Coming back to Winnipeg cool move for Ice coach James Patrick still spends summers in province By: Mike Sawatzky Posted: 7:00 PM CST Thursday, Jan. 31, 2019

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This article was published 30/01/2019 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

James Patrick hasn’t been a year-round resident of Winnipeg since he was 15 years old but the day isn’t far off when he will return to where it all started.

Now 55 and in the midst of his second season as the head coach of the Kootenay Ice, Patrick knows his Western Hockey League team will be relocating to the Manitoba capital when the regular season ends on March 17.

But even as he contemplated a -38 C deep freeze gripping his hometown from the sunny, -2 C conditions of Cranbrook, B.C., Patrick sounded genuinely excited about the upcoming move.

“I do want to be there,” Patrick said via telephone Thursday. “Fortunately, I always spent my summers between Winnipeg and Falcon Lake. I always spent a lot of time coming back to Winnipeg. I still know the city, I love it and probably my two closest friends live there and I still have a brother and sister there, so I still feel connected to Winnipeg.”

And while Winnipeg is gaining a team, Cranbrook, a city of about 19,000 in the B.C. interior, is going through separation anxiety. Patrick admitted the impending move of the franchise and the months of speculation surrounding the official announcement Tuesday has taken a toll on the community.

“I think sad is a good description. There is a core group of great fans that absolutely loved having the team and they were great. They feel really sad and they’re going to miss the team. Since it was announced, now three days later, I heard talk on the radio they wanted to support the team for the last nine home games. ‘Let’s enjoy it while we can for the last six weeks,'” he said.

In Winnipeg, the team and a new arena will be the hub of an ambitious commercial development planned for the city’s southwestern corner.

“I’m super excited obviously to be part of it, but even as a Winnipegger, I’m excited with (majority owner Greg Fettes’) commitment to the city,” said Patrick. “It’s really inspiring and pretty incredible with what he’s going to do there and it just adds to our city when you look at the whole project. It’ll be amazing.”

The Ice, with the league’s youngest roster including nine 17 year olds and three 16 year olds, have struggled to get traction.

They are not a playoff team. A 10-32-7-1 record puts them 26 points out of the final wild-card playoff spot in the Eastern Conference with 18 regular-season games remaining; however, the club’s best players are young and filled with promise.

Kootenay’s marquee attraction is centre Peyton Krebs, a top prospect for the 2019 NHL Draft, who was 17 when he was named captain on Dec. 6.

“We faced a lot of challenges we probably didn’t have the first year, but the second half has been all about growth and getting better, being competitive and putting in a lot of work to make it better in the future — that’s probably the best way to describe it,” said Patrick. “We’ve emerged as a Peyton Krebs team as far as his leadership role. He’s a natural leader.

“All the habits and the details you try to teach young kids, he does naturally. We know he’s the youngest captain in the league, but we just decided to move forward because that’s the culture we wanted to establish here.”

Patrick was a dedicated young player, too, leaving home at 16 to play hockey at Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in Wilcox, Sask.

He followed that with stops in Prince Albert, Sask., as a member of the SJHL’s Raiders, and Grand Forks, N.D., playing on the University of North Dakota’s team before moving on to 21-year playing career as a defenceman in the NHL.

By the time he retired, he had been infected with the coaching bug and went on to serve as an assistant with the Buffalo Sabres and Dallas Stars for the next 11 seasons.

Becoming a head coach was a logical next step; his familiarity with the WHL was solid.

His nephew Nolan Patrick spent three seasons with the Brandon Wheat Kings before graduating to the Philadelphia Flyers as the No. 2 overall pick in the 2017 NHL Draft. During that time, Patrick was in almost daily telephone contact with his brother Stephen’s son.

James Patrick, serving on Lindy Ruff’s staff with the Stars, reviewed video of most of Brandon’s games and the mentoring relationship with Nolan grew.

But then the Stars fired Ruff and his entire staff; Patrick was ready for something different.

Wheat Kings owner Kelly McCrimmon, impressed with his coaching acumen and the uncle’s influence on Nolan, suggested Ice owners Fettes and Matt Cockell consider Patrick for the head coaching post when they bought the team in the spring of 2017.

“For me, it was how would I react to the challenge of being a head coach,” said Patrick. “That was No. 1, and then the enjoyment of coaching, being on the bench during the game and running practice. That’s what I look forward to. That’s what I wanted to do and I wanted to experience that. Right now, I’m really enjoying this. I felt last year it was a little more rewarding because you do see the improvement a little more than you see on the NHL level.”

Cockell has been blown away by Patrick’s zeal and attention to detail.

“There’s not a day when I’ve been around him that he’s not looking to get the most out the day, personally, with the kids, with our team,” said Cockell, president and GM of the Ice. “I think he approaches every day with a contagious energy. He loves the game.

“He’s one of the most passionate people I’ve ever met, and I think when you’re a young athlete and you’re being coached by somebody who’s played in the NHL for 21 years, played in the Olympics, played in the world championships, coached for 11 years — he’s literally seen everything — and he’s excited to pass all that on to help these players reach their goals.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14

Mike Sawatzky
Reporter

Mike has been working on the Free Press sports desk since 2003.

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