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Billy MacMillan, a former Maple Leaf forward who was involved with many 1970s’ NHL expansion teams as player and coach, died Saturday night at age 80.
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Born in Charlottetown and a member of the Prince Edward Island Sports Hall Of Fame, he read about the hockey program at prestigious St. Michael’s College in Toronto in a magazine and worked his way to its roster in 1959.
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Splitting his first season between the St. Mike’s junior A and B teams, MacMillan went on to play in four consecutive OHA J. Ross Robertson Cup finals, winning the Memorial Cup in 1960-61 with the great Father David Bauer as his coach.
The fourth consecutive trip to the league final was with the Neil McNeil Maroons, the Toronto school that absorbed some of St. Mike’s players in 1962.
After initially turning down Punch Imlach’s contract offer to join the Leafs in order to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree and play on Bauer’s Canadian national team, MacMillan made his NHL debut at 27. He played 137 games for the Leafs, partly as a winger for Dave Keon.
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“That was such a good experience to travel, get an education and play a high level of hockey,” MacMillan told author Tim Wharnsby in 2012. “I was fortunate in Toronto to be playing on a line with Dave.”
Claimed by the Atlanta Flames in the 1972 expansion draft, he played one year there, then four seasons for the rising New York Islanders, eventually becoming their assistant coach under Al Arbour when they won the 1980 Stanley Cup.
MacMillan was also head coach of the Colorado Rockies in 1980-81 and held the dual position of general manager and coach before becoming the first head coach of the New Jersey Devils in 1982 when the Rockies moved east.
He later returned home to coach the University of PEI, a CIAU final four entry in 1991, and a team he was proud of for being predominantly native Islanders.
“Billy was my idol growing up in PEI,” tweeted former NHL, coach, GM and broadcaster Doug Maclean, who is from Summerside. “Rest in peace Billy.”