DeBoer took unique journey on road to coaching 1,000 games in NHL
Will hit milestone with Golden Knights against Predators after giving up law career for hockey
DeBoer could have been a lawyer. He gave up an opportunity to keep playing pro hockey to go to law school in the 1990s and earned two law degrees -- one in Canada from the University of Windsor, one in the United States from the University of Detroit.
But DeBoer roomed with a friend and former teammate named Paul Maurice, who was coaching Detroit of the Ontario Hockey League. DeBoer ended up moonlighting as an assistant to Maurice as a distraction from law school and took payment for tuition and books from the team instead of a salary.
About the time DeBoer graduated, Maurice became coach of the Hartford Whalers. DeBoer gave up an opportunity to work at a law firm and replaced Maurice with Detroit instead, accepting less money and security, embarking on the journey that led him to where he is today.
"I have memories of sending him off to court," said Patrick Ducharme, a criminal defense lawyer in Windsor, Ontario, for whom DeBoer worked one summer.
Ducharme said DeBoer thought that his clients were dangerous and rude, and that it was difficult to communicate with them.
"I said, 'Welcome to my world,'" Ducharme said with a laugh. "But I think it was a unique experience for him. He wasn't used to people charged with serious crimes, and he kind of said to me, 'I don't know how you put up with this day in and day out.' I said, 'I love it, and it's all a question of what you love. Do you like it when someone slams you into the boards?' If you love it, you'll keep playing, you know?"
DeBoer called working for Ducharme his most exciting experience in law. (Another summer, he wrote disclaimers for the backs of floppy disks for Compuware in Detroit.)
Still …
"I wasn't sure if that was for me," DeBoer said.
DeBoer went on to coach 13 seasons with Detroit, Plymouth and Kitchener of the OHL, winning the OHL coach of the year award twice (with Plymouth in 1998-99 and 1999-2000), the OHL title twice (with Kitchener in 2002-03 and 2007-08) and finally the Memorial Cup (with Kitchener in 2008).
Since graduating to the NHL, he has gone 504-367-119 in 15 seasons with the Florida Panthers, New Jersey Devils, San Jose Sharks and Golden Knights. He has also gone 68-55 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, making the Stanley Cup Final twice (with the Devils in 2012 and the Sharks in 2016).
Coaching in the NHL beats working in the real world, even in times like this. Vegas (34-28-4) has been plagued by injuries and is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since joining the NHL as an expansion team in 2017-18, one point behind the Dallas Stars for the second wild card from the Western Conference.
"Every day I pinch myself -- every day," DeBoer said. "Paul Maurice talks about the juice of coaching. If you can't play in the NHL, the next closest thing to getting that adrenaline, that juice of being involved in the game, is standing there and directing, so to speak. That juice you get of being in the battle, you can never get enough of it. That's what gets you out of bed at the low moments."
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DeBoer scored 61 points (27 goals, 34 assists) in 82 games as a center for Milwaukee of the International Hockey League in 1990-91, his second full season in the minors. He wasn't thinking of retiring as a player.
But he had been taking classes to chip away at his undergraduate degree going back to his days playing for Windsor of the OHL. While trying to line up another job in the minors, he applied to law school. He thought maybe he could be an agent, or a lawyer for an NHL team or the League itself.
"I was fully prepared to step away from hockey and pursue something legally," DeBoer said. "I didn't know what. I was terrible at math, and I enjoyed the legal shows on TV at the time that were just starting to come out. It's as simple as that."
Milwaukee offered DeBoer a contract. But after being waitlisted at first, he got into law school.
"I had to make a decision, and I really felt the law school opportunity was kind of a stars-aligning, once-in-a-lifetime chance," DeBoer said. "I'm not sure if I would have gotten an opportunity like that again."
DeBoer also remembered a piece of advice from the late Tom Webster, his coach in Windsor. Webster told him to play pro for two or three years. You'll know if you're going to play in the NHL. If not, don't waste the next 10 years.
Law school it was. The University of Windsor and University of Detroit had a cross-border, dual-degree program that took an extra semester, perfect for someone thinking of working in hockey.
DeBoer needed a place to live; Maurice offered him a spare bedroom in his apartment in downtown Windsor. They had played together for Windsor from 1985-88. After an eye injury in 1987-88, Maurice got into coaching as an assistant there. His first full season was 1988-89, DeBoer's last season there.
Maurice became coach of Detroit of the OHL in 1993-94 and asked DeBoer if he could help. Jim Rutherford, who drafted DeBoer into the OHL as the general manager in Windsor, was an executive in Detroit at the time and offered the deal for tuition and books.
"It started as part time, kind of a distraction to get away from law school," DeBoer said. "I had no idea if I'd be able to handle working and doing the two degrees. You know what? It ended up being a fantastic distraction."
DeBoer slept at the apartment but lived at Joe Louis Arena and the two law schools, shuttling back and forth across the border. Detroit made the OHL final in 1993-94 and won the OHL championship in 1994-95.
"I think that relationship with Paul was probably one of the reasons that he decided to get into coaching," said Rutherford, now the Canucks president of hockey operations. "But he really knew the game. He was a smart player. It's certainly not to my surprise that he did get into coaching and he's done so well."
Rutherford became GM of the Whalers in 1994 and hired Maurice in 1995. (Rutherford would go on to win the Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006, win the Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins in 2016 and 2017, and make the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2019. Maurice would coach 1,685 NHL regular-season games with the Whalers, Hurricanes, Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets.)
When Detroit offered DeBoer the opportunity to replace Maurice, it wasn't an open-and-shut case that he'd give up the opportunity to work at a law firm.
"I had to make a decision, and at the time, it wasn't as easy as it appears now 25 years later," DeBoer said. "The money was not as good, and obviously the security was not as good. But I fell in love with coaching during those two, three years with Paul."
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DeBoer has used the same skill set as a coach that he used in law school, studying hard, serving as an apprentice, making arguments, and that's a big reason he has lasted 1,000 games in the NHL.
He did not have instant success in the NHL, missing the playoffs his first three seasons and getting fired in Florida. But he worked for Canada at the IIHF World Championship three times and got to be around Ken Hitchcock, Craig MacTavish, Tom Renney, Dave King and Mike Babcock.
"All those experiences after missing playoffs in tough situations, they renewed my passion for the game and winning but also made me a better coach," DeBoer said. "Those were critical development years for me."
DeBoer was more prepared when the Devils gave him a second chance, and he has continued to develop himself with the Sharks and Golden Knights.
"I use my law degree every day, and I think my law training has helped me even more as the game has evolved coaching-wise, how you're coaching the modern athlete," DeBoer said. "It has to be conversations. It has to be communication.
"It has to be you making continual cases for why you want them to do things a certain way or go to uncomfortable places on the ice and do uncomfortable things to help the team win. You have to present a case to them that they buy into. It's not like it used to be, where you just say, 'Jump,' and they say, 'How high?'"
Maurice couldn't see DeBoer as a lawyer.
"I don't know anything about being a lawyer or what a lawyer's life is like, but I know Pete, and I don't know if it would've been enough juice for Pete," Maurice told The Athletic. "Pete thrives on pressure and the tension and all the stuff that comes with pro sports. I don't think there was much of a choice for him. He was built to be a hockey coach."
DeBoer chose one kind of defense strategy over another and won.
"Believe me, if he ever came to me and said, 'Do you have a job opening?' I would make one available for him," Ducharme said. "I just thoroughly enjoyed his personality. I think he's very smart. I think he'd be respected in the courts. But he's had a great career [in hockey], and that was his first love."
