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Team Canada's coach firing up golden run
Selection camp opens Saturday in Calgary

Vicki Hall, Calgary Herald December 9, 2011

Don Hay is the coach of the Canadian Junior Team. Hockey Canada and the Canadian Hockey League will announce the roster for Canada's 2012 National Junior Team Sport Chek selection camp on Monday at press conferences in Edmonton.

During those marathon bus rides through bleak prairie, Don Hay's mind occasionally drifts to his days with the Kamloops Fire Department.

"Especially after a tough loss, you look back and think, 'That fire hall doesn't look too bad right now,' " Hay says via telephone on yet another gruelling road trip through Saskatchewan.

"But this is a satisfying job."

The job he speaks of is head coach of the Western Hockey League's Vancouver Giants.

This week, he assumes the title of head coach for Team Canada at the 2012 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship.

Forty-one of this hockeymad country's top teenage prospects arrive in Calgary Saturday for a four-day selection camp. Twenty-two will survive the final cut and represent Canada in the tournament that runs from Dec. 26 to Jan. 5 in Edmonton and Calgary.

For millions of Canadians watching in their living rooms, anything less than gold is tantamount to failure.

"What my time in the fire department showed me is that sports isn't life and death," says Hay, who briefly served as head coach for the Phoenix Coyotes (1996-97) and Calgary Flames (2000-01). "You go to that car accident. You go to a young baby drowning and you have children the same age. You go to buildings where people are trying to get out.

"You have to put things in perspective. You realize the losses in hockey aren't as bad as you think they are."

These pearls of wisdom come from a coach who hates losing. Despises it, actually, but (thankfully) doesn't experience it all that often.

His resume includes three Memorial Cup championships and two Dunc McCallum trophies as the WHL's coach of the year. His WHL head coaching record is an astounding 540-290-66.

Much to his embarrassment, he was even named the WHL's coach of the century.

In 1995, Hay led Canada to a perfect 7-0 record and gold at the world juniors in Red Deer. With help from the NHL lockout, Hay constructed a dream team anchored by the likes of Ryan Smyth, Ed Jovanovski and Bryan McCabe.

His mission this time around? To capture gold in spite of seven junior-aged players toiling in the NHL (including Edmonton Oilers star Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Columbus forward Ryan Johansen).

Further complicating matters, star forward Jonathan Huberdeau (broken foot) and outstanding defenceman Ryan Murray (high-ankle sprain) are questionable due to injury.

As such, architect Hay and his staff have quite the challenge in front of them.

"Don is one of the best around at building teams," says St. Louis Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock, who hired Hay as an assistant some 25 years ago in Kamloops, B.C. "You're going to see his team is a very cohesive, hardworking group. You'll be able to identify the team game right away. He will hammer home details right from Day 1 and put a team game plan together.

"He creates a spirit in his group that's hard to play against. He's relentless in getting that spirit."

Once the team is officially announced Dec. 14, Hockey Canada will ferry the 22 teenagers to Banff for a week of team-building and practise.

The time to create chemistry is short with only four returning players from last year's world junior team, including Jaden Schwartz out of Colorado College – who has captain material written all over him – Quinton Howden of the Moose Jaw Warriors, goalie Mark Visentin of the Niagara IceDogs and Brett Connolly of the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Perhaps buckling under the intense spotlight, the three played for a Canadian side that coughed up a threegoal lead in a 5-3 championship loss to Russia last year.

"We have support from all corners of the country." Hay says. "All Canadians are behind us 100 per cent and want us to have success. So I think we have to feed off the energy and the enthusiasm that the crowd provides for us.

"I look at it as a good pressure." Of course, pressure, to Hay, is relative.

"He came from a life and death background," Hitchcock says. "In the fire department – if they weren't a team and they weren't co-ordinated – people's lives were affected.

"I know he's excited about this opportunity. I know he's been wearing out the phone lines in making sure every detail is covered, because I've been the recipient of some of those phone calls.

"He's going to be relentless in making his team something that people are going to be really proud of."

Dean
M.Ed (Coaching)
Ch.P.C. (Chartered Professional Coach)
Game Intelligence Training
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