Barrick back behind the bench
Pelham Panthers new coach determined to succeed where others have failed
Mark Barrick has been around hockey long enough to know what he faces as head coach of the Pelham Panthers.
He is also steadfast in his belief he can make the Panthers winners.
The former St. Catharines Falcons head coach is returning to junior ranks as Scott Barnes’ successor with the junior B club.
He will form a triumvirate with director of Hockey Operations Tim Toffalo and director of Business Operations Harry Powell, who are co-owners of the team.
The Panthers finished the regular season with a 12-34-0-4. The year before they were 1-45-0-4.
“We have some holes to fill, but it is early,” Barrick said when asked how the roster is shaping up. “We are excited about the way things are headed.
“We have a good core coming back. We have a good core of new players coming in. It will be a different team.
“We have Tim on the hockey side, and Harry on the business side. We each have our roles and responsibilities. We will do our jobs and improve the situation.”
The Panthers were knocked out of the playoffs in the spring by the Falcons. It marked the third straight year in which Pelham was swept in the opening round and the fourth in a row for the franchise.
In 2014, when they were the Port Colborne Pirates, the team lost in four to the eventual Sutherland Cup champion Caledonia Corvairs.
Barrick said the game has changed since the last time he stood behind the bench with a team in Golden Horseshoe Junior B Hockey League.
“The entire game has changed everywhere,” Barrick said. “It’s changed at this level too. Some of it for the better.
“If you take some of the battles that we used to have with Niagara Falls — some of the things that went on in those games — guys would be getting suspended for life today. It was a different era.
“Those things that were allowed to go on then, don’t happen anymore. We don’t want them to happen. We don’t allow them to happen.
“The players now are bigger, stronger, faster, but you still have to score more than the other team, and shut things down in the defensive end.
“We can overcomplicate hockey all we want. It is still about hard work and doing the little things as a team. Best talent doesn’t always beat best team.”
Whatever the level of talent, there are brighter days ahead for the Panthers.
The team has one more season in the crumbling Pelham Arena before moving to a brand new, state-of-art $32.6-million community centre under construction just off Highway 20. It will feature an NHL-sized ice surface and seating for 1,000 fans.
At the Pelham arena, the fans sit on wooden bleachers, and the roof is too low for an overhead scoreboard. The team’s lockerroom facility is a cramped portable detached from the building. The players have to don skate guards, brave the weather, and take a short hop down a ramp and across a gravel walkway to the rear entrance of the rink.
“Both teams play on the same surface,” Barrick said. “Instead of crying and moaning about it, we will wear the old barn in Pelham as a badge of honour — and close it out with a bang.
“Then we will move into one of the best facilities in the Niagara peninsula, only behind the Meridian Centre. We aren’t going to complain about an arena. I have seen better, and I’ve seen worse. Hockey is hockey.”
Barrick began his junior B coaching career with the old Port Colborne Schooners before he joined the St. Catharines Falcons for the first of three stints with the club. He has won Golden Horseshoe championships and reached the Sutherland Cup finals twice.
“This league used to be about development,” Barrick said. “Now, it is about winning championships with 20-year-old hockey players. That’s unfortunate.
“The Pelham Panthers are trying to change that. We can win and develop hockey players to take the next step.
“For years in this league, you finished the hockey season and would have a few conversations with some of your veterans over the summer. You weren’t back on the ice until the middle of August when training camp opened.
“One hundred guys would show up. Sixty guys would be gone after three days, and then you went to work. It doesn’t happen that way anymore. It never stops. The competition for players is crazy.”
Barrick served as a scout for the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds of the OHL covering the Niagara Region and Western New York. He coached the Lincoln Mavericks of the outlaw Greater Metro Hockey League until the team folded. He also coached AAA minor hockey with the Niagara North Stars organization.
“Just because you are not drafted as a 16-year-old doesn’t mean your hockey career is over,” Barrick said. “A lot of guys feel that way.
“The first year (with the Niagara North Stars), we had a guy who was never drafted by the name of Austin McEneny.”
McEneny was passed over twice in the Ontario Hockey League draft and had an unsuccessful free-agent tryout with the Barrie Colts before eventually finding his way to the Quebec Remparts of the QMJHL.
Unsure of his role with the Remparts after one season, he left the team during training camp and returned home. He was likely headed for junior B when the Windsor Spitfires invited him to their camp on a tryout basis.
“A couple of weeks ago, he lifted the Memorial Cup, on the ice, as a member of the Spitfires,” Barrick said.
“Austin wasn’t drafted. When he was playing AAA, nobody talked to him. He just kept moving and believing he was a hockey player.
“That’s what it is all about. Players mature differently. They develop.
“It doesn’t matter if they are 17 years old or 20 years old. We will build our program with hockey players who want to use us as a stepping stone and become better players in the process.”