Rod Dallman – Athlete & Builder
Dedication to the sport of hockey, first as a top-level player, then as a coach and administrator makes Rod Dallman an inductee in the Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame as both an Athlete and Builder.
Working his way up through Prince Albert Minor Hockey ranks, Rod Dallman first skated for the Midget Raiders in 1983. The following season he was picked up by the Prince Albert Raiders of the Western Hockey League where he would have three stellar seasons. His first was 1984-85 when the Raiders hoisted their first Memorial Cup.
The long playoff run by the Raiders that year gave Dallman more exposure to NHL scouts, and in the 1985 NHL Draft he was selected in the 6th round, 118th overall, by the New York Islanders.
After graduating from the Raiders, Dallman joined the Springfield Indians of the American Hockey League in 1988. His 355 penalty minutes that season was third in the AHL, even though he spent some time with the Peoria Rivermen of the IHL. He also made his NHL debut that season with the Islanders, playing in three games and scoring his only NHL goal.
The following season was spent almost exclusively in Springfield — Dallman played only a single game for the Islanders that year — where he had the second-most penalty minutes in the league. He was also part of an infamous incident where Ed Kastelic of the Binghampton Whalers was suspended for 20 games by the league for biting an official during an altercation with Dallman; Kastelic claimed that he thought he had been biting Dallman.
He played only one more game for the Islanders, in the 1990 playoffs, but was once again a champion, as the 1989-90 Indians won their sixth Calder Cup championship. Dallman served as an assistant captain on that team and had a sparkling five goals and five assists in fifteen games in the playoffs to be one of the Indians’ inspirational leaders, although he had been battling injuries all season long. The Indians’ Cup-winning victory in Game Six of the Calder Cup playoffs came on a power play goal in overtime, the result of Rochester Amerks forward Donald Audette receiving a match penalty for spearing Dallman in the face just before a faceoff.
The following season, Dallman signed with the Philadelphia Flyers, but played only briefly with farm teams in San Diego and Hershey while spending most of the season recuperating from his injuries of the previous year. He was healthy once more the following year, playing two games with the Flyers — his last NHL action — and 31 with the Hershey Bears before suffering a career ending knee injury, ironically in Springfield against the Indians.
After his career, home was calling and Dallman returned to Prince Albert. He became the Prince Albert Mintos Midget AAA Assistant Coach in 1992-93, then named Head Coach the following year, before joining the Raiders as an Assistant Coach from 1994-96, He would stay close to both organizations in the years following helping the Mintos as Assistant Coach in 1998-2000 and 2014-15 and Head Coach in 2000-01, and the Raiders as Scout from 2009-2012.
Rod Dallman has had a huge impact on minor hockey in Prince Albert and throughout the Province, starting as a Minor Hockey Coach in 1998. He was the President of PA Minor Hockey from 2011-13 implementing the city-wide draft. He coached the Pee Wee AA Ice from 2015-19 then took on the Head Coaching role with the Bantam AA program which he continues to hold.
Dallman is also highly involved in what is now called Hockey Saskatchewan. He took their development program in 2009 to become a top tier coach in the province. He then was an Assistant Coach for Team Sask at the 2018 Canada Winter Games in Men’s hockey. At the 2019 WHL Cup Dallman was again an Assistant Coach on Team Sask that won the Gold Medal at that event for the first time ever.
