Legends of Team Canada: Ron Davidson

Ron Davidson may better known as a successful lawyer to most, but hockey has always been his passion.

Never drafted by a NHL team, the lanky center played junior hockey in Cornwall, Ottawa and Kingston while studying law, earning his law degree from Queen's University.

He jumped at the chance to play for the Canadian Olympic team in 1980, turning down a contract offer from the Minnesota North Stars. Davidson, centering a line with future NHL stars Glenn Anderson and Jim Nill, scored a goal and five points in six Olympic contests.

Unlike his linemates there was no NHL future for Davidson. He played several seasons in Sweden, Switzerland and France before returning to Ontario to practice law in Ottawa and then Lindsay.

All the way through Davidson loved to teach the game of hockey. As a teenager he worked as an assistant at Howie Meeker's hockey schools. He later was asked by Meeker to design the whole program.

"Howie came to me after I'd been with him for about six years," Davidson said. "He was concerned that players could come every year to his hockey school and after a while they would have covered all the skills he was teaching and then they wouldn't be interested in coming back. He wanted me to develop a program that would attract the player that had been involved in his development program and would still be interested in learning."

Davidson's hockey career exposed him to some more great teachers, rounding him out as a hockey teacher.

"I was involved with the Olympic team, I was going through some great coaching with some of the top coaches in Canada," Davidson said. "Then I played hockey in Europe for five years and I was exposed to some of the best coaches in Europe."

"Your whole role as a coach is to inspire that passion in the game itself," he said. "It's not the jackets and the score and the tournament trophies ... it's moving on the ice and making plays and feeling the puck on your stick and creating situations."

Davidson became such a noted coach in the area that Ottawa Senators hired him to become director of hockey programming, but he could only secure two years leave from work and had to give up the position.