chicago's Grant Mulvey in the first period of his very first game!

But by the end of the 1983-84 season his playing career was done. He returned home to Trois Rivieres and began coaching while earning a business degree at the University of Quebec at Trois Rivieres. Next thing you know he is the hottest hockey coaching prospect in Canadian junior hockey, later coaching in Ottawa as an assistant and then Montreal and Vancouver as the head coach for long tenures, and now, of course, New York.

Vigneault was named as the NHL's coach of the year in 2007.