Slammers coach watches former players on university hockey's biggest stage

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On Thursday night Slammers head coach Jason Tatarnic sat in the stands at the Moncton Coliseum with a handful of current players, one night before the Slammers opened their second round of the playoffs and three nights before one former Slammer played for a CIS national championship.

PHOTO SUBMITTED

Lachlan MacIntosh challenges a St. Thomas Tommies player.

On the ice, in front of the coach and his current players, The University on New Brunswick (UNB) Varsity Reds and the Brock Badgers met in the opening game of the 2008 CIS men's ice hockey championship.

Wearing the red and black of UNB was Southern Victoria native and Slammers alum Lachlan MacIntosh. In the white and red of the Brock University Badgers were former Slammer Paul Holder and Badgers Pat and Trevor Selin, Curtis Yausie, Mike MacIntyre and Joey Pell, all players who've skated under Tatarnic's leadership.

For Tatarnic, it was a gratifying night, and a unique opportunity to see hard work pay off for each of the men he'd coached.

"It's kind of neat, you work them at this level to provide them with the opportunities at the next level," he said.

"It's nice to see them achieve like that."

Even as a relatively young coach, Tatarnic's roots in Junior hockey run deep. Before coaching in Woodstock, Tatarnic cut his teeth with the Dryden Ice Dogs of the Superior International Junior Hockey League and the Humboldt Broncos of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League. It was in those communities and with those teams that Tatarnic forged relationships with dozens of young hockey players, many of whom have gone on to play at other levels.

On Thursday it was five players from Tatarnic's pre-Slammers days and two with Woodstock ties who took the ice in Moncton.

Thursday's game ended with MacIntosh and UNB coming out on top 6-1, as the two teams headed in opposite directions.

The Reds went on to shut out the Saskatchewan Huskies before falling to the Alberta Golden Bears 3-2 in the CIS National Championship on Sunday. Meanwhile Brock followed the loss to UNB with 4-1 loss to the same Saskatchewan team, finishing the tournament with only two total goals and no wins.

It can be hard for a team with little or no experience to play in a tournament like the national championship, but the Brock players handled themselves well, said Tatarnic.

"I talked to the guys from Brock, the fellas were pretty excited. They had a tough game," he said.

"It's always tough the first time there, you can be overwhelmed, but for the first 30 minutes of that game Brock was the better team. They got some bad breaks."

For Tatarnic, the losses suffered by his former players didn't tell the whole story, as the players he knew showed a lot of heart going as far as they did, he said.

"As a coach, I feel very strongly about work ethic. I've always said that the only thing you can control when you go out on the ice is how hard you work. Those guys on Brock are all pretty hard-working guys."

In a similar sense, it was great to see MacIntosh, who eventually tallied three points in three tournament games for the Reds, succeed on such a stage.

"I was cheering for Brock, but I was looking for Lach to have personal success in the game," he said.

"I've watched Lach play a few times this year, and he's really taken off as a player. He could go a long way in this game. He's one of the top players in the country, and I know there's some buzz about NHL teams and camps."

The entire night was a change of pace for the coach in the middle of a playoff stretch, a chance to reflect on the young men he's had a hand in developing and the people he's known in his hockey career.

In talking to his former players Tatarnic was pleased with how far they've come, both on and off the ice, he said.

"As a coach you hear a lot of the negative stuff. But you can really take the positives out of something like this, that you have had a hand in their development. It's nice.

"When I coached them they were kids, but they're men now. It's great to see them develop as people. The hockey side will always take care of itself, it's great to see the other side sometimes."