Born in Regina in 1939 on a Friday sharing this date, Red Berenson turns 81 today. Would we agree that it’s long past time he got his invitation into hockey’s Hall of Fame, as a builder if not as a player? He was a left winger in his day, a junior star with his hometown Pats, and played for two Memorial Cups in the late 1950s. As a 19-year-old, he helped the Belleville McFarlands win the 1959 World Championships in Prague, finishing tied atop the tournament’s scoring chart with a Czech and an American. He hit the NHL ice as a Montreal Canadien, then joined the New York Rangers, before making his mark with the expansion St. Louis Blues as the ’60s turned into the ’70s. On memorable night in 1968, Berenson scored six goals in an 8-0 win over the Philadelphia Flyers. He played five seasons with the Detroit Red Wings before finishing his career back in St. Louis. He was a member, too, of Team Canada in 1972.

And as a coach? He was an assistant in St. Louis before succeeding Barclay Plager as principal on this very date in 1979, his 40^th birthday. His Blues tenure lasted three seasons; he won a Jack Adams as the NHL’s top-rated coach in 1981. In 1984, he returned to his alma mater, the University of Michigan, to take over as head coach as the hockey Wolverines. His 33-year stint there yielded a pair of NCAA championships, in 1996 and ’98, before he retired from the bench in 2017.