Topic: Mike Keenan

Michael Edward Keenan (born October 21, 1949 in Bowmanville, Ontario) is a former head coach in the NHL, most recently with the Calgary Flames, and former General Manager of the Florida Panthers. Keenan was a player for the St. Lawrence University Skating Saints (1969–72), the University of Toronto (1972–73), the Roanoke-Valley Rebels (1973–74), and his native Whitby Warriors (1976–77).

His first coaching job was at Forest Hill Collegiate Institute in Toronto, Ontario, where he coached the varsity hockey team. In 1977 he became the coach of the Oshawa Legionaires of the Metro Junior B Hockey League, where he led them to back-to-back championships in 1979 and 1980. The following year he began his junior coaching career with the Peterborough Petes before moving on to the Rochester Americans, which he guided to the American Hockey League championship in 1983. He returned to University of Toronto to lead it to the CIAU title. He then landed his first high-profile job with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1984, then the Chicago Blackhawks in 1988. In 1993, he took the job as New York Rangers head coach, and led the franchise to its first Stanley Cup win since 1940.

During the Rangers success in 1994, Keenan was part of a concurrent finals series in hockey and basketball taking place in the same city for the second time in three years. In 1994, the New York Knicks were in the NBA Finals at the same time Keenan coached the Rangers to the Stanley Cup. Two years earlier, Keenan led the Chicago Blackhawks into the Stanley Cup Finals at the same time the Bulls reached the NBA Finals. In 1994, Phil Jackson, coach of the Bulls at the time, remarked how the concurrent finals experience was a great chapter in each city's sports history. However, both times, each city did not see both NBA and NHL championships in the same year. In 1992, the Blackhawks got swept by the Pittsburgh Penguins, but the Bulls won their second straight championship. Though the Rangers won in 1994, the Knicks fell to the Houston Rockets in seven games.