Hutchinson is national female coach of the year
Former Peterborough Girls Hockey Association mentor — now an assistant with York Lions — wins inaugural Hockey Canada award
A woman who honed her coaching skills in Peterborough is the inaugural Hockey Canada BFL Female Coach of the Year recipient.
Teresa Hutchinson was named the High Performance Coach of the Year, while Alberta’s Samantha Holmes-Domagale was named the Community Coach of the Year.
Hutchinson, 53, coached in the Peterborough Girls Hockey Association between 2009 and ’17 and joined the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association high-performance program in ’14.
“I was pretty humbled to say the least,” Hutchinson said of the award. “I’m honoured looking at the list of names for the provincial winners. I’m familiar with a lot of those coaches. The talent and leadership that is out there is pretty good in the women’s game.”
She started coaching in 1992 and joined the PGHA when her daughter, Mackenzie, began playing in Peterborough. Hutchinson grew up in Thornhill and played for Canada’s national team, which won gold at the inaugural IIHF World Women’s Hockey Championship in 1990. It was her only year with the national team as she moved into a career with the Durham Regional Police.
She lived in Manvers when her children — she also has a son Benjamin — first started playing hockey. They moved to the city soon after.
Her children, now 19 and 21, still live in Peterborough, but Hutchinson and her spouse, Jackie Dusenbury, moved to Oshawa after she joined the York University women’s hockey team as an assistant coach in 2017.
Since ’14, she’s coached Ontario teams at U16 and U18 national championships and Canada Winter Games. She won gold as an assistant coach with Ontario Red at the 2019 National Women’s Under-18 Championship, and bronze and silver with Ontario Blue in ’15 and ’17. She was head coach of Ontario Blue at the ’16 tournament and an assistant at the ’19 Canada Winter Games.
She joined York for the ’17-18 season as it started to rebuild with nine rookies. After missing the playoffs her first two seasons, York qualified this year for the U SPORTS national championships after reaching the OUA final.
Known for her calm demeanour, Hutchinson has a reputation for developing players.
She says she loves the game and helping young athletes develop on and off the ice.
Hutchinson likes being an assistant coach because the focus is primarily on development.
“I’ve been a head coach so I don’t have any apprehensions about doing it but, as the head coach, you are responsible for the strategic direction and you’re worried about the forward, defence and goalies and other coaches. There is so much going on. If you’re a position-specific coach, you’re dealing specifically with, in my case, the D and concentrate on what they are working on. You have input in the coach’s vision and direction and then you make it happen. I really enjoy that part of the game.”
COVID-19 cancelled York’s trip to the nationals.
“It was extremely disappointing,” she said.
“Part of what we instil in the kids is that you can only control what you control and it’s all about attitude and family and looking after each other,” Hutchinson added.
“It’s more about being a good person and developing longterm qualities that make you a good person and successful in life. Hockey is just the bonus. It was one of the best teams in terms of closeness that I’ve ever been involved with as a coach.”
Her goal is to coach at the national level whether it’s with the U18 development team or the women’s national team. “I would love to be involved with the national program because I know the exposure to the coaches at that level will give me so many more tools in the tool box and provide me with that much more knowledge I can bring back,” she said.