Ready for Another Hockey Weekend

After the excitement of winning our first game last Friday, it was a coaching challenge to get the boys up for Saturday. Toughest parts of blowouts is preparing the next day. While 6-3 was much closer, I was beyond happy to get the result. Of course, the best part for the players was it being club hockey, my job as a coach pretty well ended at the buzzer. I hit the hot tub and they hit Beale Street.

After midterms, it was Fall break and for me a little Canadian Thankgving. I was quite happy to back in the city where the coaching dream once fell short in 2001 but that on a cold night in 2012 on a Tuesday night in West Ottawa that I remembered (in the middle of an evening community skate) the joys of giving back to my community in my favorite way. The weekend featured family time and a look at a potential recruit playing some Junior B hockey in the EOJHL.

Getting two wins under our belt was huge for the team and I am hopeful for that little spark of a sign of things to come. I am not going to lie: I certainly sent out many emails on Monday and Tuesday after our Memphis weekend to potential recruits. With the latest story coming out last week talking about how schools with high tuition rates use sports as a method to attract students willing to pay good money for “the experience of playing college hockey”, I think we are doing just that. Between practices, dry land training, and access to the many of the same facilties as our NCAA D-I athletes, I am quite proud of the things we are doing in a very unique sporting situation.

My other favorite part of taking two on the weekend is the congratulatory moments you have with other coaches, some of who make a lot more money than I do doing this. The professor job certainly pays more… but nothing beats the passion from coaching.

My repeated mantra has been “we area work in progress”. Our practice last night indicated we still have a lot of work to do… the first and sweep in the history of the program isn’t the reason why I took the job. Looking for more of the same things to come in Dayton this weekend.

And finally... in the category of "things that stay off the blog" and will continue to do so in recognizing Eric Cantona's famous words, I wanted to mention that I made it six straight yesterday as in "Six. Straight. Positive. WRITTEN. Performance. Evaluations." Regardless... Thank you for that paid trip to New York between 4 and 5.