27 oct. 2016 – Times & Transcript Former Aigles Bleus coach Perron made his name in Moncton SEAN HATCHARD TIMES & TRANSCRIPT

Jean Perron coached the Montreal Canadiens to a Stanley Cup victory in 1986.

He paraded down Saint Catherine Street as thousands of Canadiens fans lined the parade route.

But it was his 10 seasons as head coach of the Université de Moncton Aigles Bleus that Perron calls “the best hockey time in my life.There’s no question about that.”

In Perron’s tenure guiding the university men’s team, the Aigles Bleus never missed the playoffs.

He helped turn them into a national powerhouse, winning back-to-back Canadian championships in 1981 and 1982. They won four Atlantic conference titles, too.

Perron, who coached UdeM from 1973 to 1983, will be inducted into the

Moncton Sports Wall of Fame as a builder on Saturday at the Capitol Theatre.

The 70-year-old is returning to the city for the festivities from his home in

Chandler, Que.

“I’ll be there like I never left,” he said. “I’m so excited. I’m like a little kid.”

Perron has never forgotten the scene in the city when his team arrived home from winning its first national championship in 1981 in Calgary.

“Bill Boucher, the director of the alumni association,called me before I left Calgary and said,‘Jean,you won’t believe what is happening here in Moncton. Get ready because you’re going to have the shock of your life,’”Perron said.

“We arrived at the airport and there was 5,000 people jam-packed in the small airport, and there was a line of cars from the airport to downtown. We went to the university fieldhouse and it was jam-packed again.”

The highlight of Perron’s time in Moncton were those two national titles. The Aigles Bleus doubled the Saskatchewan Huskies 4-2 on a pair of goals by Francois Bessette in the final 10 seconds of the 1981 Canadian final to become the first Maritime school to win the national championship.

A year later, Louis Durocher scored with 33 seconds remaining to lift the Aigles Bleus a 3-2 win over Saskatchewan in the Canadian title game at the Moncton

Coliseum.

Perron took over for the departed Pierre Lacoste in the 1973-74 season, made the first of six trips to the national tournament two years later and won four straight Atlantic championships from 1980 to 1983.

“It was that pride,” said Perron. “We built the program step by step and having those Francophones from New Brunswick - we had some Anglophones, too - and the Francophones from Quebec,and the two groups meshed so well together.”

Perron said there is plenty of credit to go around for the success of the Aigles Bleus teams. He noted the impact both former athletic director Jean-Guy

Vienneau and alumni association director Bill Boucher had on the program.

He also had high praise for his assistant coaches, including Ron LeBlanc, Denis

Gingras and Bob Bellefleur in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“I’m very proud of those guys. They believed in the program, they were the first guys to build the program,” said Perron, who was also a professor at the school.

Perron took much pride in his position. He recalled the late Claude Savoie of Acadian Construction once addressing a crowd in Ottawa while raising funds for the university.

“He said, ‘As Acadians, there’s three things that we can’t forgot and that we are all about - Edith Butler, la Sagouine and the Blue Eagles,’” said Perron. “For me, that was something to hear.”

Perron almost didn’t apply for the UdeM job. He was 26 years old, coming off earning a master’s degree in physical education at Michigan State University, and was set to return to a physical education department job in Matane, Que. His one-year-old son was very ill at the time.

It was only after the persistence of a friend that Perron,who always aspired to have a career in coaching, applied.

Then-UdeM athletic director Vance Toner tracked him down, they met at a restaurant in Quebec, and the rest is history.

Perron made his coaching name in Moncton.

“It was where I learned how to coach.”

After leaving Moncton, Perron spent a year as an assistant coach with the Canadian Olympic team and another year as an assistant with the NHL’s Canadiens. He was promoted to Montreal’s head coach and guided the Habs to a

Stanley Cup in 1986 as a rookie bench boss.

Perron coached the Canadiens for three seasons and had a brief stint with the Quebec Nordiques. He also coached the San Francisco Spiders and Manitoba

Moose, both in the International Hockey League.

Perron now resides in Chandler on the Gaspé Peninsula and operates his own restaurant,“La Loge à Perron”.

The 1981 and 1982 Aigles Bleus teams have previously been inducted into the

Moncton Sports Wall of Fame.

The rest of the Class of 2016 includes late hockey player Sammy McManus and golfer Jim Baxter in the athlete category and the late Ian Fowler, a former general manager of the City of Moncton, former UdeM hockey coach Len Doucet and former hockey referee Don Gaudet in the builder category.

The induction ceremony will be held on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Capitol

Theatre.

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Former Université de Moncton Aigles Bleus hockey coach Jean Perron will be inducted into the Moncton Sports Wall of Fame on Saturday. PHOTO: COnTribuTed