Phil Russell

Phillip Douglas Russell, a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman, was born July 21, 1952, in Edmonton, Alberta. Over a National Hockey League career that spanned until his retirement in 1988, he appeared in over one thousand games. Russell reached the 1973 Stanley Cup Finals with the Chicago Black Hawks, the first of four NHL clubs he would represent. He also played for the Atlanta/Calgary Flames, the New Jersey Devils and the Buffalo Sabres.

A bruising, physical defenceman, Russell built a reputation for rugged play and retired with over 2,000 penalty minutes alongside 424 career points. He appeared in more than a thousand regular-season games, a measure of his durability across roughly a decade and a half in the league.

After retiring as a player, Russell turned to coaching. He served as an assistant coach with the Muskegon Lumberjacks of the International Hockey League from 1988 through 1991, then took over as the club's head coach for the 1991-92 season, a campaign that ended in a finals loss. In 2007, he was hired as an assistant coach with the Pensacola Ice Pilots of the ECHL under John Marks. He later worked as an assistant coach with the Springfield Falcons of the American Hockey League.