From coaching success at NAIT to the NHL and on the international stage, Perry Pearn has built one of the most impressive coaching résumés in hockey.

The Stettler, AB native coached the NAIT Ooks to five CCAA Championships and, over 14 seasons, compiled a 457-177-24 record, won six ACAC championships, and was named Coach of the Year seven times. He also helped guide Team Canada to four gold medals on the international stage, spent more than 20 seasons as an NHL assistant coach, and has been inducted into four Halls of Fame, including the CCAA Hall of Fame in 2019, among many other honours.

It was during his time coaching at NAIT that Pearn first crossed paths with a young Mike Babcock, who was leading the rival Red Deer College program. Through their battles in the ACAC, the two coaches developed a strong respect for one another that continued throughout their careers.

Oilersnation sat down with Pearn to discuss his early impressions of Babcock, the coaching philosophies that shaped their careers, what Babcock will bring to the Oilers next season, and the story behind Pearn’s renowned 3-on-3 camp, which has been running in Edmonton for nearly three decades.

Q: When you reflect on your coaching career, what do you think have been some of the biggest factors behind your success?

“I think one of the biggest things for me was I had the opportunity to begin my coaching career in Edmonton, having been around the U of A Golden Bears’ program and having gotten to know Clare Drake.

I think Clare was a tremendous influence on me and a number of other coaches who kind of came along at the same time I did, like Ken Hitchcock. I also think he had an effect on Mike Babcock, too. And another coach who was very influential for me was George Kingston.

But I started at NAIT, and it’s the first time I did a job where I felt like a coach. Right away, you look at other successful coaches, and I’ve always felt that no matter where you’re at, you figure out what teams are the best teams, you figure out what they’re doing, and you try to adapt some of that to what you do as a coach.

Back then, I’d made a lot of trips across the river to the U of A to sit down with Clare and ask him questions, and over time, my assistant coach Paul St. Cyr and I started to incorporate some of those teachings, and we started to have success with it.

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Perry Pearn (Coach Category) is inducted into the CCAA Hall of Fame!  #CCAApride

3:30 AM · Jun 12, 2019

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So when you establish a way of how to play and players buy into it, it’s much easier going forward.

And I think that’s kind of what happened at NAIT. We developed an environment that was conducive to winning and conducive to being successful in school. And one of the things I’m proud of is that a lot of those guys that I coached at NAIT went on and did very, very well for themselves in the business world.”

Q: You mentioned Clare Drake, who was one of the most influential coaches in Canadian hockey history. What is one philosophy, strategy, or lesson you took from him that has influenced your own coaching?

“Well, Clare’s teams always forechecked really hard and competed very hard. But the other thing that Clare did really well was run the special teams.

The penalty kill in particular was something I learned a lot from Clare and tried to adapt a lot of what he did. As time went by and I got into other levels of coaching, my ability with special teams was something that really helped me be successful.”

Q: Mike Babcock, the new head coach of the Oilers, has mentioned you several times in interviews as a coach he looked up to. Can you take us back to when you first met Babcock?

“Mike came to Red Deer College as the head coach, and he was so young. He did a very good job, and we coached against each other. Red Deer had always been one of the powerhouse teams in the ACAC, but he took it right away, did a good job of recruiting, and had a really good group of core players there.

The ACAC was a very competitive league, and there was a rivalry between Red Deer and ourselves. I got to know him by coaching against him, and we’d touch base before games and a lot after games.

One year, they beat us in the ACAC final. But both teams were going to go to the nationals, and there we wound up beating Red Deer in the gold medal game.

From then on, there was a mutual respect. I had respect for the job that he had done at Red Deer, and I think he had respect for what we had accomplished, not just that particular year, but the number of years we had been successful at NAIT.

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#TBT Coach Mike Babcock and the 1989 Red Deer Kings captured @ACAC_Sport gold and took home silver at Nationals!

4:49 PM · May 21, 2015

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We just kept in touch over the years. We kept in touch when he went to coach at Moose Jaw in the WHL, and then I was at the University of Lethbridge, and he was at Spokane, and then at the NHL level. Mike and I would hang out at the NHL Drafts.

So, over the years, we got to know each other quite well, and I’ve always felt comfortable reaching out to him. Also, when I coached the Canadian women’s team, I reached out to Mike to see if he’d speak to the team. We had a training camp in Toronto before we went to the World Championships, and that’s when Mike came to speak to them.

He was always very accommodating in terms of helping to grow the game, and in my opinion, he’s always been a very, very good coach.”

Q: When you first started coaching against Babcock, was there something about his approach, whether it was a strategy, tactic, or philosophy, that stood out to you early on?

“There are coaches who can have certain tactics and strategies........

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