Cup runneth over with accolades
The first player from Welland to hoist a Stanley Cup is being inducted to the sports wall of fame
Dan Paille will soon be adding another entry to a remarkable resumé that already includes a Stanley Cup with the Boston Bruins, back-toback silver medals for Team Canada at the world junior hockey championship and a day in his honour in his hometown.
On Sunday, the first National Hockey League player from Welland to win a Stanley Cup will see his plaque added to the Welland Sports Wall of Fame in a 2 p.m. ceremony at Seaway. On the wall, Paille, the H.L. Cudney Award winner as the city’s sportsperson of the year in 2003, will be joining Mark LaRose, one of his coaches in minor hockey.
LaRose, who was inducted posthumously in 2022, is among the mentors who played an instrumental role in the future NHLer’s development.
“He was able to coach me for four years,” Paille, now an assistant coach of the men’s hockey team at Canisius College in Buffalo, said in an interview from Naples, Fla.
“Myself, (Paul) Bissonnette, Andre (Deveaux) discussed how important and how influential he was when we were younger in terms of just recognizing kids and talent,” he added.
Paille, who was in Florida attending a National Collegiate Athletic
Association coaches conference, recalled when he was playing house league for his father, Ray Paille, it was LaRose who suggested a move to a travel team.
“Mark was there to tell him, ‘This kid needs to play single-A,’ ” Paille said.
Paille went on to play four seasons for LaRose — two in single-A and two in double-A — and captured an Ontario Minor Hockey League atom championship in 1994-1995.
Neil Blanchard, Bob Kraliz and Dave Shannon, in minor hockey, and Mark Forster, his coach with the then Welland Cougars in junior-B, also provided mentorship as Paille was growing up in Welland and rising through the hockey ranks.
“Each coach had a different influence on me as I grew up,” Paille said.
“As you grow up, you learn to take little bits and pieces of everything you really liked and enjoyed from whomever taught you,” Paille added.
After four seasons in the Ontario Hockey League with the Guelph Storm, the last two as a member of the Canadian national team at the world juniors, Paille was selected by the Buffalo Sabres in the first round of the 2002 NHL draft with the 20th pick overall.
He spent parts of five seasons with the Sabres and three in the American Hockey League with the Rochester Americans, the top farm club in the Buffalo organization, before being traded to Boston early in the 2009-10 season.
Paille spent six seasons in all with the Bruins before winding up his professional career in North America with half a season in the AHL with the Rockford, Ill., IceDogs, a Chicago Blackhawks farm team, and half a season split between the New York Rangers and their AHL affiliate, the Hartford, Conn., Wolf Pack. He played two seasons in Sweden before retiring as an active player after the 2017-18 season.
Paille has lived in Guelph with his wife, Dana, four-year-old son, Emmanuel, and eight-month-old daughter, Madeleine, since the pandemic began but the family is considering moving to Niagara.
He is in his second season on Trevor Large’s coaching staff at Canisius and has come to enjoy being on the other side of the whistle.
“It has been very nice. I really enjoy the teaching aspect of it. I try to teach the players what I see in terms of what needs to improve,” he said.
It took Paille time to transition to coaching from playing.
“It does take a little bit of an adjustment in terms of trying to get that message out to five guys, 20 guys at a time,” he said. “Overall, there was an adjustment for sure, but at the same time it’s been a rewarding process.”
Rewarding personally as well as in the standings. In 2022-23, Canisius won its conference championship and advanced to the round of 16 at nationals.
Is there a part of the now 39-yearold who would still like to be on the ice playing?
“Oh, I think I’m past that stage now,” he answered with a laugh. “I don’t think anybody really wants to stop playing, and I know I didn’t.
“I still felt young enough but at the same time your body really can’t handle as much at some point.” Throughout his NHL career, Paille played in 582 regular-season games and 75 in the playoffs, but none can compare to Boston’s 4-0 victory over the host Vancouver Canucks in Game 7 of the 2010-11 Stanley Cup final.
“If you’re talking about ultimate goals in my life, the Stanley Cup was one of them. It was probably the top goal for me,” he said. “I’m very fortunate to have had that opportunity to hoist it, to win it, with a bunch of wonderful players that I still stay in touch with.”
As Paille looks back on his hockey career, he “feels lucky” he was able to compete at a high level on a consistent basis.
“To have the adrenalin to push yourself every day to get better. And, at the end of the day, one of those times you get rewarded,” he said. “It was very exciting, not just for me but for my family, extended family. When you get to succeed at certain things, you want to share, and I was happy to share those moments with everybody.”
Did the satisfaction of winning the Stanley Cup ease the disappointment of settling for the silver medal at back-to-back world junior championships?
“I didn’t get to win that gold medal, but I was able to participate,” he said. “Not to shortchange a silver medal — I think that’s a tremendous accomplishment, too — but getting to the Stanley Cup final and another one after that are the moments I pushed for in my career.
“When it comes to representing your country, that’s more of a bonus aspect that I felt. I couldn’t be happier to have represented my country.”
Also being inducted to the Welland Sports Wall of Fame are a peewee baseball team that captured an Ontario championship in 2018 and Rosie and Steve Smith as builders from swimming, both posthumously.