Mike Yeo will be inducted into the North Bay Sports Hall of Fame this May, the committee announced recently.
“Mike Yeo spent the better part of eight seasons as an NHL Head coach with Minnesota and St Louis, recording a regular season win percentage of 56.7 with 246 wins, 181 losses and 55 ties," noted Hall Chair Bill Jacko in a release.
"He was an assistant coach with Pittsburgh Penguins for five seasons as they reached the finals twice and won the Stanley Cup in 2009. He will be one of four 2019 inductees into the Hall May 4th.”
Yeo has also been mentioned as a possible candidate for the Ottawa Senators coaching position in 2019-20.
Mike Yeo was 13 when his family moved to North Bay in 1986. He played three years of AAA hockey and competed in soccer, basketball, and football while attending Widdifield where he helped the Wildcats win a NOSSA soccer championship. Picked by the Sudbury Wolves in the 8th round of the OHL draft, he played four seasons with the Wolves, notching 101 points and 233 penalty minutes in 190 games. The left winger’s best OHL season saw him pick up 34 goals and 66 points in 1993-94.
After attending NHL training camps with Boston and Hartford he played five seasons with Houston in the International League, carding 127 points in 317 games and being team Captain as the Aeros won the Turner Cup in 1999. Advancing to the American League he was only able to play 19 games with Wilkes-Barre/Scranton before a knee injury forced him to retire as an active player; the team then appointed him an Assistant Coach and he filled that slot for most of the next seven seasons as the AHL Penguins reached the league finals twice, winning Eastern and Western Conference titles.
Hired by the NHL Penguins as an Assistant Coach he remained with Pittsburgh for five seasons - helping them to the Stanley Cup and a pair of finals as Eastern Conference Champions in ’08 and ’09
Houston Aeros of the AHL offered Yeo a chance as a Head Coach in 2010 and he led the team to 48 regular season wins, a Western Conference title and a berth in the league finals. In June of 2011 the Minnesota Wild of the NHL beckoned and at 38 be became the youngest Head Coach in the league. He spent the next five seasons with the Wild, recording 173 regular season wins, making the playoffs three years in a row and pulling off 1st round upsets over Colorado and St Louis in 2014 and 2015. After being let go by Minnesota late in the 2015-’16 season, he was hired by St Louis as an Associate Coach in the summer of 2016 and then made Head Coach in February of 2017. The Blues won 73 regular season matches under Yeo, and his charges upset Minnesota in the first round of the ’17 playoffs. He was released by St Louis early in the 2018-‘19 season.
Yeo has twice been a Team Canada Assistant Coach at the IIHF World Championships - in Russia in 2016 when Canada took gold and in Denmark in 2018.
The 39th NBSHF Induction and Awards Dinner will be held at the Davedi Club for the first time on May 4th. Tickets are available from the following Executive Members: Karen Cobb (705-493-7578), Mary McTavish (705-497-8111) or Tom Nodwell (705-474-7108).
