Mike Eaves
American ice hockey player

Michael Gordon Eaves (born June 10, 1956) is an American former National Hockey League (NHL) player and the former head coach of the St. Olaf College men's hockey team and for his alma mater the University of Wisconsin, where he was part of two NCAA National Championship teams with the Badgers (as a player in 1977, and as head coach in 2006). In 2019, he was named the head coach of the Cleveland Monsters of the American Hockey League (AHL), a role he held until 2022.
Eaves appeared in 324 NHL regular-season games between 1978 and 1985, and has coached since 1985. His father, Cecil Eaves, is a Canadian former University of Denver ice hockey and football player and later became a professor and hockey coach at Ohio State and the University of Windsor. Eaves is also the father of former NHL forward Patrick Eaves, and former SM-Liiga Jokerit forward Ben Eaves (who is currently part of his father's coaching staff with the Monsters as strength and conditioning coach), and brother of former NHL player Murray Eaves.
Playing career
Amateur
Born in Colorado, Eaves spent his early childhood in Denver and Calgary before moving to Cleveland, Ohio as a fifth and sixth grader in 1964-66 as his father Cecil was earning his doctorate at Ohio State. The family eventually settled in Ontario where Mike played junior hockey for the Nepean Raiders.
From 1974 to 1978 he played for the University of Wisconsin–Madison hockey team, where he was a two-time All-American and a member of Coach Bob Johnson's 1977 NCAA championship team. Eaves remains the Badgers' all-time leading career scorer with 267 points (94 goals, 173 assists) in 160 games.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Mike Eaves” as american ice hockey player. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q738591. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1956, 1977, 2006 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mike Eaves” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.