National Post (National Edition)
Marlies coach willing to adapt on and off ice
Keefe’s approach has team near repeat AHL title
TORONTO• Sheldon Keefe thought he had a pretty good understanding of his new world.
The owner/head coach of the Pembroke Lumber Kings —a junior-a hockey team located about 150 kilometres northwest of Ottawa — was winning title after title.
Keefe, a young man trying to chase away the demons that came to define him as a teenager before a knee injury abruptly ended his on-ice aspirations as a pro, was the toast of the town.
He won an unprecedented five straight league championships, culminating with a victory in the 2011 RBC Cup, junior-a’s national crown.
The success helped Keefe get an invite into Hockey Canada’s fold for a couple of events. He started talking to people outside his bubble on a regular basis and came to a quick realization.
“I didn’t know very much,” Keefe, who was also Pembroke’s general manager, recalled thinking.
“It opened my eyes to just how much the game changed and evolved. When you’re a former player, it’s natural to just settle on what you knew. I had fallen behind. That’s what happens when you don’t continue to grow and learn.
“The biggest thing for me was realizing, ‘Holy crap, I really don’t know that much. I’ve got to get to work.’ ”
That specific wake-up call — a similar willingness to change that highlights what’s been dubbed by a friend as Keefe’s “new life” following his severing of ties with disgraced coach/agent David Frost — stretched into 2012.
It landed him on the radar of Kyle Dubas when the 20-something-whiz-kid GM of the Ontario Hockey League’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds was looking for a new coach.
Dubas, whose hockey outlook is shaped by a forward-thinking approach, got his man with Keefe. And after Dubas signed on as assistant GM with the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2014 at age 28, Keefe was installed behind the bench with the Marlies, the club’s top farm team, some 12 months later.
Having won last year’s Calder Cup and in the midst of another American Hockey League playoff run sparked by back-to-back sweeps to open the 2019 post-season, the 38-year-old is inching ever closer to an NHL job.
It could come this summer or further down the road, but whenever it happens, the seed was planted in Pembroke after a promising playing career — Keefe led the OHL in scoring in 1999-2000 with 121 points. It ended with just 125 NHL games over five pro seasons.
Keefe already owned the Lumber Kings when he blew out his knee in the AHL.
He started helping out as an assistant and took over behind the bench in June 2006 at age 25.
That, at least in part, helped fill a void.
“I still had the itch to play,” Keefe said.
“But I developed a real passion for coaching and developed some real ties in the community.”
Keefe first met Dubas — promoted to the Leafs’ GM job last spring — when the latter was an agent with junior-a clients and came away impressed. He kept an eye on his colleague from afar, jumping at the chance when offered the coaching gig in Sault Ste. Marie.
The willingness to adapt has continued under Dubas.
Keefe, who will lead the Marlies into the AHL’S Eastern Conference final, insists he’s a patient person.
But with Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock halfway through an eightyear contract, it’s possible he might have to look elsewhere for an NHL job.
“I’m in no rush,” Keefe said. “The way I approach this is not unlike the message we give to our players, which is other people in the business determine when you’re ready or when you’re deserving of an opportunity.”