Ed’s up for the Games
O’Brien revels in coaching N.L.’s female hockey team
The last time Ed O’Brien figures he worked exclusively with female hockey players was in preparation for the 2007 Canada Winter Games in Whitehorse, Yukon.
“I wasn’t going to coach the Games team, but it was around the time when a lot of these kids were getting ready, so I did the zone camps and did a provincial camp with them,” says the former St. John’s Fog Devils assistant coach.
“When it came time to apply for the Canada Games (to coach the female team), I didn’t. I was still involved with coaching the boys, too, and my heart was with the boys at that time.
“Now, I don’t know,” muses O’Brien, head coach for Team Newfoundland and Labrador’s female team at this year’s Canada Winter Games in Prince George, B.C.
As he talks about the girls, it’s clear his time with them has exposed the softer side of O’Brien, a retired guard at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary in St. John’s.
“It’s great coaching them,” he says as a wistful smile creases his face. “They’re a really close-knit bunch. It’s what you build on, it’s what you want.”
It’s hard to believe by looking at him, but O’Brien turns 70 next year. But that doesn’t stop him from having a bit of fun with the girls. Players say he was dancing up a storm on a recent ride to the hockey venue.
“The more time you spend with young people, the younger you are, it doesn’t let you get old.”
As far as the actual mentoring of the game goes, O’Brien insists there’s no difference between coaching girls and boys. The game, is the game.
“Everything is the same,” he says. “Angling them off to the wall, pinning them, you just can’t make the big contact.
“All the flow drills I do are the same ones the boys do and they do it just as well as the boys now.”
Moreover, he feels girls are better students of the game, more willing and apt to heed to his decades of experience.
“The only thing is if I get excited and roar at them, they almost start to cry and you have to step back a bit and say ‘get a grip on yourself.”
As the vice-chair of Hockey Newfoundland and Labrador’s minor council, O’Brien wasn’t permitted to coach the province’s men’s team, which will compete in Week 2 of the Games starting Sunday.
And while he was prepared to compete with any other men who applied to coach the girls’ squad, O’Brien believes women should be coaching female hockey and told Hockey Newfoundland and Labrador he would step down if a woman made a bid to take the reins.
“No females applied, and that’s sad,” he says. “They need to get the experience.”
O’Brien has high praise for the his assistant coaches, New Harbour’s Jennifer Pollett and Burnt Cove’s Megan Frizzell. They run practices most nights and O’Brien has full confidence in them to handle in-game situations when they arise.
“I’m not going to say ‘ I’m the coach, give me that board’,” insists O’Brien. “You’ve got to let them do it, you can’t do everything yourself and if you try you’re only going to screw yourself. They’re quite capable, they can do it as well as I can, I’ve just for more time at it.”
The girls’ team was set to play Manitoba in the qualification round Tuesday night. A win would put them directly in the quarter-finals, a loss would relegate them to placing.