THE CANADIAN PRESS
DEASE LAKE, B.C. — Former hockey coach Ernie (Punch) McLean is missing in a remote region of northern British Columbia and long-time friends say they’re very concerned by his disappearance.
McLean, 77, was reported missing on Sunday afternoon. RCMP say he had been surveying property near the community of Dease Lake, about 250 kilometres south of the Yukon border.
McLean was in a mountainous area accessible only by all-terrain vehicle and airplane. Police have called in air and ground units to try and find him.
McLean coached 16 seasons in the Western Hockey League and led New Westminster to four consecutive league championships. His Bruins were Memorial Cup champions in both 1977 and 1978.
Bruce Judd, director of the B.C. Hockey Hall of Fame that welcomed McLean as an inductee in 2006, said he’s concerned about his friend of four decades.
"I’m very worried nobody’s heard from him since Sunday," Judd said in an interview.
"Hopefully, Punch comes through."
Judd last spoke to McLean about two months ago, when the 1975 WHL coach of the year was just getting ready for his northern trip.
Judd called McLean a great hockey mind and said he still has a lot to offer the game in B.C.
"His knowledge of the game and the way he mentors kids to get to the NHL. I believe that’s one of his biggest attributes," he said.
."The Stan Smyls, the Barry Becks, he’s got a hundred to go with those, he helped them immensely."
Smyl played for New Westminster from 1975 to 1978. He ranks third all-time in scoring for the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks.
Beck, like Smyl, was a member of the Memorial Cup winning team in 1977. He played in the NHL for the New York Rangers and the Los Angeles Kings.
McLean never coached in the NHL but, Judd says, he sure thinks he could have.
"He’s always believed he should have been a coach in the NHL and he told us that at the Hall of Fame dinner too," Judd said.
"We always have a lot of NHL general managers there. So he got his point across."
Judd says McLean was ecstatic when he found out he was being inducted into the hall and he described him as a charismatic individual with a tremendous personality.
Like Judd, Dennis Coates has known McLean for decades.
The Kamloops lawyer says it’s not unusual for McLean to be up north prospecting. RCMP say McLean was working near a gold claim when he went missing.
Coates says his old friend is by no means frail.
"He’s a pretty experienced guy. He’s a guy that back in the 1970s crashed an airplane in the middle of winter and we actually had a wake for him," Coates said.
"And then he walked out of the bush the next day. So he’s a survivor."
— By Sunny Dhillon in Vancouver
