Any summary of Eric Weinrich’s hockey career will not be a short one. Weinrich played at North Yarmouth Academy in Maine and then at the University of Maine. He started his international career by playing for the US at the 1985 and 1986 World Junior Championships. He would later represent the United States at the 1991 Canada Cup, the 2004 World Cup, and the World Championships of 1991, 1993, 1997-2002, and 2004. He began his NHL career after the 1988 Olympics with the New Jersey Devils, but later played for, in order, the Hartford Whalers, Chicago Black Hawks, Montreal Canadiens, Boston Bruins, Philadelphia Flyers, St. Louis Blues, and ended his NHL career in 2006 with the Vancouver Canucks. In his NHL career, Weinrich appeared in 1,157 games, scoring 388 points as a tough, defense-minded defenseman. Early in his career, he appeared briefly in the American Hockey League (AHL) with the Utica Devils in 1988-90, but after he announced his “retirement” from professional hockey on 7 August 2006, Weinrich came back to play two seasons with the Portland Pirates of the AHL, serving as a player-coach. During his NHL career, Weinrich missed one season, the locked out 2004-05 season, when he played in Austria with EC Villacher SV. Weinrich has now begun coaching hockey in the minor leagues, but we think he might still be trying to play somewhere.
United States