Shaun Newman Podcast - #69 - Gord Thibodeau

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

Such a cool episode. Gord was surprisingly easy to talk to I say that because he is: -2x AJHL coach of the year - AJHL championship as a coach & player - Voted top 50 players all time AJHL -  All time winningest coach in AJHL history We discussed this & more.   

This is Gord Tibido. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Now, if you're a business and you want to get some info on the podcast, look me up, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, shoot me a message. You know, until this COVID-19 situation is over, I know everybody's in tough spots. So it's not going to cost anything. I just want to help get your message out. And if getting it on here helps you in any way, shape, shape, or form, be glad to do. do it. Now, calling ring at with CR sales and marketing would like to tell everyone to be safe,

and if you're in business owner that needs representation after the virus, contact Colin at 780871, 1417. Ken Rutherford, Rutherford Appraisal Group, also the home of the Sean Newman podcast. In these difficult times, if you need any appraisal for a bank loan, set up a fair purchasing price, whether you're buying or selling, and that can be any type of real estate, shops, homes, home, and, you're not. It's homes, farms, cabins, restaurants, you name it. Give Kenny a call. He's the best 306, 307, 1732. Carly Closon and the Windsor Plywood team.

Yes, they built the table. Yes, it is amazing. Yes, they do other amazing works. You should check out their Instagram page. They say they're still open for regular hours. If you can call ahead, they're trying to help with physical distancing. They're able to set material out for curbside pickup. also offering in-town deliveries for free during this tough time,

help support the Windsor Plywood crew. They're amazing what they do. Corey Dubik and Midwest Flooring, they're open regular hours. Call in, stop in, shop online, and help support guys. Grid athletics and Wanderum Wild, both ladies, have great deals going on right now. If you spend $100, you get your money back in a gift, $25, of your money back and a gift card to a local business.

Look up them on social media. I'd get a little more details, but essentially spend a hundred, get some money back. It goes to another local business in town. Great idea. Lori LaBerge and Abbey Road flowers and gifts. I bought some flowers for the wife. She was, I think, pretty happy about it. She mentioned to me the day they were showing up, you know, you should pick up some flowers for Easter.

Oh, yeah, as I walk out the dorm going. Ah, hon, already ahead of you. And so, happy roads and flowers and gifts, temporarily closed to walk-eds. However, they're offering curbside pickup and free delivery within Lloydminster City Limits. Current hours 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Give her a call, 780875-2211. I promise you guys, as I know most of you are in the boat of me, meaning your wife probably wants to kill you by now because you've been sitting at home for way too long. And flowers will, will help smooth some things over. Not everything, but it will help. Taylor Holt and Nathan Mullet Factory Sports, huge supporters of the podcast, give them a call with spring right around the corner,

I think, I say this every week, I think springs around the corner, it looks like it's going to come, it did snow again today, just a little bit. They got tons of bikes available, check them out on their Instagram page, Factory Sports Bikes, or give them the call 306, 824, 7678. They are ready to make some things happen for you, so you give the boys a call. Malcolm Ragke, Lloydminster Regional Health Foundation. If you're wanting to help out, they're continuing to purchase a few things, and you can support by donating to the local COVID emergency fund through LRHF.ca,

backslash, donate, or there is the Skip the Dishes initiatives where here's the four steps. One, log into your Skip the Dishes account or create one, and click gift cards at the bottom. Use your business card or personal card and load up on some gift cards and print them out. Email Malcolm at Malcolm.ragkey at LRHF.ca, and he'll arrange for pickup of the printed gift cards and get your receipt.

Repeat. Now, here is your factory tail of the tape this week on the podcast. Well, we get a guy who won in his playing days. He won the AJHL Championship. He spent four years playing for the U of A Golden Bears. He is now the all-time winningest coach in the AJHL history. He's won the AJHL champion once,

twice as a two-time AJHL coach of the year. He spent time in Lloyd as head coach of the Blazers, and then a second time as the Bobcats. I'm talking of none other than Gord Tibado. So, without further ado. Sean Newman podcast. Tonight I'm joined by Gort Tibido. A couple of things right off the hop that stick out to me, or stick out to me are in 2014, you're voted into the top 50 AJHL players of all time. You hold the current record for most wins by a coach in the HHL by now starting to become

a margin. I believe it's at 913 and the previous record was 832. And you're the current coach of the Fort McMurray Oil Barrens, your second stint. So thanks first off for joining me. Oh, it's a pleasure to be here. I've heard good things, and I listen to the podcast a little bit, and you do a great job. Well, I appreciate that. Different circumstances I would have had you in this room sitting across from me from your beverage of choice, and we probably would have had a couple laughs, and, you know,

at least got to shake hands, that kind of thing. You were just joking around about a virtual handshake because, you know, times are a little strange right now. How are you managing COVID-19? Well, like everyone else, I'm just trying to do my part by staying inside and, you know, making sure that I'm limiting contact with people. I'll be honest, as a hockey coach, I'm watching a lot of game film and I'm bored silly right now, but, you know, this is bigger than hockey. This is bigger than sports. And, you know, we have to do our part to try to make sure that we can limit, limit this. And like everyone else, I've got loved ones, you know, who you want to make sure are taken care of.

You know, my dad's in the hospital in New Brunswick as we speak. And, you know, I'm worried about, you know, his health and how he's going to be able to get through this. So, you know, just trying to do my part. And hopefully, you know, this is something that we can overcome. And, you know, we'll get back to sports when the time is right. And, you know, hopefully that's sooner rather than later. Speaking of the hockey side of it, you were talking, watching game film, is that the best way right now? Like I assume recruiting kind of, that's the best way to do it now?

Yeah, well, you've got some problems with the recruiting now. You know, you don't know if you can recruit American kids because you're not sure that you'll get them across the border with the travel restrictions. And if this goes into August, September, October, you're not going to be. able to get those kids over. So that really puts a dent into some of the recruiting because you've been watching some of those kids or talking to them throughout the year. But to be honest, we've done the majority of our recruiting we did in March, early March prior to the onset of COVID. Now it's more talking, you know, you're still doing some recruiting through the phone, just talking to kids and talking to parents. But nobody really knows what's going to transpire.

and it's tough. You know, I feel bad for the players more so than anybody because they're trying to judge where they're going to play in the future. And it's awfully tough to make that choice if you can't go visit a team or visit the coaches. So they're really in limbo. So bad for those kids. Yeah, it's, you know, we've talked about it with several people now.

Like, and you hear it all the time on the radio. It's not just like hockey players missed out on their playoffs this year. it's every sport and every you know as we go along it's just another sport actually closes down their doors for their you know right now tennis was one of the latest ones and you know golf is in limbo and all of hockey playoffs have been pretty much mothballed the only i think league that's maybe hoping they can find a way is the nchel for probably obvious reasons but um you know you coached the a j a lot of years we were just discussing 26, 27 years right in there.

I mean, obviously nothing has been even remotely close to COVID-19. But in your time, do you remember anything that, you know, hindered games from being played like this at all? No, you know, really, you always get the one-off situations. I know we had a Zamboni door break in Fort McMurray once, and that set us back a week. But, or, you know, weather concerns where you get games canceled due to weather. but really there's never been anything over the 27 years that I've been doing it there's never been anything that's been a prolonged absence and I think what we're starting

to find out I mean as I mentioned for the players but even just for fans it's you start to realize what sports what an impact it has on your life whether you're watching games on TV whether you're going to games or going to you know whatever the sport is whether it'd be hockey or badminton or tennis whatever it is it plays a huge impact on a lot of lives and when you get that taken away um you you're pretty thankful if you ever get that opportunity again and i think that's what you're going to see once we do get back to sports so there's going to be a lot of people not just fans players organizations coaches that are going to be extremely thankful for the opportunity to play a game or to watch a game that they love. Yeah, 100%. You don't realize how much

time you spend watching sports, whether it be on TV or live, until they're all gone. Yeah, you know, my wife kind of said to me if I'd spent half as much time on housekeeping, our house would be a lot nice. You know, that's, I guess, the one thing that, you know, you're having to find other avenues now to fill your time. And in some ways, you know, that's good because you need balance in life. But I'm like you. I'm going, geez, you know, there's really not a lot in my life when sports are taken away. And, you know, whether that's be watching it on TV or going to the rink. So even the fact, you know, this week I traveled up from my home in St. Albert up to Fort McMurray because I had some things I needed to do in terms of the recruiting and signing some LOIs and players

and press releases and just getting back into the office was an amazing feeling, having been away for three weeks or a month. Now, that's just a little step. I was in there by myself with no one around, which is okay. But even that, getting into the rink and, you know, just having a chance to sit in your office was a big step. Yeah, for sure. I just look at the date. And, you know, this won't be released for another week, but it's April 5th today. In April 5th, should have been the last regular season game in the NHL, I believe. And all of us oiler fans are left looking at the standings going. And I've probably said this,

oh, the listeners are getting annoyed by this by now. But it's going to be that season where you left with the Oilers playing the flames in the first round. And I know there was games left, but that is... That's an important, you know, especially, you know, I'm an older gentleman, so I can remember the battles years ago between the flames. and Oilers and some of the playoffs here. As we're getting a taste of it now, watching some of the old NHL rewind on sports net on TSN.

Pretty much every channel, that's right. Yeah, everything, you know, there was no such thing as rules then. It was great to watch. But you also recognize how much we look forward to the NHL playoffs. I mean, every fan does, because you know that regular season's a grind and it's a race and there's up and downs, but when playoffs come, there's no more special feeling. And the excitement you get sitting down to know that you can watch three games back to back,

boy, there's not a true hockey fan who doesn't love that. Well, I say this, NHL has the best first round of playoffs in any sport because they've made it so that as long as you get into the dance, any team can win. And we've seen that proven year after year after year. And that's the frustrating part of being. an oiler fan right now. Isn't that the truth? Just getting into the dance gives you the opportunity to potentially win that cup.

And as you mentioned, we've seen that, the uncertainty of NHL playoffs. You know, home ice is probably, the NHL is probably the one sport where home ice means very little. You know, in basketball, you get the calls in your home court. We've seen roughing that's good and bad at home. And it seems like you never know what you're going to get. So really, there's that home ice thing. is discounted come playoff time.

You see visitors come in and beat home teams, especially in the first round, very often in the first couple games. And what a more exciting thing can you get for fans. There's hope. And that's what the Oilers are selling this year. And like everyone else, you know, I wanted to see McDavid and Dry Seidel in the playoffs. I wanted to see how they could elevate their games and maybe put us in position that the Oilers could make another Cinderella run like they did in 06-07.

Yeah. one, anytime you got McDavid and Drysidal pushing the pedal, I mean, all you need is decent goal tending and them guys can break it wide open. Yeah, especially come playoff time where your special teams are playing such a huge part in outcomes. You put those two on the power play. You get great goaltending and you get any secondary scoring at all. And you've got a real good chance to win hockey games. And as a coach, I would love to have that one-two combination. I'd even have my defenseman play either side of the post to make sure that we could prevent goals because I knew that those two would be scoring at least one or two a night.

Isn't that the truth? Did you ever have a combination of a, well, not McDavid Drysettle per se, but did you ever have in your coaching career two guys like that who could just push the pedal, push the needle? Yeah, you had, you know, I coached Mike Omory when he was young and Mike was like that. you know having a difference a game breaker it's really hard to explain to people how important that is not just for um you as a coach but the psyche of a team to know that when it's 3-3 that player can take the puck at any point and finish that game to always have that threat every third shift or fourth shift well i'll tell you what it sure makes you coach different i know um you know

coaching the Viking Cup when you had, you know, years ago when you had, you know, the AJHL All-Stars, and it seemed every line could do that. But the ability in a 3-3 game to come down to the final seven minutes and double shift to Comrie and know that you were going to get a scoring chance. He might not bury it every time, but you were going to get a great chance. I'll tell you what, our team felt pretty confident, knowing that you could throw that type of scoring ability out there at any time. With the Viking Cup, you guys ended up, wasn't it you guys and the SJHL, All-Stars who met in the finals? Yeah, it was.

The first year that the A.J. All-Stars got in there. We played USA in the semifinals and beat them in a great hockey game and then got up against Saskatchewan juniors. And we, you know, it was kind of funny because they, I think they had somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 kids or 15 kids that were 19 or 20. And that was actually the last year that they allowed 20-year-olds for junior teams because the Saskatchewan was so loaded with older guys. And we had kind of gone the opposite way. I think we had five kids that were 19, 20. The rest were 18 and under because we thought it was a showcase for draft eligibility and college eligibility.

So that veteran crew that they had, they put a line on Comrie's line right from the first shift. And we had a tough time breaking through their experience and strength. Well, and I should point out to the listeners, if they don't know what the Viking Cup is. The Viking Cup was a tournament that happened every two years in Camrose that hosted the AGHL kind of All-Stars. Yeah, AJHL All-Stars. It was an international tournament. That's right. We had four or five international teams, and then they'd supplement that with AJL All-Stars, BC potentially, or some, you know, I think Augustana, U-VA was there one year.

Okay. I was fortunate enough. I actually was in the tournament as a player for the U.S. Did you? Well, this is kind of embarrassing, but I'll tell you, when U.S.A got in there only one year, year. And I wasn't allowed to play. Myself and Sid Gransston because we were 23 and the cutoff was 22. They wouldn't allow anyone over 22 to play in the tournament. So myself and Sid had to take stats and watch from the press box as our New Wave team won the gold medal. I think we beat, I don't remember who we, I think it was Russia, the Moscow team. We beat 6'1 in the final.

So, yeah, I won it as a player and as a coach. I unfortunately went to. silver, bronze silver in my three opportunities as a coach or as a scouting member of the team. So, yeah, I've got a nice collection of Viking Cup hardware. Oh, cool. The year where you coached, I don't know about the other couple of years, you could probably tell me who the superstars there, but I know the year you coach Zetterberg was there that year. Yeah, there was some.

Was he electric back even then? He was good. You could tell there was something. but that whole team was good. I mean, you didn't go to a game and go, wow, he is exceptionally better than anyone else on that team. They all looked good. You know, there was a time there when, you know,

I remember thinking, geez, if we could just get a few of these kids over to our team, we could really do some damage. But Zetterberg was solid. You could tell that he could skate. He had a nose for the net. And every time, he was much like Comrie and some of the other guys that played pro.

every time you get on the ice, you better know know where he is because he was going to put the buck in your net or create a scoring chance. Well, going back to you were born in. Now, I've been trying to figure out how to say this word the entire time leading up to this. Is it Shadeic? Shidiak. Shidiak, Shittiac, Brunswick. Actually, I was born.

We were actually from Capelais. It's a French little area probably about, I'm going to say maybe five minutes outside of Shidiak. but Shodiac was the, I guess, it's the summer retreat for a lot of French people and people around the New Brunswick area. So what did your, like you mentioned you moved from there to Toronto, you're in Toronto until you're 15. What were your, what did your parents do that took you from there to Toronto to Eminton? Well, you know, my dad was in the glass business. He was a glazer, so he worked on high-rise buildings, putting glass in. And as you can well imagine, there's not a lot of high-rides.

buildings in Shadiak, New Brunswick. You know, I think two stories was the limit then. So we moved to Toronto when I was, you know, just a toddler two years old. And he worked in Toronto and then, you know, we grew up in sports. My dad was a hockey player. He loved the game. Huge, huge fan of the Canadians then. Hated the Leafs. But, you know, he got us into hockey. and when I was 15, he got a job offer out in Western Canada. Against, you know, kicking and screaming, we went there. And, you know, the kids didn't want to go. But obviously, it was a great opportunity for him.

So here I was leaving all my friends. And at that age, at 15, you've got a lot of friends and you're just starting to get into the girls scene. And I hated it. But it turned out to be the best move I ever made. I was curious, what was minor hockey like in Toronto? I have a good feeling around the Lloyd, maybe a lot of the rural communities in Alberta. Eminton, maybe not so much, but you played in your career, you played in Toronto,

and then you switch over to Emmington. Is that like night and day or not so much? Yes, night and day, definitely. Toronto was the Wild West. You could play for any team you wanted to. There were no zones then. So it was about who recruited you or what camps you went to. Toronto Nationals and the Toronto Marleys were the two huge organizations.

If you got to play for one of them, I mean, you were going places. And I never was good enough until probably my Bannam year. And my dad had coached me all the way up through Peewee. But after my, or going into Bannum, the Toronto Marathon. Carlis had called and said to my dad, you know, we'll give you a TV if you want to sign with us and have Gord play here. And my dad being, you know, a hardworking blue collar guy was affronted by that and said, if I want a TV for my son, I'll buy one and hung up the phone. And I was in the background going, geez, that would have been a nice TV.

But, you know, as it turns out, and I stuck and played with one of the lesser organizations, which is probably a great thing to do because I got more ice time. And then I got out to Edmonton where it was all regimented in zones. And I thought, what is this? I have to go play here. And, you know, it ended up being fine. There was certainly more the depth of the game in Edmonton, I thought, was better because the teams were more even. You know, you weren't getting eight one games.

You were getting four, three hockey games every night. It was way more physical than I was used to in Toronto. You know, Toronto, there were two or three teams that played physical. Out here, every midget team played physical. It was kind of an eye-opener the first few weeks, but I didn't mind that because I didn't mind hitting. So it turned out to be okay. And you know what, I got a lot of respect for Western Canada hockey

once I first got out here. You know, like a typical Eastern bias, I get out here thinking, oh, wow, you know, I'm kind of run roughshod over these hillbillies and Westerners. And I got a rude awakening. It was great hockey. And like I said, it was tough and physical. And yeah, it was kind of one of those things where I remember going back to Toronto a few years later, talking to some of my friends and saying, you don't know how good it is out there.

And understanding that the game was a different game, but it was a real good level of hockey at West. They've changed an awful lot of rules since you're playing days till now. Is there any of you think, geez, I'd love to have that back in the game? Well, I don't want to sound like those old guys that, you know, say they had to walk up hill to school both ways and, you know, everything was better back when we were younger. But listen, I miss the fighting. I do. I miss the accountability of it. Do I think it should be in the game? No, because I understand the safety issues. And I don't, you never want to see a kid get a concussion that's going to affect them later in life because of a stupid fight. but do I miss that? I sure miss the accountability it brought to the game

because you had to answer the bell if you were going to try to be cheap with your stick. And, you know, you never realize it until you get, when I left junior hockey and then went to university, I was shocked at the amount of stick work. I thought, what is going on here? But you had visors and he couldn't fight. But it's something you get used to.

And as I said, in today's day and age, hey, listen, I've totally agreed that fighting's the way of the dinosaurs, and I don't ever want to see a kid hurt. I wouldn't want my kid out there in that situation. So I certainly can sympathize and understand with the push to get away from it. How about you mentioned coming out to Western Canada

being a physical game. Hitting is slowly backing off. There ain't nearly as much big hits. Is that a good? good thing? Or is equipment to blame? Is the speed of the game to blame? I think the safety of the game is to blame. I think when you see a big hit now, whether it's legal or not, there's going to be a penalty called. I think the refs have gotten to the mindset now where, again, protective, you don't want to see kids hurt. So when a kid stays down, usually, 90% of the time that ref's arms

going on, whether it was legal or not. But, you know what, I like the physicality. I think think that that's what makes the game special. Being able to have that physicality as well as the unbelievable skill level that kids have nowadays. I think the one thing that really changed everything was when Hockey Canada started eliminating hitting up until Peewey age, basically. Kids then started to grow up carrying the puck like Eric Lindros with their head down between their legs. Unfortunately, not every kid was 6'6 foot 6 like Lindros.

So you started to see more injuries, more concussions. But I think that's a direct result of not hitting at younger ages, not showing them how to do it properly. And now we're paying the price for that because, as you see, the game is almost starting to eliminate that physical contact. And I think that that's a shame because I think that was one of the great selling features of our game. In 27 years then, have you had to constantly? constantly evolve your coaching techniques to essentially accommodate now how the game is being played? Absolutely. Absolutely. You know what? I think that you have to, you try to teach a lot more about safety, about understanding that, you know, it frustrates me when I see guys getting hit from behind.

I hate that. I can't believe that we don't have that out of our game yet. But then I watch an NHL game where you could run a guy from behind it and take a two-minute penalty because it's not a serious offense in the NHL. What do kids grow up watching, the NHL game? So when guys are doing it there and getting away with it, unfortunately makes it tougher to get it out of minor hockey. But again, I don't want to see anybody hurt. So I understand that. So we try to teach our guys how to, you know, we still want to be physical. We don't want to go out of our way to be physical.

You can't run, the way the game is structured now, you can't run out of position to go land to hit. But you have to make contact. You don't have to put people through the boards, but you have to make contact and you have to make sure that there's some, you know, there's some threat there that the puck carrier knows that he's going to get rubbed out. You know, as you said, you're evolving. You have to understand the way the game is going. The other facet is kids don't want to hit as much anymore. They don't want to play that game because they want to play the speed skill game, which is okay.

That's part of the evolution of the game also. I mean, it's the one thing I like about the H.Ls. There's still some physical contact. If you go watch BCHL, not so much. I'd get bored watching that hockey, but at least you're still entertained at the AJ level. Speaking of speed and skill and kids watching the NHL, I bet you see some interesting things these days. with kids trying to, well, I mean, there's things in the NHL that I could never imagine doing,

that I'm seeing younger kids be able to pull off at like peewee. And you're like, oh, okay. And I assume that for Fort Mac now, and your tryouts or wherever, right? Like, I'm sure that you see something. You're like, like, what is that? Yeah. You know, it's the age we're into right now. If you watch, once the last time you watched an ESPN highlight package on basketball

and they showed anything other than a dunk or a three-pointer, they don't show two-point shots anymore. It might be the prettiest two-point shot you've ever seen, but they don't show that. It's the same thing in hockey if you watch the highlights. You know, they typically show some beautiful tow drags. They don't show a block shot much. They don't show the little things that make team successful. So kids grow up with that.

They understand it and they know what gets on the highlight rail. I'm fascinated by what the kids are willing to try. It's unbelievable. And I'm jealous. I wish I had that when I was younger that I had the gumption, the balls to try some of that stuff. It was frowned upon then. Now you kind of go, hey, everybody can tow drag. Everybody now because of these academies and skills coaches.

But it comes to my pet peeve in the game. Our skill level has gone up at least 25 to 30% in these kids over the course of the last 10 to 15 years. But their IQ and thought process on the ice has gone down by 25 to 30%. So it's a balance. You know, if you want more skill, that's fine. but we're not teaching the game anymore and we're not teaching how to think the game. So how do you as a coach then try and foster the IQ part? How do you hold that out of them?

That's a great question. That is the million dollar trick. What I tend to do is I want my teams, you know, we typically don't do a lot of system work early. And there's a reason for that. We want to get our fundamentals down. We want them to have some creativity. But we also want them to think the game and understand. We spend a lot of time teaching.

You can't teach today without video. Kids all grew up in a video era. They know how to play video games. Their attention span is short. You have to show them what they're doing right and wrong. Show them situations. The other great thing about kids is if you give them factual data, they'll eat it up and they'll do it.

And that's the one thing I've noticed is if you can tell a kid, listen, when pressure's against your, when you're facing pressure, where's the opening? And they just go, uh, what? But once they start to learn how to think the game properly, they get it. They go, put the puck behind the pressure. There you go. Okay, now we're starting to think. We encourage that.

So that's part of what coaching has to be today, is increasing the IQ through communication and through visualizing and seeing the game. And we spend a lot of time with that. I can't just tell a kid, listen, on the power play, I don't want you shooting off the half wall. He says, why not, coach? I love shooting off the half wall. Have you seen my shot? I'm sure I have.

But only 7% of power play goals are generated on the half wall. You know, 52% are generated from point shots in the middle. And, you know, 15 or 20% are generated from low walks. And that kid goes, oh, coach, okay, I get it. Now I understand. So that just tells you what, you know, 20 years ago I could say to Chris Weave, I don't want you shooting off the half wall and he'd go, okay. But he wouldn't know why. Now, in Chris's case, it might have been because I wanted him in front of the net, even though he did have a great shot.

But like I said, today's kid doesn't just want the information. They want to know statistically, okay, why is it important that we do it this way? So that's what you've got to do when you're teaching is try to show them those statistical things that you have available. When you were walking into your first junior cab, would that have been with Sherry Park? Yes, it was. Yes, it was. What, uh, I'm assuming there was no video back then. No, no, there was no video. There was no stats. Um, there was very little coaching, frankly. You know, we grew up in a different time. And that's, you, you had a great point earlier about evolving. You know, we all have to evolve. And if you look at it, it was so simple back when I was a

player. It really was. You go to the rank, you just play the game. There was no such thing as overcoaching, you know, the paralysis by analysis that we have in today's game. But the bigger factor was you leave the rank, regardless of what the score was, and that game's put aside until the next practice or game. That's not the case anymore. With social media, with cell phones, with texting, with, you know, two minutes after the game, these parents are texting their girlfriend, their mom, their dad, they're getting feedback. I would hate to be a player in today's society. There is so much pressure upon these kids and their kids. And that's probably been the biggest thing that I've noticed is their lack of ability to handle that pressure and the adversities

and the anxieties that come with playing. You know, it's really important nowadays that you spend time working with these kids on the mental focus and adjustment through these societal changes. I never thought of that before. About the texting after a game. Well, when you think back to you, when you play, Sean? I played 0-4 to 07. Okay. Was every mistake you made in a game or off the ice, heaven forbid, saved, documented, and on camera?

You know, I was coached by Larry Wintoniak for two of those years. Oh, my God. Yeah, I know Larry. And Larry was, you know, when you talk about having to show video to kids so they could see what they were doing wrong or whatever. Larry, that was back in the era of the flames being as good as they were. So he used to show us a ton of Calgary Flames clips. But he did get us filmed too. So we could watch our tendencies and stuff.

So I remember doing that back in for sure 2005, if not 2004. But regardless, there was no Twitter. There was no filming every game. There was no, like you say, I didn't have a cell phone until like 2012. And I know I was behind the curve, but I just didn't really care, right? Right. And now, you know, when this, we'll just use this episode. When this episode drops, it'll drop at like 6 a.m. on next.

Monday. So not, not tomorrow, but a week from tomorrow. And I'll have texts about it by 8 a.m. This episode's going to be an hour and a half or whatever it turns out to be. And somebody's going to be texting me going, man, that was awesome or I don't like Gort. One of the two, right? Like, it just happens. And I'm like, man, that's instant feedback. And that's how the entire world is now, is instant feedback, right? It's, uh, you put something out and you're expecting to get things back off of it like immediately, which is pretty crazy. And yeah, no, when I played, I mean, your coach, you heard about it. But after that, it was, it was gone for a little bit.

Right, there's the time to decompress. That's right, the time to decompress. And then, you know, I played out in Ontario. So I played a ways away from here. So it was a phone call on a long distance phone plan because once again, you didn't have the cell phone. And so, yeah, I guess it'd be interesting to be that young of a kid and be under the microscope all the time. You always think of the NHL kid under the microscope, but even to be playing in the H.

H.HL and have that type of pressure is interesting. Well, you know, the one thing that's really changed, if you look, you talk about, you know, when you played, you relayed how you play to your parents. They weren't at the game. That's right. He would say, yeah, geez, I played well. I got so many minutes of ice. You should have seen. I had two breakways.

Now everybody's watching. Their parents are watching on fast hockey or on, you know, on some feed. So you can't really get away from it. The game is over. And you're talking with, you know, whether it be your parents, your train, or your girlfriend, your friends, they have video evidence right there of how you played. So it's not just your coach that's critiquing. It's your family now that's critiquing how you've been.

played or how come you didn't play in this situation? We didn't have that back when we played. It was a little different. You could decompress, take the game in the next day, go to practice, understand what you did right and wrong, hopefully if your coach was correcting you. But it's a whole different pressure now for these kids. And like I said, it's a difficult part of the game. Did you just play in Shred Park for a year then, Gord? I actually played. I might hold the distinction of being the only guy who got traded for himself. I played a year and six games with the Crusaders. My first year was very, very good.

They switched coaches in the summer. I was the assistant captain going into my second year, and the coach wasn't a fan of mine, which happens. And I was probably to blame a bit too, you know, maybe came in a little too cocky as a veteran. So he traded me to Fort Saskatchewan. Then Fort Saskatchewan held on to me for, Yeah, they traded me to Fort Saskatchewan as just a,

I think it was probably just for a bag of pox or something. There was nothing major. I played in Fort Saskatchewan for 12 games. And then Short Park traded back for me and gave up future considerations, a player that they could name. This was all kind of, you know, in my first year. Sorry, it was the first year when I started in Shore Park. Six games, traded to Fort SAS, 12 games,

traded back to Sherwood Park for futures. Played that first year. Well, the second year, the futures come about for that trade. And because me and the coach weren't getting along, General manager said to Fort Sass, take whoever you want. They said, yeah, we'll take Gord back. So I got traded for myself. It's a heck of a deal.

And it turned out to be a heck of a deal for Fort Sask and yourself, because you guys ended up winning. Yeah, you know what? It actually worked out real well. It was probably the best thing that happened to me was going to Fort Saskatchewan because we had an opportunity to play for Gina and Timichuk, who was a legendary, you know, former Montreal Canadian, who really kind of knew the game well and was very patient.

And then I got to play with the next year, Grant Mourn and Jerry Hornsby, Jerry was a U of A guy, and Grant Morn had played in Detroit system. And again, you know, they taught me a ton about hockey. So I was very, very pleased to get to Fort Saskatchewa. trying and worked out real well. Do any of your players realize that your second all-time in defense scoring in a single season? Not initially. At some point, they usually find out.

I got to be honest. Well, I was digging in on this. When I saw you put up 96 points one season, I went, Gordon Timbo put up 96? Yeah. Yeah, that was our final, my final year in junior, I was very, very, very. very fortunate. I had a great coach, Doug Schum, who really believed in power play. And up until that time, you know, you typically only did power play for maybe 15 minutes of practice. And

Doug came in and suddenly we were working on it for 30, 45 minutes. He recognized the importance of power play. And then Sid Cranston came back from Brandon. It was a heck of a player for Saskatchewan kid and ended up being one of my best friends. And Sid was magic. And I think he got 130 points that year and I recognize very early. I may not be the best defenseman, but if I can get the fuck to him, I'm going to get a pile of second assist or first assist. That's pretty much what I did. Well, yeah, you hold the all-time, wow, unless it's been broke since this was put out, but at the time that it was published, you held the all-time single season points, assists by a defenseman with 74, and that came in the same year. Yeah, that was, it hasn't been

broken yet. Michael Benning, I think this year was probably the closest. I think he was within 10, but I'm not really sure. That's not something I think a whole bunch about. It was nice because it means we had success. But our power play that year ran at 33%. As I said, when you're running those numbers, I was on the top of the power play and Sid was a left-handed shot on his offside. And I faked a lot of shots and just threw it to him. And then he did the, you know, I think he had the work. Yeah, you had 51 goals that year. So it worked out well. And like I said, you know, the important part is we had a great team and we won. Points don't mean a heck of a lot. I was telling Chris Weeb back when I was trying to convince him that I was a good player, or, you know, previously, because you couldn't tell by my skating as a coach. But, you know, I think I had somewhere in the neighborhood of 37 straight games with a point.

And that ended on the final game. lost in the Doyle Cup to Langley Riverman. We lost game six. And that was the end of my streak that night. We lost 4-1. I didn't get a point. But like I said, incredible run, great team. And you know what? It was a big difference in my life because you can talk to guys when you've won that championship, when you get that AJ title or even a midget, triple title, university title, it just changes you because you start to view yourself as a winner. And that's what you want all your kids as a coach to experience. You know, I came out of that junior year going, you know, somebody needs open heart surgery,

I can do it. You know, you're that confident in yourself because you've won something. So it's a special feeling and it does change the way you perceive, not just yourself, but perceive your future. So that's part of why you want to have success with your players that you're coaching. So they can live that and they can go through that experience. How were the fans back then? Absolutely ridiculous, but supportive as heck.

I still remember playing in Fort Saskatchewan where we had a gentleman who was not impressed with the refereeing throw six garbage cans on the ice in the course of a playoff game. And that was a heck of a throw because the stands were back, you know, a good 20 feet. So this had to be a big man and he was obviously expressing his dissatisfaction with the reffing. But that's the type of atmosphere you had at those games. You know, we're fortunate St. Albert was a prime rival for us in Junior. And I know one of their players, a real agitating little, you know what,

Wes Werhund, who actually became a friend of mine and coached with me in St. Albert many years later. Actually turned out to be a good guy. was known as just a rat, a type of guy that would run you, never fight. So our fans used to yell at them, turtle, turtle. And then we get to game seven of a North Final against them that year. And wouldn't you know what all our fans bought out all the turtles, these stuffed turtles at Canadian Tire and had them on fishing ropes, throwing them over the glass every time he was on the ice,

turtle, turtle, that's the atmosphere you had. And it was unbelievable as a player to see that. So I still think back to that and go, wow, you know, what an incredible thing to go through as a player. You talk about wanting your kids to experience winning. Something that comes along with winning is the atmosphere of going that deep. And the fans that come out is something you'll never forget. Yeah.

The one thing I always try to tell our players is you're never just playing for yourself and your team. and nothing was more visual than that than watching, you know, whether you watch Memorial Cup championships or the Stanley Cup or age at whatever level, you see the parents come on the ice, you see the brothers and sisters, the billet families, and you recognize just how many people it touches. It's not just the players. You know, that feeling for your family to come on to the ice

and, you know, hold the trophy or get their pictures with it and to celebrate. Like I said, that's why I love watching celebrations in any sport, is to see everyone else that's effective within the organization and outside of the organization, because it's a joyous moment for everybody. Yeah, absolutely. And there's nothing like the thrill of winning.

No, you're right. And it's, you know, when you can share it with people, I mean, winning in a vacuum isn't very fun. You know, if the NHL does come back without fans, winning a Stanley Cup is not going to have the same impact. because you can't share it with people. And that's what this is all about. Obviously, you share the lifetime bond with the 23 or 25 kids that you played with,

but it's sharing it with everyone else, you know, the community. You know, you look back and when we had the RBC and Lloyd, you know, that's still a bitter memory because I would have loved to have the community share the joy in us winning that. And, you know, that's one of the things you look back on in C.T. that would have been such a special evening and special memory for them to have moving forward. And it comes so close. Yeah, it's still frustrating to look at it. You know, hockey is a sport that you can never predict.

You know, I look back and go, you know, I know that we face some criticism for the trades we made the year before, but we weren't going to win a league championship with our two outstanding defensive. defensemen contributing 67% of our offense. Credit to Lyndon Springer and Tyler Coons because they were phenomenal. But it's very difficult to win a title at any level with those two defensemen being your second and third top scorers. And like I said, contributing 67% of your offense. So we kind of made a tough choice. Speaking of those, actually, it's funny you bring that up because I know Chris,

if you listen to Chris Weeb's episode, he's talked, but I've actually had Lucas Bench on before, Lyndon Springer on, and then Chris Weeb and now yourself. And they all brought different views of the year prior to the Royal Bank Cup year. And Lucas Bench and Lyndon Springer both being traded. Maybe could you walk us through those deals to local guys? There's a backstory to the deals.

And I'll probably, I'll try to remember as best as I can, but I'll fill you in on that. The first thing we were starting to notice early in that season, this in the summer, was the lack of success recruiting. We thought we got the Royal Bank Cup coming in a year, and we can't get kids to commit, what's going on? And we were really hitting our heads against the wall trying to recruit. In fact, the best recruiting we did that year happened to be in the States,

because we could not get top-end Canadian kids to come in. And I don't think it was because it was Lloyd. I think a lot of it was these kids were being told, well, don't sign with Lloyd because when they get, they're hosting in a year and you're just going to get traded for veterans. So nobody wanted to sign because they were afraid to get traded the next year. So that was the first eye-opener. And then I'm scrambling, you know, myself and Gary, we're scrambling.

We're going, okay, hang on here. we didn't recruit as well as we thought we would because we had the RBC. How are we going to get this team up to speed? And it was kind of at that point we started watching that year. We had success the first month, or struggled the first month, success the second, struggle the third. And you've got to make a decision prior to December 1st just based on your card situation. And I sat down with Gary and our staff and Brian Morrison and just said,

listen, we're not going to be able to do this through recruiting. We haven't had the success we required. We didn't have a ton of our kids. We're under 18s and under. I think we had 14 on the team that year. So we said we're going to have to try to trade our way to success the following year. And that's what we tried to do. It's right or wrong.

I mean, when there's some success, there's some that weren't. There's always risk involved in every trade you make. but we wouldn't have gotten some of the players we got, you know, through the Lucas Bench trade, we got Braden Smith, who ended up being a pretty valuable defenseman for us, but we also got Morgan Messenger out of that deal. We ended up being a centerman for us, you know, our second line center.

That turned out to be a pretty good deal for us. Did it hurt at the time? Of course it did. But like anyone else, you kind of look at your statistics, and we were six, I want to say six, eight and one on the road before we started making the trains. And my history had told me, okay, some of the stats are not pointing at us being able to win the league. And that's the conversation we had. Could we win the North and get to the league final?

And we didn't feel we had enough to beat Spruce. We couldn't add players that first year because then we'd have to sacrifice the Kevin Durrars and some of the kids that we had wanted to keep for the RBC. So we made a conscious choice. It backfired in some deals. You know, certainly the Springer deal was a backfire. But that's the risk you take. Again, you know, Brooks was a little less than honest with us on it. But, you know, that happens.

So the next year, and we went into the RBC, as I said, if you look at that team, very little of that team was recruited. The majority, I think probably 15 or 16 guys in that team were actually traded for, which is what we felt we had to do to have success. Last thing we wanted to do was go into the RBC and embarrass ourselves. I've had the chat with different people on that year, the year before the RBC. Just because through a lot of different eyes, you guys were a very, very good team. But everybody understood the next year.

I mean, you can talk about the RBC because, I mean, you're going to a national championship. And so you got to make sure, like you say, that you're going to, you know, you've got an opportunity to win. And you're going to be one of how many teams sitting there, right? And not every team ever gets that opportunity, let alone knowing they're for sure going to be there the next year. So that is a unique situation to be in. It's a tough choice. And I mean, you know, what everyone forgets, and I know that team was good. What I would say is that we had a core group that was real good.

But we only had one player that was a point of game player. We were locking offense. We won with our D and with our goal tending. And we just felt that we couldn't, we probably wouldn't be able to beat the top three teams, which were Camrose, Brooks, and Spruce. Spruce was the big one. If we thought that we could get through them,

then we would have taken our chances and maybe swung for the fence. but like I said, it was a tough decision to make. Because we sat there and talked a week before the December 1st deadline about, can we try to make it two in a row? Should we go for it two years? But we were really concerned with what would we have the next year and are we going to put ourselves in a position where we can compete for it the following season?

And not having the ability of Fort McMurray when they hosted to have $100,000 and recruit. budget, things are a little different in Lloyd. And we knew that our hands were tied. We weren't going to be able to go get a bunch of Western League 20-year-olds, which is the path that a lot of teams take. So that was part of the decision-making also was if we can't do it that way, then we better make sure that we have some assets that we can trade our way to hopefully a championship. Well, thanks for sharing. It's been an interesting story arc on this podcast because it started with, well, I was there the year prior watching, doing the color commentating.

And then you have a player like Lucas Bench, come on, who was one of the trades. And then Lyndon Springer, who was one of the trades. And then Chris Weeb, who was an assistant coach who brings just a little different aspect. And to have the guy in the room helping make those decisions, I think it just sheds a little bit of light on a different angle of the story. Yeah, and it wasn't unanimous, trust me. You know, I thought, you know, Gary fought hard to try to go for it again that first year. Because, you know, Gary had an attachment to those kids. He'd coached them longer than I had, obviously.

And we gave that some real good thought. If we could have added a forward or two, I think we would have and gone for it. But we just couldn't add without significantly losing a bit more from the team for next year. That's really what it boiled down to is, you know, we weren't about to lose the Shumis or, you know, Darrar or some of those younger kids, Bernitsky and Joseph Chuck, that we felt we're going to be, you know, a backbone of that team the following year. And the other thing as coach is that, you know, when you look at it, and again, fans don't recognize this and they don't look at it. No, that's fine. I understand. Listen, we're all fans.

I wish we could have kept that group together, added to the pieces so that they could have had a run. But the other factor we had to take into account was our best players were 18-year-olds. We had to get them, I mean, outside of the obvious talent of McCombs and Springer and Lucas and some of those kids, the best crop after them were 18-year-olds. The more we could give them power play time and extra, you know, if Flindon wasn't there eating up 31 minutes a night, and somebody maybe Pranitsky could get 24 and Josephichick could get 24 and that would speed up their development to help us the following year. And that's nothing against, you know, Springer. Obviously having a defenseman that can eat 31 minutes and score 25 goals, it's a pretty special thing.

But that came into the decision making also. If we can't recruit, then we need to speed up the development of these younger kids that are here. And it worked in the case of some of them anyway. certainly Darar had a real good second year and I think to a large part because you got confidence from being a goal scorer in the last 20 games with us at first year. You've held a lot of different titles in your career, mainly head coach. You've also been GM head coach, VP of Hockey Operations. Yep.

Which one would you just like to coach nothing else or do you like having the GM head coach or would you just like to be the VP of hockey ops? Like after all of what you've done, you know, is there one that you just go, man, that's not a bad position? Like if it paid the right amount. You know what? I've always said to see, it's hard to do both nowadays. The demands for the game in the last 10 years have gotten so great that it's,

you know, it's extremely difficult for one person to do both jobs. I hated the GM standpoint from the trades. You hate doing that because you hate trading. Nobody wants to uproot a kid. And we're not, you know, I don't like being Brian Burke of the H.HL. Nobody likes that. Pros are used to it. They can put up with it.

We're dealing with young kids here. So I hated that part of it. I actually loved the recruiting angle. I really did. And I still do. I still love talking to kids and parents. And I love teaching. on the ice. So games, whatever. I mean, I can do without. So if there was an ideal role,

I'd love to be GM and do some, you know, some on-ice director of player personnel stuff and teaching and practice. I can do without the games. Although, you know, I've gotten better because I've had to learn that, you know, I have to do a better job with my intensity and with my, you know, the pressures of dealing with winning and losing. And I'm having a blast this year, you know, after I took a year off and went, okay, hold it. Either you've got to change some things or you can't do this anymore. I'm glad I had that time because I'd lost my passion. And I found it again. And you know what? I didn't raise my voice in two months of coaching, which Chris Wee will be shocked to hear. But, you know, now it's a different mindset. I don't

take the losses home like I used to. And I know my wife is extremely happy for that. And as you get older, you start to learn. I wish it's something I would have learned 20 years ago. What did you, in the year off then, what made you rediscovered the passion? What did you take a look at? Well, I stopped following hockey completely for six months. I wanted to decompress and just get away from the game. And you have to remember, it had been my life for 26 years.

And when I say it's your life, you know, people see you at the rink. They don't see you away from the rink. When you're up at 4 in the morning watching game film because you can't sleep because something's in your head about what, you know, what might have cost us that game or the things I can change. Those aren't fun days and nights. It's not fun when you're at your child's birthday party and you're there, but you're mentally not there because you're thinking about what am I going to do tomorrow in practice and what are we got coming up this weekend? It's all encompassing. but I learned decompressing getting away from it that it doesn't have to be that way. You have to have an outlet for it.

And now my trainer said to me this year, he said, Gordon, you know, and this is a trainer that's worked with me previously for five or six years. And he said, I can't believe you're not in the office at night anymore. No, I have a life now. When practice ends, I leave the rink. I do my work there, of course. I may watch an hour of video at night. But then I, like everyone else, I get on Netflix and watch.

watch Tiger King and, you know, escape. No way to Gordon Timito just dropped Tiger King on this podcast. You know what? These guys are bad shit crazy, man, and I love it. If there's been one thing to make COVID-19 easier, has it not been Tiger King? It has been. I'm finished now. I binge watched here for the last week and now I'm on Ozark.

So binge watching that. But you know what? like I said, you know, nothing to make you forget about your own problems, nothing more to make you forget about your own problems and watching a show like Tiger King for sure. If you haven't watched Tiger King and you're listening to this, I mean, you're going to go and watch it and be like, this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen?

Yes, yes, it is. You couldn't script the show like that. No one would believe it. Oh. So, yeah, it's, but it also, you know, I now have a better affinity for understanding how Donald Trump's the president after watching Tiger King. Isn't that the truth?

Yeah. Your time in U of A, you spent four years there. Yeah. The first one I got to do is a local. Did you play with Corey Cross then? I did play with Corey Cross, yes. Corey actually, I was there the year he came out for camp from Junior B, basically. You know what? I like Corey.

Corey's a great guy, and he was a heck of a defenseman. He needed opportunity. He improved so much his first year to the end of his time there. It was amazing. But he was a kid that was willing to work hard, and he took instruction well. And, you know, the ties later in life, you know, at that time, I didn't really know a lot about his past. but obviously going to Lloyd and then finding out a bit more of the back story. Incredible story.

But a great guy, a great teammate, didn't say a lot, was goofy sometimes, but in a good way. But yeah, it was certainly a special time for him. And I'm glad I was a little bit, or there to be part of a little bit of his history. When he was coming in from Junior B, where the rest of you sitting there going, what is going on here? Yeah, yeah, to be honest, yes. Certainly in the first few times I saw him, I was like, you've got to be kidding me.

I mean, but he was raw then. The one thing about him, though, you know, he had a good head for the game. He understood, if you want to talk about a guy that played within his limitations, he knew what his strengths were. He knew what his weaknesses were. I don't know if Corey ever rushed the puck past center in his career, you, they certainly not while I was there for the two years, but, but he understood get the puck

moving, get it up to the forwards, let them do the work and make sure that you, you know, don't get beat one-on-one defensively. He was extremely strong defensively. After he kind of proved himself, everybody wanted to play with him because he's a guy that would get you the puck, because he didn't want to carry it. So he was a great teammate and like I said, his development, And you credit, you know, Billy Morris and Claire Drake for seeing something in them because the first few practices, we were all looking at each other going, is this kind of the wrong practice here? And I love Corey.

He's been on the podcast twice now. And I just, his story in general is so unique to go from Junior B to U of A to drafted in the supplemental draft to having the career he had in the NHL, right? Like, I mean, it's pretty crazy. And when I started looking at your stats, I'm like, that looks like the timeline of right when Corey started. So I'm curious if that happened. Now, you mention one of the biggest legends in hockey, Claire Drake and Billy Moore's. One of the things I'd read about you is you said 90% of what I do is based on what I learned

at the U of A. Claire and Billy were big on passion, passion for the game, and doing things the right way. Absolutely. And, you know, if Claire was still alive, I would have loved to have had him on this because he's just a wealth of knowledge. But you got to see him firsthand for four years. And I assume you saying things like that, chances are you got to talk to him an awful lot more than that. And so I think maybe we could talk a little bit about Claire Drake and in your time at UVA and maybe what it taught you. Boy, where do I start?

Claire was exceptional. Billy was exceptional. They were different coaches, different styles. Sorry. Claire was like your grandfather. He was a guy that you respected automatically. When he said something, you were all ears. You know, it's the old commercial E.F. Hutton.

When E.F. Hutton talks, everybody listens. When Claire talked, everybody went silent. Everybody listened. Whether it be players, whether it be other coaches, he had that commanding respect. I was afraid to talk to him, to be honest. I thought, boy, this guy's accomplished so much. What could I possibly discuss with him? But he was such a caring guy.

He would constantly come before every practice. But his arm around didn't say, how are your parents doing? How are your brother and sister doing? He wanted to know about your family. He wanted to know about what struggles you were having. He genuinely cared. And he was, you know, I never forget. The first time I heard him swear,

I almost burst into tears. And I'm a kid of, you know, 22, 23 years old at this time. But you had that such respect for him. You held him on this pedestal. And I thought, oh, my God. You know, he was fiery after. a game where we had we had won but the roughing wasn't great and he actually said the F word and you could have heard a pin drop. Everyone just looked at each other in the dress room and went,

what? Claire's, he's like us. He can swear to. But we were just in shock. But that's how much respect you had for the man. Probably influenced me more than anyone. I probably didn't even realize until I got out of school and then into coaching, just how much he imparted upon me. Just the way he carried himself, the way he lived his life. You know, he was always very big on paying it back and saying, you know, the game has been so good to you. You have to give something back to the game

when you leave the UV carry on our tradition. You know, they were big, him and Billy were huge on sharing information. They would sit down with an opposing. coach an hour before the game and talk about systems and, you know, they were very confident in themselves. That's one thing I learned and I tried to carry that forward. In fact, me and Fran Gowell used to always sit together an hour before games and talk about each other's systems and what we were going to play. And, you know, that was a great part of coaching. That doesn't happen anymore. But in the past, you shared stuff. When you got good coaching information, you shared it with your other coaches.

there was no sense of competition. Billy was different. Billy was more passionate. When Billy would give a speech before a game, I'd be ready to run through the wall. I mean, I don't care what he said. He could say, the roads are wet, but it was the way he said it. He commanded that passion.

And like I said, they were different in the way they taught, but they were both great human beings. And there's no way I could ever live up to what they did. did and the way they carried themselves, but you keep trying. And that's what I think probably the biggest lesson I learned there. U of A, U of A is in CIS, man, they are not the New York Yankees, but they're larger than life. Yep. No question.

It's a cult of winning. It's a cult of doing things right. and, you know, every player that played there comes out a better person. Now, obviously, you're going to come out a better hockey player because those two were exceptional coaches technically. But, you know, even when I left the UVA, I remember going back at that time, Claire had retired and going back and sitting with Billy for, you know, an hour or two a week

talking about, okay, what about this and this situation and getting his input on what I was seeing at the job. junior level. It was great to be able to pick his brain. And their level of cooperation with coaches is legendary. And that's the biggest thing you get out of that program is teach the game. That's why we're here. We want to make everybody a fan of hockey. So teach as much as you can and give away as much as you can and make everyone a fan and better, make them better. when you when you go there in

89 and correct me if I'm wrong on this timeline because you were there in 87 87 88 I think was my first year did you get diagnosed with cancer at the start of that I did I did I got diagnosed in um oh god

timelines February of 88 uh it was the final I missed the final weekend of the season because I had to have lymphinol taken out of my groin. I was actually, I was having trouble with my groin. I wasn't missing games, but I was sore. And I finally had gone into the Glen Seater Clinic and our team physiotherapist, you know, kind of said to me,

it was kind of a funny line, if used in a different gender. But they said, geez, how long have you had that lump in your groin? you know, which is kind of something you want to hear maybe at a nightclub, but not on a doctor's table. So I, and I hadn't noticed, to be honest. And I said, I don't know. And the doctor came and looked at it and said, listen, we're going to take that out. We want a biopsy that. So what's going on here?

And it happened very quick. I missed the last weekend of the season. And the results, I got the results, I think, on, you know, a couple of days before our first round of playoffs. and I remember saying to the doctor, yeah, well, I got playoffs coming, so we can't really do anything. He said, well, no, we need to start treatments. I said, yeah, well, you can hold them for, you know. I said, Nationals is the first week of March. You can hold it for three weeks here.

And the doctor was, he wasn't a sports fan, so he was a little bit incredulous. But I really wanted to play. I didn't think it was anything major. I thought, yeah, sure, we'll do a couple treatments after the season and it'll be gone. I didn't realize the extent it was going to take. So we ended up going to the national finals. I played all the way through it. And we got back on, I think it was a Monday.

I started treatment on the Tuesday, not knowing what it was going to be like and certainly not prepared for what it ended up being. The first few treatments, I was like a caged animal. And these treatments were four or five hours long in terms of intervenous feeds. And my God, I wanted to rip that needle out of my arm. The anxiety was overwhelming.

And, you know, they wanted to give me medication for sickness, and I didn't want it. Again, you know, you're stubborn, you're young, you don't know. So I talked to them after this. I think it was after my second treatment. I said, something's wrong. I was telling the nurse. I said, I'm so anxious when that needle's in my arm.

and she said, oh, did you tell the doctor? He said, no, I didn't. She said, well, that's common for younger patients. It's the anti-nause medication they're putting in your IV. So then I was relieved, and I said, can we take that out? And the doctor said, absolutely. So they took, he said, you're going to get sick, though. I said, I don't care.

I just, I want to relax and not have that feeling like my heart's running a thousand miles an hour. So they took that medication out, and then it was a constant thing. I'd have my treatment. I'd get in my car. I'd drive myself to Fort Saskatchewan. Halfway, I would pull over and I'd throw up for about five minutes. And then I'd get back in the car, continue, go home to the basement and lay in the basement for two days in the dark.

Just, you know, you feel horrible at that point. And then by the third day, you start to get up and you go, okay, I got to get strong again because we have another treatment coming in two weeks. So it was... You know, and all I could think about was I got to play hockey. We got camp coming in August. So I finished my treatment, and I think it was mid to late July. And I actually, you know, they give you steroids and you're bloating up because they want you to keep eating.

So you've got your strength. And I went to a skate in early August. And my teammates didn't even recognize me. That was disheartening. You know, I'm in the dress room and I heard one of my teammates say, who is that? So I was like, wow, I guess I didn't realize how much I've changed through the treatments. And I remember getting on the ice for that first skate and it was just a bunch of, you know, 15 or 16 veterans out there having fun. And I could barely skate up the length of the ice.

I was done, oh my God, there's no way I'm ever going to play again. But slowly it got better and then, you know, by, I think it was early October, I got the clearance to go back and, And it was the best feeling ever, you know, that when you think something's going to be taken away from you that you love and you get the opportunity to go back, I'll never, ever forget the feeling of that first game. And it was special. And I am so thankful that, number one, that they recognized it early and the support of the cross cancer was phenomenal. It changed my outlook. it changed me as a person in a lot of ways. You learn to have empathy for people

because they're all fighting things that, you know, I used to walk in that cross-cancer center and you start to feel sorry for yourself until you see some of the kids having to go through it. And like I said, it changes you. And I was so thankful to get another opportunity. And that's kind of the way I've tried to live my life since that is. Let's be thankful for another day.

That's a good, a good message. I appreciate you sharing that because. Absolutely. When I saw that we've had it now four times, correct? Yeah, I have. I was fortunate. I got through, you know, the university last year. I'd had a splenectomy and my spleen got taken out.

But, you know, we fought through that. And then, you know, I had a little bout of radiation a few years later. and then, you know, subsequently maybe five years later, another bout of radiation. And then I had the treatments through the RBC in Lloyd. That was my second go-round with chemo. You know, and again, it's not fun. It's part of life. Everyone has their struggles and their adversities, and that's how you deal with it.

And, you know, it was, I guess that would have made the, that's what makes losing the RBC, maybe a little bit more bittersweet for me is that would have been a great culmination of a lot of things, not just for the community and the team, but certainly personally for my family, I think it would have been a nice cherry on top of everything. But these things happen and you move on. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you're, I don't know what the right age is, Gord. I don't know if there ever is a right age to get cancer.

I'm not, that's not what I'm going with. But to be that young and to get cancer. has to drastically, and you've already talked about it a lot, but just drastically change everything. Yeah, it does. It changes a lot of things. Number one, you realize that a lot of people are helpless. And by that I mean my parents, my wife, you know, the people around me,

they all want to help, but there's nothing they could do. And that part is disheartening. And I don't think we realize the effect someone's illness. And in this COVID time, it's not just the people getting COVID. It's the families around them and their support. And everyone's trying to be supported, but no one's going through it. It's a real difficult thing. And I'm so thankful for what nurses and doctors are doing, not just at this time,

but you get a great appreciation for what a superb medical system we have. when you need it. And like I said, I can't say enough great things about the people that have cared for me over the years. And the Lloyd Hospital was outstanding when I was doing my treatments through the RBC. You know what? It's the most pleasant you can be in an unpleasant situation. But they do a great job of making you feel comfortable and making sure that you know you have support. And that's what anybody going through that wants. Yeah, for sure. speaking of the Lloyd Hospital.

I've had my, we got three children under four. Our last one was, uh, um, an interesting 24 hours. And the staff there was exceptional. And every once in a while,

you know, no place is perfect. But every once in a while I hear about Lloyd Hospital, in particular, being from Lloyd, uh, and a bad experience or it's not that great or blah, blah, blah.

I always love hearing other people's stories where it's been fantastic because ours was, they were fantastic. They've been fantastic all three of our children. You know what? That's relieving for you and I'm sure for your family. That's great news. Yeah, absolutely. Can I get one favor? I can you flick a light on?

Absolutely. You're slowly disappearing on me. Yeah, but you've got dark there. Oh, there you are again. Yes, here I am again. I want to switch into your coaching because you play four years for you of A. Were you always interested in coaching? No.

I feel like you said at one point in the questionnaire or something along, it was kind of like, you know, if this works, it works, but it was kind of a chance or opportunity to go, coach. I look at that and I go, really? Like that many years and it was just kind of like, you know, maybe I'll coach? Yeah, you know what? I feel guilty for saying this, but I know that everybody wants. to get involved, but I kind of walked into it.

I was trying to give something back. I was an assistant coach for a couple years, and I had no aspirations of coaching, none. And then Fort Saskatchewan offered me the job. And at that time, I was in partnership with a friend running a restaurant and bar in Fort Saskatchew. So you can imagine how much time I was dedicating to both. It was a little crazy, but I'd show up to practice.

you know, with practices written on cocktail napkins because that's my prep at that time. I didn't know. And I was so naive. And I was such a shitty coach in the first year. My God, I look back and I'm embarrassed. How so? Well, because I had the mindset that I played and I was around good coaches, it'll just transfer. No, it doesn't just transfer.

You have to actually do some work and be prepared. prepared and I wasn't and I was inconsistent with my decisions and I just everything that Claire Drake did well I did wrong trust me so after the first year I kind of just said okay hold it if you're going to do this you really have to commit yourself I got out of the bar business and I did one of the smartest things I've ever done in my life I hired a veteran coach to be my assistant Terry Woziac, who would coach for years in Edmonton Maple Leaf organization. And Terry was a godsend. He taught me about structure, about how to, you know, from the coaching standpoint,

how to be prepared and how to do your work. And then I started to kind of get the hang of it. And I'd say that second year was kind of when I went, okay, I can do this and have success. Did I think at that point that's what I wanted for a career? God no. I was just doing it because, you know, I was enjoying it in the second year when I was more prepared. I was having success in enjoying it and the team was doing well. But, no, I didn't think it was going to be something that I was going to end up doing.

And it leads into a great little story about Lloyd because I was a part-time coach. And I'd gotten fired in Sherwood Park. I'd moved from Fort Sasse to Sherwood Park and had the team in first place. and I think it was 96. And I got fired on my birthday, October 31st. Or I resigned, I'm sorry. The owner, it was a private owner the first time, you know, I think in the AJ, the private owner who had a kid who was playing.

So that was a harbinger of things to come in our league. And he wasn't happy with his kids ice time. So I just finally was fed up and said, you know what? I'm done. So I just walked away. And lo and behold, didn't go to a game for, you know, maybe six weeks. I go to a game in Fort Saskatchewan, my hometown.

I'm watching the game, and I see this kind of big guy staring at me during the game. I'm thinking, who is this clown? And Lloyd was playing Fort Saskatchewan. Fort Saskatchewan beat Lloyd, and Lloyd was struggling at that time. Boris was head coach. I was out in the lobby, and this guy walked up to me and introduced himself. Vern Belchel, GM of Lloyd Minster. I said, oh, hi.

He said, what are you doing now? I said, nothing. He said, you're not coaching? Nope. And he said, oh, okay, you live in Fort Saskatchew? He said, yes, I do. He said, oh, okay. And that was it.

Nice to meet you. See you. That was on a Sunday, Sunday afternoon. Monday morning, I'm at work, and I get a phone call at work. Hi, it's Vern Belchum. I said, how did you get my work number? He said, oh, I called the house and your wife gave it to me. What are you phoning me for?

Well, what's it going to take to get you to come to Lloyd? I said, excuse me? He said, well, you know, we want you to come to Lloyd and coach Lloyd. I laughed. I thought, is this a crank call? So I kind of just played along and I said to him, listen, I don't really think I'm that interested. You know, I don't think it's something that my wife would look at. So I hung up and about an hour later, the secretary comes back to me and says,

there's a fax here you might want to put in your private box. Okay. And sure enough, it's a contract offer from Vern Balsh. I thought, what the hell is with this guy? So I phoned him right away and I said, what are you doing, ma'am? And he said, well, we really want you to coach the team. He said, why don't you drive down and let's have a talk? I thought, okay.

So I drove down and had a talk with him. And, you know, he's doing the old, he's a farm equipment salesman. and he was putting on his best pitch. I thought, God, I don't know. And, you know, he said, well, I really want you to consider this. Okay. So then I thought about it for a couple of days. I called him and I said, okay, well, I'm considering it.

And Byrne said, well, that's good because I just fired the coach. I said, what do you mean you just fired the coach? I haven't committed yet. He said, well, then you're going to have to commit real quick because we play in two days. Oh, my God. So it was a scene out of. of a slapstick. I thought, this can't be serious.

So I make the commitment. I tell my work, okay, I'm moving. Or, you know, I told my wife, we talked about it, and we agreed that I would go down, and then the family would come later. And that night, I was in the packing stuff, and I phoned Burns House. I still remembered.

It was a Monday. They had just gone to Fort McMurray and got beaten 6-1-6-1. He'd fired the coach after the Sunday game. So it was Monday. I called his wife and his wife said, oh, Burns at the board meeting. I said, okay. Well, I said, everything's closed up here. I'm looking to come in tomorrow.

And she said, oh, you better wait. They're having a vote on whether to fire Vern or not. I thought, oh, my God, I just quit my job. And they're going to fire the GM. Then that means I'm out of a job there too. So it was a little bit of bedlam. But needless to say, I got in there on Tuesday, and that's how I started my full-time coaching career.

was in Lloydminster that first year. It was something I thought I'd try. I remember saying to my wife, I thought, let's just do this till I'm, you know, at that time I think it was 29 or so or, yeah, roughly. And I said, let's just do this for a couple of years. It was a three-year contract. And I said, if nothing comes of it or if I don't move up after three years,

then we'll move back to Fort Saskatchewan. And 27 years later, I'm still involved. So it's not something I expected or certainly was pursuing. So. Did you ever get offers to move up? I feel like you must have because, like, in your first, did you not get coach of the year in 95-96? Yeah, I think it was 95. Yeah, either 94-95 or 95-96, I don't remember.

If my math is correct, in your first five years of coaching, you get coach of the year twice. Correct. Yep, that's right. And in my estimation then, teams must have been asking. There were teams sniffing around. You know, I never put out a resume or pursued any of that stuff. And there was a big reason why. You know what?

I'd coached. When we got to Lloyd, I really enjoyed that. And more so than anything, my family did. You know, my daughter was probably three, maybe four years old when we got to Lloyd. My wife loved working in Lloyd. She was very, very happy with everything. And then when we decided to move to St. Albert three years later, believe me, it was difficult.

My wife didn't want to go. My daughter, I still remember my daughter sitting on my lap crying, saying, Daddy, I don't want to move. And I explained to her that this was a chance for us to get closer to family, and it was a good job. and things where, you know, my time was, I thought, you know, I didn't know how long Lloyd was going to be able to continue to keep me under contract. At that time, my salary was moving up and they were having trouble financially. So I wasn't sure that I'd be able to stay.

So when my daughter just said, Daddy, I don't ever want to move again. And I said at that point, you're never going to have to, honey. And we bought a house in St. Albert. and I never, ever looked at moving at that point again. I would go, you know, the Fort Mac thing came up, and I moved up there by myself, but kept my wife and daughter in St. Albert so that she could stay in the same schools

and stay with the same friends. So that was important to me, more important than dragging them around from town to town and increasing my career. I was happy with what I was doing. Wow. So for 11 years then in Fort Mac, you essentially live part-time in both places. Yeah, and Lori moved up. My wife moved up there, say, the last two years, three years maybe.

So I think the first date, I was living in both places. But the team was so good about it. I mean, I got home certainly every two weeks, but it still takes it. My daughter's going through junior high and then three. through high school with me part-time for six months of the year, that's tough. So, you know, and I often look back and I don't know if it was worth it, frankly. You know, you look at it and you say, I miss some things that I wish I hadn't missed, you know, in terms of my daughter and in terms of my wife.

But it's provided a great living for us and, you know, certainly they've been extremely understanding, but you still feel the guilt of whether you did the right thing or not. Anyone who's in a relationship or has kids or both understands being away. Because, I mean, in our lovely province, how many guys are working night shift or up north? I mean, right now is pretty bleak times. But, I mean, you're talking to a group of people that there's a lot of guys out there and women for that matter. that have worked that type of shift work where you're away from your family and anytime you're gone for an extended period especially with children that's tough so I yeah man that's

that makes a lot of sense to me yeah and I think people sometimes have trouble understanding but they don't understand some of the sacrifices involved on the part of the wives and the kids and it's you know I just didn't ever want to put myself listen had I continued to to follow the path I was following and moved up and pursued coaching, I'd be divorced. It's as simple as that. I don't think I would have been able to maintain my family. And that wasn't a risk I was willing to take. And I'm certainly extremely happy that I made that choice because I love my wife and I love my daughter. And I'm glad I got to be there with them through as much as I could. That's pretty cool. I should ask then how you met your wife. Every time I have someone,

on here and I don't talk about the wives. The next thing I always get is, like, could you guys at least mention us? So how did you meet your wife? Oh, my God. Let's see. I was playing for Fort Saskatchewan for the traders. Put you on the spot, Gord. Yeah, I was 18 or 19. I don't remember exact age, but she was one of the girls that kind of, you know, there was a group of girls at the Fort Saskatchewan High School that followed the team and were friends with guys on the team. And I met her, you know, through some of the team parties. And, you know, we hooked up, you know, an 18 and never, never veered from each other. You know, I was extremely fortunate.

She's a great girl. And, you know, I don't know what I did to deserve her. But I latched on when I saw a good thing and I never let her go. She probably at times tried to escape, but I hung on to her legs. So, no, it was good. How many years now have you been together then? Oh my God. I know you know. I'm glad my wife's not watching this right now, but let's see, we've been married for, oh, 37 years, 36, sorry, 36 years. And we were together seven years before that, so 43 years. 43 years. Well, hats off to you, because, you know, every once in a while we talk about it on here. But in a world where it doesn't seem like that type of relationship,

weather's the storm anymore. It seems more and more and more common for it to go the opposite way, to be honest, which is scary to think about. You're probably right. But, you know, sometimes the easiest thing to do is to face adversity in part. We faced adversity and brought us closer together. And I'm sure that that's part of the reason that we've been able to have some success in our marriage is, you know, don't forget, our first year being married, I was undergoing chemo treatments. So that puts you to the test real quick and she was extremely supportive and always has been. And, you know, and that's part of the reason I left Lloyd the second time, frankly. Lorry's, you know, got MS and has had it now for 10 years. And, you know, it had her original attack 10 years

ago, but then having an attack in Lloyd Minster, the year of the RBC. And, you know, it's kind of left her a little bit debilitated and that was the biggest reason for us leaving Lloyd was, you know, to try to get closer to Edmonton so that we could get, you know, our family involved in helping. So, but she's happy. She's doing well. And, you know, you learn real quick through, through adversity that if you're happy, then nothing else matters. And that's really what's going on. Like I said, she's dealing with it exceptionally well. And it's the least I can do to support her and make sure that she's doing okay. If I had you on this podcast and we didn't talk about Fort Mac, I think it would be a real shame. So I want to dedicate a little bit of time here because you spend 11 years there from 2003 to 2014.

And if you tack on the last year of St. Albert, you make the finals in 03, 04, 05, winning in 06. then 08, 010, in 2012. And then in 215, let's tack on a Royal Bank Cup with the Bobcats. Right, yeah. But in Fort Mac, you built a program that was, from my eyes, exactly what Spruce Grove and Brooks have right now. at the absolute top of the food chain, you guys were always circling the finals. You're one of the best franchises in the AJ.

What was it that you guys did that set yourself apart from everyone? Well, I think there's some special challenges being in Fort Mac. Much like being in Lloyd, frankly. Lloyd's got some challenges in terms of recruiting. Fort Mac also has some of those challenges. challenges, but it's also a bit of an isolated community, which means your community's support is exceptional. So one thing I realized, it didn't take me long to realize that Fort Max, like the Montreal

Canadians of the H. Fans up there demand the winner, they know their hockey, and they are super passionate. And that is a great thing. So it's a good environment to build an organization. We were trying to make sure that we maintained an identity year to year. You can do that because they have control of the rink. The oil barons run the rink for the city of Fort McMurray. So you can really structure your organization like an academy.

You know, kids coming in to work out at certain times. You've got skill sessions, you've got ice time. You could offer kids more in terms of preparation and getting them ready for the college level than maybe some other places can. still had some challenges in recruiting there, but we can offset that with having the financial ability to pay an education package for a kid coming out of the Western League. So, you know, that offset some of the lack of recruiting. But, you know, I'm thankful for everywhere I got to coach, but Fort Mac is definitely, it's a different spot. And unless you're familiar with

how to run things there and how the town runs, it's a tough place to coach. But once you figure it out, it's an outstanding place to be able to build a program. And I'm so thankful that I got that opportunity for those 11 years. And frankly, they called me in January and I said, there's no

chance that I'm going back to coach. I was happy being out of the game. But then I got calls from a couple sponsors and a couple old coaches and, you know, they just kept twisting my arm. Fram Gap

mouth, Tom Caca, twisting my arms, saying, Gordon, you got to come back and, you know, they're in a bad spot. You got to come home. And that's really the only reason I went back. I was content to stop coaching. But they were in need. And I thought, you know what? They provided me a great family life for 11 years. The least I can do is go up there and try to help them get themselves back to where they should be. And so I made the commitment. And I don't know how long I'll be there, but right now I'm enjoying it. And like I said, my priority is to try to get them back on their feet and make sure that they're having success again so they can have some long playoff runs and satisfy those rabbit fans in Fort McMurray. I was looking at some of your

stats from those years. And one of the things in the record books that stuck out to me was, three times out of the top 10 Fort Mac was in fewest goals against and right alongside that was a couple of different goaltenders who must have played exceptional for you.

Yeah, yeah. Does Jimmy Bernier stick out as a name? Jimmy Bernier, yeah. Jimmy was a great kid from Quebec and a real thick French accent in the first week. Oh, Jimmy, I hope you don't mind me telling the truth, but the first week he was with us or the second week he was with us,

I got a call from our billet coordinator saying, um, the billets found a little bit of marijuana and Jimmy is dresser drawer. I thought, are you kidding me? We finally have an all-star type bulltender. So I called Jimmy in and I said, listen, what's the good kid? He admitted it. He said, yeah, you know what? I've smoke in the summer. He said, I said, Jimmy, we can't have that here. He said, no problem. It won't happen again.

And I thought, okay, you know, this could be a continuing issue. But I'll tell you what, he just, he stuck by the rules. And he was a great kid, a funny goaltender. And he just loved to compete. And that was a huge part of our success. And then after Jimmy, we had Tanner Gillette, who was all world force for a few years and then went on to lead Denver to a couple national titles in the NCAA. So it's the biggest part of the game, as you know, you know, you can take an average team and be real good if you've got great goalies and you come playoff time. You don't win without great goalies.

And then they definitely prove for that. Yeah. And I just look at, you know, Jimmy Bernier had. 1.64 goals against average and 44 games played. How do you beat that? Yeah, he was, you know, we had a very good defense also. I would say that. We had some veteran guys who, you know, were real smart defensively

and made sure he didn't see a lot of second and third shot opportunities. But he also had, you know, I think it's something like 269 or 270 straight minutes of shut out hockey, which was, you know, what we're talking four or five, almost five games. And I still remember when he lost that. We were playing, I think it was Drayton Valley. We were up four nothing going into the third period with about 10 minutes left. This was now the fifth consecutive game that he had a shot out. And we had a rookie AP, a Fort McMurray kid, Chris Steedsman, was playing as an AP. And Chris came out from behind the net, went about seven minutes left and fired it right a pizza right up the ice on the tape in the slot and the guy fired

it in the back of the net before vernier could move and after the game we're in there you know saying hey great game tonight anyone get anything to say and vernier pipes up and he says hey steedgeman takes a lot that was the end of the record but quality kid and like I said that's he was he was exceptional that year, but we also had a very deep team. And, you know, you don't win in this game, as we talked about without a goal tank. There's two things. Every coach has to have, number one, great goalie.

Number two, your leadership group better to be strong. And our leadership group was out of this world, exceptional players, but also guys that policed the room. And it makes your job as a coach so much easier. When you know, you don't have to go in and correct everything because the captains are doing it. Well, and when you get, and correct me if I'm wrong here, but when you go as many years in a row and then floating around the finals, your younger guys get to see that and then they get to grow into that. And I'm not saying you aren't spitting guys off to NCAA and wherever else, but you're going to have that filtered down.

That probably had to have been one of the coolest things as you coaching in Fort Mac that long is the ability to, once you go, got there, the next year, half your guys or whatever the number is, have seen that level. And now they get to show the new guys come in. And it just, the program carries on. You just hit the nail on the head. It's the, it's the easiest part once you've built the structure is that the reinforcement comes from the players. I never had to stop of practice. After we started to have success, the first, second year, I never, ever had to stop. stop a practice to tell a kid, you can't cut that line short. Because as soon as he did it in a drill, one of our captains or one of our players,

returning players would go over and say, hey, that's not how we do things here. Cut the line. So they would correct themselves. That makes it so easy for a coach because then you're concentrating strictly on teaching. You don't have to do the discipline part as much. And when the players discipline themselves and motivate themselves, let's face it, makes any coach a great coach because they're all accountable. And that's the one thing we tried to teach is you have to be accountable. If you played well, you'd be the first ones to patch in the

back. But when he didn't play well, look in the mirror, take accountability and responsibility. And as teammates, they held each other accountable. And that's when you know you have a successful group. And, you know, I think you're starting to see that in Lloyd now with what, you know, with what Nigel has done this year. I think that team is getting to the point where that starting to happen day in and day out. And that's why they'll have success here in the coming years also. You see them in the upcoming years continuing to grow then, Gord? Yeah, I do.

I was really impressed. We saw them late in the year. And I was really impressed. You know what? I thought they had a good combination of skill. They had a good combination of work ethic. And they played the game the right way. And, you know, for a team that's young and has every reason not to believe,

they believed. I remember we, I think we beat them two-one in a shootout, but during the game, it was a one-one game was a great game, but, you know, I felt they outplayed us, and I thought that's a team that's going to cause some problems in the future.

And, you know, the first step is to get them all working towards the goal. He's got that now. Now, the next step is to add a bit more skill to it and still continue that, and I'm sure they'll do that in the future. I was wondering, In your time as coach, you've had a lot of guys move on to the next level.

What do you think makes you successful in getting players to the next level? Well, I don't think it's a secret. I think it's the responsibility factor, the accountability factor. If you talk to college guys, they're going to, you know, they'll come out and say, okay, I know with a Gord-Tibito player what I'm getting. He may not be able to be a consistent first-liner, but if he slumps, he's going to do all other things well and he's going to be able to kill penalties. And I always tell my players, I want you to go to college representing our program, representing whether I was in Lloyd or in

Fort Mac, you're representing our program. And we don't take shortcuts. We block shots when we have to. We kill penalties. Whether we're out there in the last minute of game down by a goal or up by a goal, you need to be responsible enough to be on the ice. And we want them to be captains and leaders at the next level. And we've had some kids because it's never an exact science. You have guys that you think are going to score goals when they get to college, and they don't. But if they can be responsible players, good teammates and leaders,

then schools are happy with that. They always say the same thing to me. Okay, if this guy doesn't score, what else can he bring to the table board? Well, he's going to be good defensively. He's going to chip pucks. He'll be smart. Those are important because the coaches can't, you know, they can't almost hit a home run, but they have to make sure they hit a double to use baseball

analogy. And that's what they're getting, I think, under certain teams. You know if you're going to get a player from my team, you're going to have those basic fundamental skills. You know, if you're getting a player from Brooks, they're going to have great offensive skill because they teach that extremely well. Yeah, no, I know exactly what you're talking about. Going back to playing for Larry, Larry instilled a certain work ethic in his guys. You had to raise your level to play for his teams. Yeah, when you went to college, I mean, what was your attribute? What could you bring to the program?

If you weren't scoring, you know, Sean, what could you bring? First pass and I worked my ass off. Well, you know what? Coaches can work with that. They can, they certainly want to, you know, everyone's comfortable in knowing that, okay, he can at least do these basic things. and then hopefully I can coach him up to get a little bit more. Yeah, for sure.

Well, I'll keep you for five more questions. We could probably go on and on and on, and I might just have to get you back on. It's probably what I'm going to have to do at some point. But I always end with the Crude Master Final Five. A local company here in Lloyd, Heath and Tracy McDonald, have supported the podcast since the very beginning. So shout out to them.

So five questions. Take as long or as little as you want. If you could go back to your first year of coaching right now and impart one piece of wisdom to yourself, what do you think you'd want to pass along? Be more prepared. You have to show your players that you're a leader by being organized and prepared every day. And it's the one thing I try to install in my assistant coaches right now. They're expecting every meeting you have with them, you leave an impression.

I want that impression to be, oh, my God. coaches working real hard at this. He's prepared. He's done his homework. We have to be ready. If I've done that, then I've done a good job. And that can be, you know, you can put that to a lot of parts of life. Absolutely.

To be prepared. Yep, for sure. After the COVID-19, what if scenario for you? After COVID-19 isolation scenario is done. So now we all get to go out. Yep. If all the NHL teams had to hire a coach and they said, Gord, we want you.

Where would you go? Pittsburgh Penguins. Pittsburgh Penguins? First and foremost, only for one reason. I would love the opportunity to coach Malcolm and Crosby. You know, having watched them for the last 10 or 15 years, just to see what those guys do. And from what I've heard, how hard Sydney practices

and the time and effort he puts in. But come on. I mean, the easy choice, I want to coach McDavid. I mean, I just want a front row seat to watch him. I'd love to be able to, you know, to have any part in that. So, of course, the Oilers are the default, but Pittsburgh would be, it would certainly be another team, yeah. If you could sit down and have beer with one person, past, present, who would it be?

Boy, that's tough. probably JFK or Martin Luther King Jr. Really? Yep, yeah,

one of those two. I did a lot of reading when I was young and read a lot on Kennedy and followed a lot of books on him and Martin Luther King also. I'm a huge history buff

that was my minor in university. So yeah, I'd love an opportunity to sit down and just question them about the times that they grew up in and the times that they were in in the 60s before their untimely deaths. You're talking to a guy who graduated with a degree in history, so that's very fascinating. Oh, even better, even better. In your tenure of coaching in the AJA show, who do you think was the best player on the ice,

Barnon, whether it was under you or against you. Danny Heatley. His run in the, boy, I don't remember what playoffs, but I want to say 98, 99 maybe, when the Canucks beat Spruce or St. Albert at that time in the finals, was a performance like I have never seen ever at our level. I think they beat them in four games or five games, and he had a hat-trick in four or five games. That was absolutely astonishing to watch. He was big. He could skate and he could score from center. He had such a great shot.

But I've never seen anyone dominate a hockey game at our level the way he did during that series. Yeah, that year was 1998-99. He played for the Calgary Canucks and in 60 games had 70 goals, 56 assists for 126 points. He was, like I said, and that was regular season. He actually jumped it up come playoff time. Come playoff time.

Well, your final question is for kids that are, whether it's this year or going into the future, best advice to give any kid trying to crack the lineup. He comes to your camp, goes to any camp for that matter. What advice would you impart on any kid going to a trial? Don't fear being great. There are tons of people that tell you what you can't do. Paint your own picture. Define what you can do.

Show them. The biggest thing I find right now is there's a lot of fear in players. And there's fear of success. There's fear of failure. Get that out of your mind. You know what? You have to fail in order to succeed at some point. So keep trying it.

Keep doing things. And if you fail, just go back to work. work and keep working at it. You know, it's the old adage that you got to, you know, put in so many hours of failure before you reach success, you know. I always tell our players a little story about you have to trust the process. You know, I don't know if you're familiar with the bamboo tree, but there's a theory of water the bamboo tree. Bamboo tree is a tree that they grow in Japan, you water it for three years and it doesn't grow. You continue to water it daily and it doesn't grow.

But you trust the process. And in year three, that thing sprouts six feet. So water the bamboo. Just keep watering the bamboo. And eventually you'll be rewarded for it. And that's the one thing that I think I see with kids is don't be afraid of failure. You know, don't get, if there's adversity, you'll overcome it. Just keep fighting, keep working, and find a way.

And that's what great athletes, great people do. In our society, we're trying to protect our kids as much as possible. We're not doing them any great lengths by doing that. We're doing them a disservice. Let them have some failure. Let them learn how to cope with that and how to overcome that. The more we do that, the more successful people will be. So that's what we're trying to teach our kids

and the kids that are coming to our camps. Make sure you understand something from failure, learn from it, and continue to trust that process. I don't think we could end it any better than that. Well, thanks. I appreciate that. I've really enjoyed this. I really appreciate you hopping on.

Hopefully you enjoyed it as well. Sean, it's been a pleasure. The time just flies by, as Chris told me it would. And I look forward to seeing you when I'm in Lloyd next time, and I'd love to buy you a beer, and thank you for the opportunity to talk to you. What we're going to do next time, you're in Lloyd, and this is all gone, is we'll have you in the studio, you and Chris, we'll sit down and have a couple beers and have a BS. Anytime I can see Chris, it's a special time, so I'd love to do that.

Sounds good. Well, thanks again. Okay, take care. Hey, folks, thanks again for joining us today. If you just stumble on the show and like what you hear, please click subscribe. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday a new guest will be sitting down to share. their story. The Sean Newman podcast is available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you find your podcast fix. Until next time.