The legend
Clare Drake is a leader, teacher and Canadian coaching legend.
Clare Drake (’58 BEd, ’95 LLD) was born on Oct. 9, 1928, in Yorkton, Sask., the only child of Clarence and Grace. Growing up, he excelled at sports — hockey and baseball in particular — and played junior hockey in Regina and Medicine Hat before moving on to play at the University of British Columbia, where he graduated with a degree in physical education in 1951.
Drake married high-school sweetheart Dolly Carlson and briefly coached football for his former high school in Yorkton. The family moved to Edmonton so Drake could study education at the University of Alberta.
As a student, Drake played one season with the Golden Bears, winning the Western Canadian Championships as the team’s co-scoring leader. In 1954, the Drakes and their young daughter Dolly moved to Düsseldorf, Germany, where he played and coached hockey in the semi-pro ranks — an experience that ignited his passion for coaching.
The family returned to Canada just a year later so Drake could teach and coach at the newly built Strathcona Composite High School in Edmonton. Around the same time, he also joined the Golden Bears hockey team as an assistant to head coach Don Smith. Drake would take over as head coach upon Smith’s retirement in 1958, setting in motion a career that would solidify him as one of hockey’s most respected and revered coaches.
Over the next 28 seasons, Drake led the Golden Bears hockey team to an astonishing six national championships and 17 conference championships. When he retired in 1989, Drake had compiled a record of 697 wins, 296 losses and 37 ties for a .695 winning percentage, and was the winningest hockey coach in Canadian Interuniversity Sport history.
Drake’s coaching expertise also extended to football, where he guided the Golden Bears for three years in the mid-to-late 1960s, compiling a record of 23–4 and a national title. Drake remains the only CIAU coach to lead both hockey and football teams to championships in the same year (1967).
While his most notable accomplishments came from when he was behind the Bears bench, Drake also coached at the professional and national level. He spent the 1975–76 season coaching the WHA’s Edmonton Oilers, and spent time as an assistant coach with the Winnipeg Jets and Dallas Stars. Drake co-coached the 1980 Canadian Men’s Olympic Team, earned three medals coaching at the World Student Games, and led Canada to their first-ever Spengler Cup Gold Medal in 1984.
There has been no shortage of accolades during Drake’s historic career. He was named CIAU Sport Coach of the Year twice (1975, 1988) and Canada West Coach of the Year four times (1985, 1986, 1987, 1989). He was inducted into the Alberta and Canadian sports halls of fame (1980 and 1989), received the 3M Gordon Juckes Award from Hockey Canada, was inducted into the Alberta Hockey Hall of Fame (2005) and received the Geoff Gowan Award, the Coaching Association of Canada’s top award, in 2006. He is also an Honorary Life Member of the Alberta Football Coaches Association.
The U of A honoured him by inducting him into the U of a Sports Wall of Fame in 1987, and naming Clare Drake Arena in his honour in 1990. He also received an honorary doctorate from the U of A in 1995, and a Distinguished Alumni Award in 1999.
In 1975, Drake was named the Edmonton Sportsman of the Year. He received an Alberta Centennial Medal in 2005, and was named to the the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2008. In 2013 he was named a member of the Order of Canada, and in 2014 he was named to the Order of Hockey in Canada. On Nov. 13, 2017, Drake was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.
For almost as long as there’s been a Canada, there’s been a University of Alberta. Over the next year, in honour of Canada’s 150th anniversary, we’re proudly celebrating the people, achievements and ideas that contributed to the making of a confederation.
