Eddie Gerard - Post-playing Career

Post-playing Career

After retiring as a player he was the Manager-Coach of the Montreal Maroons from 1924–25 season to 1928–29 season, winning his fifth Stanley Cup in 1925–26. He resigned from the Maroons, where he never had a formal contract, on July 8, 1929. Though he never stated why he left the team there were rumours that he was to join the Senators, whose former owner and manager, Tommy Gorman, resigned on the same day from the New York Americans. Offered the chance to replace Gorman as coach of the Americans, Gerard turned it down and spent the year away from hockey. The Americans finished last in the Canadian Division in 1929–30, so they decided to replace player-coach Lionel Conacher. This time Gerard accepted the job. One of Gerard's first acts as the new manager of the Americans was to trade away Conacher, as he didn't want the man he replaced overlooking him. He would coach the New York Americans for two seasons in 1930–31 and 1931–32. In the fall of 1932 he returned as Manager-Coach of the Maroons. In the three years that Gerard had been away from the Maroons newspapers kept publishing rumours that he would return to the team. But it was not until the Maroons lost in the 1932 playoffs that Sprague Cleghorn was let go as coach and Gerard was hired away from New York, finally confirming the rumours. He coached the team for two more seasons, 1932–33 and 1933–34, before being let go and replaced by Gorman.

Prior to the start of the 1934–35 season, the Senators moved from Ottawa to St. Louis, Missouri and changed their name to the St. Louis Eagles. Gerard was hired as the first coach of the Eagles and replaced his former teammate on the Senators, Georges Boucher. The team lost eleven of their first thirteen games to start the season and as a result Gerard resigned as coach of the team on December 11, 1934, with Boucher named his replacement.

He died in Ottawa on August 7, 1937 due to the same throat condition which had ended his involvement in hockey. He is interred in Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa. Gerard was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1945.