From acting to the NHL: Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft opens up about young career

Many Edmonton Oilers fans might not have known about this until Wednesday morning, but Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft used to be an actor.

During Wednesday morning’s pre-game press conference, Woodcroft opened up about his two acting roles, which came in 1979 and 1986.

“When I was a really young kid, that is, you know, part of my life and I think when I was [in] the Littlest Hobo, I was under two years old. And yeah, that’s a part of my life. It’s part of our family’s life,” said Woodcroft.

Here's #Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft as young Davey in the pilot episode of the Littlest Hobo.

Thanks to Smoke the dog parachuting from a plane with an antidote, Jay would survive a serious poisoning to eventually coach the #Oilers to the NHL conference championship. #Yeg pic.twitter.com/mMrh9Vdcwi

— Courtney Theriault (@cspotweet) September 28, 2022

From there, Woodcroft would go on to play Bobby Moore in Separate Vacations, a Playboy Productions film, alongside David Naughton and Jennifer Dale.

“I’m going to give you a little scoop right here. When I was a coach in Bakersfield, we would do these things where we call them ‘about me’s.’ And it was for our hockey team to get to know each other and come together. Players would tell their life stories, and sometimes they were emotional, sometimes they were funny, those types of things,” explained Woodcroft.

“The rule always was if you spoke, you presented before practice to the team and that you got to pick the next speaker. And one day someone picked me.

“And I can tell you that I did share that with the team and I said that not many people know this, but as a young man, this is something when I was a little boy, you know that that was part of my life. And I showed them some of that just to just show a little bit of vulnerability to the group to it,” he continued.

“And the guys were laughing and having a good time with it. They were having fun with it and as they should but more importantly, they got to know something about their coach and that he was in it with him.”

While it’s been 36 years since he’s been in a film, according to IMDB, Woodcroft said the experience helped him moving forward.

“It was you know… the one side benefit to that as a little kid was you feel comfortable going into any type of room. And I think that skill helps me in my position right now.”

Woodcroft says he and the Oilers coaching staff try to reduce the outside noise around the team, but says it’s not easy, sometimes.

“There’s times for levity, and that was one of them,” said Woodcroft.

Woodcroft was recently named the NHL’s most handsome coach by Gambling.com on Tuesday.

The gambling site reportedly used an app called Golden Ratio Face, which scored Woodcroft a 9.18 out of 10. The closest coach to Woodcroft, Wednesday night’s opponent, Flames head coach Darrel Sutter, scored an 8.9.

“I’m not a big social media guy, but I had some players, like former players that I coached and some buddies in my life, reach out and rip on me a little bit,” explained Woodcroft on the list. “And I think that’s always it’s always healthy when your buddies keep you in check. And so we had had a laugh about it.”