Monday, April 05, 1999
LOCAL HOCKEY
Davidge eyes Blue Jackets post
BY DAVE HELLER
Enquirer contributor
Fate has intervened often in the life of Bill Davidge, the former coach at Miami University and current part-time scout for NHL Florida and broadcaster for the IHL Cincinnati Cyclones.
He turned down an opportunity to play hockey at Penn and attend the Wharton School of Business because he would have had to pay his own tuition. Instead, Davidge went to Ohio State on a scholarship and majored in physical education. “I don't regret a day of it,” he said.
He planned to play professionally in Germany, but three concussions forced him out of the game. He moved to Oxford because his fiancee, Leann, was from Middletown. He helped move Miami's hockey program from a club team to varsity sport. He got his master's degree, served as head coach and, since 1977, has been a Miami teacher.
But in the winter of 1985, Leann, who was Miami's tennis coach, was killed in a car accident while driving a recruit home.
“It was tough for a period of five or six years to get myself back on track,” Davidge said. “I tried to be a head coach, a father and a teacher and I couldn't do them all very well.”
Davidge got out of hockey. Opportunities came and went but Davidge refused to leave Oxford so his and Leann's son, Robbie, could be close to his grandparents.
Davidge later remarried and got back into hockey, hired as a scout by Detroit by his longtime friend Doug MacLean. One day while sitting in the stands at Cincinnati Gardens watching a Cyclones game, Cyclones broadcaster Andy MacWilliams came to him and asked if he could serve as color commentator because his regular partner didn't show up. Davidge — whom current Cyclones broadcaster John Wiedeman calls the best analyst he's worked with — has been the Cyclones color commentator ever since.
But now it is Davidge who will control his own destiny.
Davidge will be taking a full-time job with an NHL club this week. Davidge has been offered the position of assistant coach with Florida's AHL Louisville franchise, which begins play next season, and a scouting/community affairs job with Columbus, which enters the NHL in the 2000-2001 season.
It is expected that Davidge will take the Columbus job, He will rejoin MacLean, president and general manager of the Blue Jackets, and return him to the city where he played in college and was OSU captain in 1976-77. It also will allow him to keep his Oxford residence.
Davidge may even try to land the job of Columbus' radio/TV analyst. “(Color commentary) is like coaching, without all the bureaucratic baloney,” he said. “Scouting is fine, but it drives me nuts to sit and watch a game. If I can sit and talk about it and still scout at the same time, great, because then I can express my feelings.”
Thinking about all of the twists and turns that have been dealt him since leaving Dunville, Ontario, a town of about 3,000, Davidge lowered his head and shook it a couple of times and smiled: “Unbelievable.”
Mighty Ducks
The Ducks are considering turning the annex building at Cincinnati Gardens into a practice rink and skating center, as it was during the tenure of the Cincinnati Swords in the early 1970s. Such a move probably wouldn't happen until 2001, which is the year Xavier is expected to move into their own on campus facility.
“The Mighty Ducks is a priority in both a long-term and short-term basis here,” Ducks President Pete Robinson said. “We'll do anything to promote the Ducks in this marketplace.”
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