Sunday, September 27, 2009

Tippett, King, and Yotes Training Camp 9/25/09

On Thursday, September 24th, Head Coach Wayne Gretzky resigned from his position as Head Coach of the Phoenix Coyotes. He had an all-time record of 143-161-24 OTL and no playoff appearances. The Yotes held press conference, and the new coach is ..... Dave Tippett!!!!!! Tippett has a all-time record of 492 games coached, 271-156-28 T-37 OTL, and 5 playoff appearances. I was doing cheetah flips when I heard that we hired Dave Tippett. We also replaced Goalie Coach Grant Fuhr with Sean Burke, and moved Fuhr to Director of Goaltender Development. Fuhr will scout draft elligable goalies, and work with the prospects.

Earlier in the week, we hired Dave King as Assistant Coach. It seems that King has a billion years of hockey coaching experience. King has won a ton of trophies. He is very well respected in the hockey community. He will probably work with the younger players quite a bit.

At practice on September 25th, Tippett had the players pass, get the puck out of the defensive zone as fast as they could, quick-pass through the neutral zone, and do face-off drills. I had a bunch of fun at the practice. I had Matt Lombardi, Adrian Aucoin, Petr Prucha, Jim Vandermeer, Vernon Fiddler, and Jason LaBarbera sign my hat. Scottie Upshall signed my card. Lombardi signed my rookie card of him, and another card.

When the players were entering the ice for practice, David Schlemko came out with no jersey on, just pads. He stopped by the equipment manager, by the door leading to the ice, and asked if he had any extra jerseys. The equipment manager said they did not have any extra jerseys, and that Schlem would have to go on the ice in his pads, unless the guy standing in the bleachers would loan him his jersey. The guy that was standing in the bleachers is my Dad. Dad took off his jersey, and gave it to Schlem, who shook his hand and said," Thanks man, I really appreciate what you're doing." So, Schlem skated 7-8 laps around the rink before Shane Doan, who had been the last one out of the dressing room at Jobing.com, and had "taken" Schlem's jersey, skated across to the bench, and gave the equipment manager Schlem's jersey. The equipment manager walked around the end of the rink, and gave Dad his practice worn jersey back. On Friday, at the end of practice at Jobing.com, Schelm took his stick, skated across the ice, stuck it over the glass, and gave it to Dad.

See ya,

Hockey Freak

1 comment:

  1. Heard you on the Coyotes-Blues game tonight. Great job and keep up the good work.

    Cheers from San Jose, CA!

    ReplyDelete