Feature Story
Junior Gold Hockey – Check it out
By Glen Andresen
Despite his role as Chairman, Tom Slaird
is a realist. He is fully aware that many parents don’t want their kids
participating in his hockey league – the Metro League. No, the Metro League
does not consist of juvenile delinquents. Nor does it host thugs that are out
on the ice looking for their next cheap shot, scrum or brawl.
The Metro League is better known as the
largest Junior Gold hockey league in
“The challenge with parents who have kids
playing up through Squirts, PeeWees and Bantams is that they don’t want
to know about Junior Gold,” says Slaird, in his 12th overall year on the
Metro Hockey League Board of Directors and third as the Chairman. “The dream
for them is that their kids will play varsity hockey. So they don’t want to be
taught about Junior Gold. They feel it’s a bad omen, or bad luck to even think
about it.”
Playing in Junior Gold means you won’t be
getting a hockey patch on your high school letter jacket. You won’t be playing
in front of a packed
Perhaps parents and their kids would take
more comfort with their son playing for a Junior Gold team if they knew a bit
more about the League’s founding father, the late Wes Barrette, and his
disciples, the current Junior Gold coaches found all over the state.
Taking their cue from Barrette, who saw
the need for playing options other than high school, this tightly-knit group of
long-tenured coaches provides both a league to play
hockey, and a prep course for life beyond high school.
“Wes always said, ‘They’re better off
playing with us than roaming the streets,’” remembered Bruce Kruger, who has
been involved in youth hockey for over 40 years and, along with Barrette, was
an original Metro Hockey League Board member.
But the Metro League doesn’t serve as an
outlet for high school castoffs, so they can whittle their teen years away by
goofing off at the rink. Whether he intended to or not, the league Barrette
helped create has shaped the futures of young men for 45 years by his ability
to balance discipline and caring.
Barrette’s rules for his players were etched
in stone, and they included: No cussing, no drinking and no one refers to their parents as “my old man” or “my old lady.”
On the flip side, there were some
unwritten rules, such as players were welcomed at Wes’ house at any time, for
dinner, or just to talk hockey and life.
High school can be a cruel age, and in
Barrette knew his rock-crushing hands –
well-known for their vice-like hold during a handshake – needed to be used more
to give encouraging pats on the back.
The coaches, who are carrying his torch,
have cultivated those skills in their dealings with today’s Junior Gold squads.
“Every kid is different, and you don’t
know how each of them is going to handle their entry into Junior Gold,” said
Rick Barnes, a long-time assistant to Bill Smith with the Edina Junior Gold
program, and one of two recipients for the 2009 Wes Barrette Award, which is
given annually to the League’s Coach of the Year. “They all handle the
disappointment of a high school cut differently. At that first practice of the
season, you can tell who is fired up, and who is hanging their head. You really
have to pay attention to that when you’re pushing them.
“What I’ve found over the years, is that
by the end of the year, they are so happy that they did it. It turned out to be
a great thing for them.”
Barnes is sensitive to that feeling of
disappointment, having been cut from his
“I often hear parents say that the best
years for their kids in hockey were either Squirt B’s or Junior Gold,” said
Barnes, who tackles more of the on-ice and bench duties, while Smith handles
the mentoring role. “Neither level has that pressure of making the ‘A’ team, or
the varsity team. The kids begin to relax and have fun. They enjoy coming to
the rink.”
Barnes and other Junior Gold coaches
appear to be cut from the same cloth as Barrette, returning each year in a
volunteer role, simply for the love of coaching and seeing a youngster come
back for another year of playing for him.
But in the fraternity that is Junior Gold
coaching, the 42-year-old Barnes is just a kid.
“I’ve been around for a long time,” said
Barnes of receiving the Barrette Award. “It is an honor because I know all of
the other winners, and I look up to those guys. You look around the League,
there’s going to be guys that have been around 15 years or more. They keep
coming back.”
Among those who keep coming back is Randy
Schmidt, the other 2009 Wes Barrette Award winner, inherited “Wessy’s Boys,”
the team Barrette coached right up until his death in 1998 at age 70.
Schmidt’s son played for Barrette, and a
friendship based out of mutual respect and admiration led to Schmidt being
entrusted with Wes’ team, and eventually, Wes’ award.
“(The award) really means a lot to me,
because Wes…I get emotional when I talk about Wes, and I don’t really know what
to say,” said Schmidt.
Schmidt does his best to live up to the
standards that Barrette set, realizing these are kids, but not treating them
that way.
“What Wes did was he treated every kid
like an adult,” said Schmidt. “And that’s how he earned their respect. He knew
how to treat them with kid gloves, but he got them to respond by treating them
like adults. My son, who’s now assisting me, and I try to remember that when we
work with these kids.”
Barrette spent 45 years in hockey, and
was the inaugural inductee into the Herb Brooks Foundation Hall of Fame in
2005. If you didn’t play, or didn’t have a son that played Junior Gold hockey,
there’s a good chance you hadn’t heard of him.
Yet, his legacy of developing good
citizens, who are also good hockey players, is still being passed down from
Junior Gold coaches in the 65 Metro teams, the three northern Minnesota teams,
and the six to eight B teams in southern Minnesota.
Slaird says he is always looking to grow
Junior Gold hockey in
Why do these men, who have full-time jobs
and full-time family lives keep coming back? They know, and they see, what
happens as these boys develop their character and grow into men through
hockey’s lessons.
“To this day, I can only come up with one
answer about why Wes did this for so long. And it’s very corny, but he just
loved those kids. That’s why he did it. He just loved the kids, and that’s what
I see with this year’s winners of the Wes Barrette Award,” said Slaird.
“When Wes died, his funeral had people
lined outside the church for blocks. During the service, a speaker asked that
all of Wes’ former players stand up, and 75 percent of the congregation was on
its feet, some of them in their 50’s.”
It’s safe to say that a large number of
those sitting down, were parents of Barrette’s former players, and all were
glad they, along with their sons, learned about Junior Gold hockey.
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