Missing Jazz Fest, still haven’t enjoyed all that has reopened

A street performer at the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival in 2012.

    Weird realizations seem to come out of the blue during these coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic times.

    Having passed through downtown Saskatoon over the past week, it popped into my head that the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival should have been going on. Of course, it was announced way back in April the Jazz Festival had been postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Still, the clock in my mind went off that this should have been going on. The Jazz Festival usually runs during the final full week of June and might run for about the first two to three days in July.

    While my main interests usually revolve around the sports world, the Jazz Festival usually provides the opportunity for me to enjoy something different. I enjoy wandering through downtown and checking out the corner musical acts that seem to pop up everywhere.

    I will usually bike from my home to the free stage for at least one night to see what is taking place there.

A guitar player on the street at the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival in 2012.

    The organizers tried to push the Jazz Festival back to where it would have opened on Friday and ran through to July 12 before the conditions of the pandemic forced an indefinite postponement.

    Even today when I was biking on the Meewasin Trail pointed towards downtown Saskatoon, I thought it would be great if I could check out some of the sites from the Jazz Festival.

    Another thought proceeded to pop into my head at that time. I thought it would be great to go to a play put on by Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan.

    Back in April, it was announced the program for Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan was postponed indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Believe it or not, I have gone to Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan performances in past summers. I saw Romeo and Juliet in the summer of 2014, and I took in Hamlet in the summer of 2018.

    Both were really good, and it felt good seeing those plays in the quaint tent setting. In my drives past the festival site, it appears construction is proceeding well for the permanent buildings that are going up there.
    The COVID-19 pandemic prevented The Pride Parade from going ahead in Saskatoon in June in a live format. 

The free stage at the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival in 2012.

    I’ve taken pictures of The Pride Parade on a couple of occasions, and I’ve always felt happy seeing the joy and the colour in those photos.

    With the reopening that has taken place in Saskatchewan since May 4, I haven’t taken advantage of everything the reopening has offered.

    I am not staying away due to fears of COVID-19. I have found I have grown accustomed to being a home bug.

    Currently, you can go into a coffee shop and sit in the dining area, which you couldn’t do for an extended time.

    I often frequented the Starbucks at Preston Crossing just north of the University of Saskatchewan to work on writing projects. Many posts for this blog have been written there.

    I last sat and wrote at Starbucks back on March 15. With the shutdowns that occurred, I have gotten used to working at home.
    I just can’t get on the horse of going to sit and work in a coffee shop again.

    I do have an office to go to in order to perform my duties, when I work as the communications coordinator for the Gordie Howe Sports Complex.

People march in the Pride Parade in 2015.

    It took work on my part in the middle of June to make it a habit to go into that office.

    I haven’t gone in to dine in a nice restaurant of a fast food restaurant. During the time heavy shutdowns were in place, I got used to ordering take out from those places.

    I didn’t frequented those places for takeout that much, but ordering takeout and eating food in front of the television at home has become the habit.

    The Great Canadian Brewhouse near my place in the north end of Saskatoon is open again, and usually its parking lot has been full of cars on a nightly basis. I keep asking myself if I want to pop in for a beer.

    I haven’t downed an alcoholic beverage at an establishment since going for a night out on March 14. I also want to pop in to Outlaws for a barbecued burger and a beer. While it is best known as a nightclub, the barbecued burgers there are good.

    I don’t believe the dance floor is open there, but I would like to go to Outlaws to see the staff I know there too.

One of the floats from the Pride Parade in 2015.

    My habit on Friday and Saturday nights have become watching movies or old TV shows I find on Youtube that I watched in my youth. If I want to drink a beer, I usually drink one or two before going to bed on a Friday or Saturday night.

    That has become my habit, and I find the urge to go out disappears as fast as it arrives.

    Before the pandemic, I would also go out to workout at a gym or fitness centre, when I want to switch things up and be around people. I’ve gotten so used to working out at home that I can’t find the urge to go to a gym.

Working out at home has become my habit.
    I wonder what it will be like to go to a live competitive sports event again in person. I haven’t done that for 114 days dating back to March 12, and sometimes I wonder if I will do that again.

    As these pandemic times go on, I wonder what other out of the blue things I will find I am missing. I wonder if I will discover changes in other small habits I used to have.

Winterhawks name may live on, other notes

Jaydon Dureau, front left, and Haydn Delorme are wrapped in star blankets. 

    It is highly possible Portland’s WHL franchise will continue to use the Winterhawks nickname.

    The nicknames for sports teams once again came under fire this week when news surfaced on Thursday that FedEx asked the NFL’s Washington Redskins to change their name. FedEx is a major sponsor of the team and the Washington NFL’s club’s home park is called FedExField.

    Since the early 1990s, the Redskins nickname has come under fire for being racially insensitive, and there have been calls to remove all nicknames of sports teams that are viewed as not being sound racially. The large majority of these cases involve nicknames that are linked to First Nations.

    Questions of addressing racism have found new momentum in the world following the endless protests that have occurred throughout the world due to the death of African-American George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis, Minn., on May 25. All the soul searching is a good thing.

    In the WHL, I believe there is a good chance the Winterhawks nickname will live on.

    Back on Jan 12, 2019, the Saskatoon Blades were holding their annual First Nations Night contest as the SaskTel Centre, and the visiting Winterhawks were the opponents.

Fred Sasakamoose performs a ceremonial faceoff.

    Portland’s roster that night contained forwards Haydn Delorme and Jaydon Dureau, who are both members of the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation in northwest Saskatchewan.

    Members of First Nations communities from Saskatoon and the surrounding area put together a warm and a cool culturally focused pre-game show. During that show, the blanket ceremony was performed for Delorme and Dureau, where both players had blankets wrapped around them by First Nations elders.

    They were given star blankets to honour their journey and dedication in sport.

    Fred Sasakamoose, who was the first player of First Nations descent to play in the NHL, was one of the Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation elders that took part in the ceremony and wrapped blankets around Delorme and Dureau.

    Sasakamoose wore his jersey from his old NHL club, the Chicago Blackhawks, while taking part in the festivities. Actually, it is common for Sasakamoose to where his Blackhawks jersey for public appearances at sporting events.

The Winterhawks red jerseys are one of the best looking in the sports world.

    During the pre-game festivities that night, the First Nations leaders spoke to the crowd about how proud they were of the Winterhawks for how well they carried First Nations colours.
    Of course, the Winterhawks jersey design comes from the NHL’s Blackhawks. A number of First Nations community hockey teams across Canada also use the Blackhawks nickname and jersey design.

    As a side bonus, the Blackhawks and Winterhawks red jerseys are arguably one of the best looking uniforms in the entire sports world.
    The pre-game festivities from that night at the SaskTel Centre were covered in the Eagle Feather News, which is a First Nations media publication.

    Due to the fact the NHL’s Blackhawks and WHL’s Winterhawks have had First Nations players on their rosters and have had a positive identification on that front, there is a good chance those nicknames will continue to be used by those clubs.

• On Wednesday, there were numerous reports from media outlets in the United States that the NFL was planning to reduce the number of pre-season games each team plays from four to two due to the COVID-19 pandemic. If each team plays two pre-season games, that would cut the schedule of the entire NFL pre-season in half.
• On Thursday, the junior A Melville Millionaires of the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League hired Daniel Wapple as the club’s new goaltending coach. Wapple has been a goaltender skills instructor for the past five seasons and resides in Regina. The Saskatoon product played goal in the WHL for four seasons from 2012 to 2016 with the Moose Jaw Warriors, Medicine Hat Tigers, Regina Pats and Vancouver Giants. He finished the 2015-16 campaign in the junior A ranks with the Estevan Bruins. Wapple played one season in the U Sports ranks with the University of Saskatchewan Huskies men’s hockey team in 2016-17.
• On Friday, the Saskatchewan Soccer Association cancelled all of its outdoor provincial champions, the Provincial Soccer League and Soccer Day in Saskatchewan in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Back on June 23, Soccer Canada cancelled its national club championships slated for Oct. 7 to 12 in Halifax, N.S. due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• On Friday, Hockey Canada announced the 2020 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge slated for Oct. 31 to Nov. 7 in Charlottetown and Summerside, P.E.I., has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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Feeling an awful squeeze due to COVID-19 scare

One of the final recreation hockey games at Merlis Belsher Place.

    It feels like society is coming apart over the conoravirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

    Any time there is a new cancellation, postponement or measure enacted to try to curve the potential spread of COVID-19, it seems to trigger another round of panic.

    I myself feel like I am getting more and more unnerved.

    Of course, my life revolves around the sports world, especially the local sports world. I cover it on my blog and for various media outlets on a freelance basis.

    Since the start of January, I have served as the communications coordinator for the Gordie Howe Sports Complex.

    At the moment, the sports world is basically shut down. Even checking on Instagram today to find out Merlis Belsher Place would be closing on Monday almost created a panic attack.
    Just back on February 29, I covered the University of Saskatchewan Huskies men's hockey team winning a Canada West Conference title in that building.
    Another scare came from hearing Canadian Hockey League teams are sending their players home before travel bans become even more of a worry. The WHL’s Saskatoon Blades and Prince Albert Raiders both announced on Sunday they were sending their players home.

Most sports venues in Saskatoon sit empty.

    I am in my comfortable spot when I am interacting with the sports world or I am at a facility be it an arena, football field or court. At the moment, all of that has been taken away, and it makes me sad.
    I almost feel like I have to put in work to avoid depression.

    I have had many moments where I have fought off the feeling of being flat out scared.

    Early last week, I personally thought all the reaction to the coronavirus scare was overreaction. I believe it is something that needs to be taken seriously.
    I still think an overreaction has occurred, but that thought doesn’t amount to anything.

    When the NBA suspended play on Wednesday, that seemed to be the moment when the dominoes really started to tumble to bring the sports world to a halt.

    The powers that control the rest of the world are bringing in clamp down after clamp down. Basically, the horse has left the barn on that front, and all anyone can do is try to take a deep breath and react to the next seemly inevitable change that is about to come.

    Introverts might be good with the concept of social distancing.

    My gut feeling is this will be a struggle for most people. For myself, the idea of not having face to face social encounters is terrifying.

The players of the Raiders and Blades have been sent home.

    I still find in person encounters are the best way to establish connection and community, where messages passed in electronic form can be twisted in interpretation.

    I almost don’t want to check social media. I find there are extremes where some people think COVID-19 shouldn’t be a worry to others who believe the world is going to end tomorrow or a significant portion of the population is going to die.

    It feels like society is being squeezed. I believe I am not the only one that feels this way.

    On Saturday night, I went out to Outlaws, which a Saskatoon nightclub hotspot, and I encountered a tonne of people who felt squeezed too. Everybody who was out that night treated each other super well.

    It felt good just to go out and have a party and feel a release. It seemed everyone that was there was happy to just be having a good time.
    For at least a few hours, the worries of what was happening in the world were in the background of the mind.

I rarely take pictures at Outlaws, but it was great to see everyone have fun.

    Even when I work up this morning, it was great to see a number of social media posts from the fun skate the Prince Albert Northern Bears female midget AAA hockey team had in “Hockey Town North” on Saturday night.

    It is comforting to know you can still find upbeat social media posts that are a pick me up. It feels like it takes extra work to find them.

    I wonder when the world will get back to being normal. I can’t wait to get back to a sports venue to cover an event again.

    I know things are on hold to allow the medical experts to get a handle on COVID-19.

    I know it has been speculated that issues relating to liability and insurance have played a part in why the shutdowns have occurred in every walk of life. I believe those speculations have merit too.

    Organizations like Hockey Canada put sizable resources into risk assessment, and the experts working in that area in Hockey Canada do great work. I feel you have to lean to accepting their recommendations are right.
    Still, I am struggling with how the world has been since the start of Wednesday. I also have long stretches where I will be doing great.

The Huskies winning the Canada West title on Feb. 29 seems long ago.

    I had been thinking about typing this post for a couple of days just to put out how I am feeling. I think it helps me, and maybe it will help others.

    I figured this post would be a rambling one too.

    Even before writing it, I had to gather myself. I decided to work at the Starbucks just north of the University of Saskatchewan.

    I stepped into the store and was shocked to see all the tables and chairs pushed off to one side. I was told starting on Monday customers would only be able to go in for their orders, but wouldn’t be able to lounge inside the outlet.

    After a chat with the staff, I was able to calm down and get to work.

    I desperately want the freedom to see my friends and not to feel like I am being locked down.

    The only approach I can take is the approach I have been taking with life the last number of years. I just take things one day at a time.

    I try not to worry about tomorrow until the challenges of the current day are met.

I can’t wait to see everyone when the world is in a better state.

    I look forward to the COVID-19 scare coming to an end and being able to have the freedom to see you all again in a more joyful set of circumstances.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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    If you like what you see here, you might want to donate to the cause to keep independent media like this blog going. Should you choose to help out, feel free to click on the DONATE button in the upper right corner. Thank you for stopping in.

It just feels right – Tigers, Desjardins together again

Willie Desjardins pictured in the 2007 Memorial Cup game program.

    Would the Lethbridge Hurricanes ever try to get a Tim Hortons built next to the Canalta Centre in an attempt to make Willie Desjardins late for a practice or a game?

    The Hurricanes might not have put in that type of work to disrupt a rival, because the Tim Hortons pitfall is naturally present due to the lay of the land.

    A Tim Hortons sits on the east side of the Canalta Centre in the northern tip of Medicine Hat in the community of Crescent Heights. You can’t miss it when driving to the rink via that route.

    If you approach the Canalta Centre from the west via Redcliff, there is a Tim Hortons in your path. The famed donut and coffee chain has Desjardins boxed in.

    All joking aside, the Medicine Hat Tigers officially announced on Friday that Desjardins has returned to the team to become the club’s head coach and general manager once again.

    The Tigers parted ways with their former long time head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston on Thursday.
    Desjardins was the Tigers head coach from 2002 to 2010 and also held the role of general manager from 2005 to 2010. During that time, he compiled a 323-176-60 regular season record as Tigers head coach, and he guided the club to WHL titles in 2004 and 2007.

    When you saw the video of Desjardins during his introductory press conference on Friday, it felt right. It feels like Medicine Hat is the place he is meant to be in, and the Tigers are the team he is supposed to lead.

Pictures from the Tigers glory times under Willie Desjardins.

    The Tim Hortons joke actually comes from an episode during the 2005-06 season. The Tigers were in preparations leading up to a key regular season game with the Calgary Hitmen. The two clubs were battling for first place in the overall WHL standings.

    During a practice session at The Arena, Desjardins called a special team meeting for 2 p.m. the next day regarding this important game. No one knew about this meeting until Desjardins announced it.

    At the time, the Tigers usually arrived at The Arena for practice between 2:30 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. At 2:45 p.m. they would have a meeting that lasted about 15 minutes and the team hits the ice at 3 p.m.

    Anyways, the Tigers players and coaches arrive for this 2 p.m. meeting, and Desjardins is missing. Around 2:15 p.m., overage forward Tommy Maxwell calls Desjardins on his cell phone.
    Desjardins picks up right away and the two have a chat for 45 seconds. Maxwell asks Desjardins what he was up to.

    Desjardins said he was in line at the Tim Hortons located two blocks from The Arena buying a sandwich. Desjardins asked Maxwell what he was up to.

    Maxwell said he was in the Tigers dressing room with the team, and they were ready for this special 2 p.m. meeting and that everyone was waiting for him.

    A moment of silence passes. Desjardins lets loose with an explanative and said he would be right there.

    The Tigers team that season was full of great players who were characters that had character in captain Kris Russell, Derek Dorsett, Maxwell, Cam Barker, Matt Keetley, Jerrid Sauer, Kevin Undershute, Kieran Block, Daine Todd, Roman Psurny, Brett Robertson, David Schlemko, Gord Baldwin, Brennan Bosch and Tyler Ennis to name a few. For the next two weeks, you can envision them giving Desjardins the gears saying it was important to be on time in a humourous way.

Picture of another highlight from Willie Desjardins time with the Tigers.

    Anytime Desjardins would walk into a room, you could almost hear, “Hey, coach is late. That’s a fine.”

    Darren Helm of today’s age would engage in those jabs too, but he was more of a quiet type back then.

    Anyways, that episode with the Tim Hortons near The Arena seems to grow into a taller tale as the years pass. Desjardins was late for a special team meeting he called, because he made a Tim Hortons stop.

    Desjardins will dispute the amount of minutes he was actually late, but I think the union is there to agree it was at least 15 minutes. It is possible other details from that episode get exaggerated as time passes.
    Even in that small humourous spot in time, it was easy to see some of the factors that made Desjardins so successful.

    One is the fact the 62-year-old product of Climax, Sask., is able to get information across to his players. They did realize it was important to be on time for meetings or on the ice to be in spots at the right time when plays develop.

    Another thing it shows is Desjardins has humility. He recognizes he makes mistakes too, and all you can do is correct them and move forward.

    Desjardins knows when to allow the players to be themselves and when it is time to focus on work. He was comfortable enough to let players give him some light-hearted jabs and create some fun around the facility.

    He wasn’t one of those coaches that took himself so seriously that something like this wouldn’t be allowed.

    Still when it was time to focus on the task at hand, he was able to get that message across and everyone went to work.

A picture of another Tigers memory of Willie Desjardins’ era with the team.

    Above all, he always tried to ensure the rink was the best place to be. That atmosphere was one of the reasons everyone was on time for that special meeting but him. It just slipped his mind that day.
    The Tigers won a lot during Desjardins first run with the team.
    What made the journey so special during those years was the fact it was filled with so many of those fun stories. Everyone enjoyed the journey, and if they could have lived at The Arena, they would have.

    During that run, he became revered as the greatest coach the Tigers ever had. Desjardins was a great coach, but he was even a better human.

    He is a first rate person who had compassion and could help people in their toughest circumstances. Back in the 2009-10 season, the Tigers acquired power forward Cole Grbavac in a trade with the Kamloops Blazers.

    Grbavac was going through some troubles, and he needed to spend time away from the team. When he rejoined the club, he went forward at full speed.

    Grbavac never said what he was going through but said he was thankful Desjardins was present at that point in his life and he owed him so much. Grbavac would be the Tigers captain in his final season of major junior eligibility in 2011-12.

    In July of 2010, Desjardins left the Tigers to be an associate coach with the NHL’s Dallas Stars. A lot of thought went into the decision including the notion of staying with the Tigers and possibly having the longevity Brian Kilrea had in coaching the OHL’s Ottawa 67’s.

    Desjardins knew there was great value to remaining in junior and making a positive impact on players aged 16 to 20 making their way in life.

    It was these types of things that made Desjardins enduring to the community of Medicine Hat.

    It was those things that made people miss him and always created this longing that he would return.

Willie Desjardins pictured in the Medicine Hat News.

    When I was last in Medicine Hat in late March, it caught me off guard how many of my friends were out of work due to the energy sector economy being down. When you talked hockey, you could tell people there wanted him to come back and be the head coach and general manager of the Tigers.

    It was like Desjardins return would be this beacon of light and hope that better days were coming. People remembered that genuine and special type of humanity Desjardins possessed that most don’t have.

    It is easy to see on social media lines the fans in Medicine Hat received what they wanted. Desjardins is back.

    By the sounds of it, people who are just scraping by are now going to do what they can to put together money to buy tickets for Tigers games. Last season, the Tigers averaged 3,121 fans at the Canalta Centre, which seats 6,016 spectators.
    For many years, the Tigers soldout their old home rink The Arena at 4,006 spectators.

    As the Tigers enter their 50^th season, Desjardins return provides hope. The dreams of brighter days and endless possibilities have returned to Medicine Hat.

Clouston had great run with Tigers facing difficult odds

Shaun Clouston is the Tigers all time leader in coaching victories.

    I still chuckle at the humours jabs sent my way from media colleagues on the WHL trail that I hired Shaun Clouston as the Medicine Hat Tigers head coach.

    The same goes for Brad McEwen, when he was hired to be the team’s general manager. Just to be clear, team owners Darrell and Brent Maser did in fact make those hires.

    In July of 2010, Willie Desjardins stepped down from holding both of those positions to become an associate coach with the NHL’s Dallas Stars.

    I thought back to those days, when Clouston parted ways with the Tigers on Thursday leaving behind the roles of head coach and general manager. McEwen left the team back in August of 2014.

    On Friday, Desjardins returned to the Tigers to be the team’s head coach and general manager once again.

    Desjardins vaulted to legendary status in Medicine Hat having guided the Tigers to WHL titles in 2004 and 2007. With the success Desjardins had back then, you always wondered when a sound opportunity would arise that he would make the jump to the NHL.

    When that day came, the Tigers were in position to fill the void. Clouston had joined the team before the start of the 2003-04 campaign as an assistant coach, and he was promoted to associate coach before the start of the 2005-06 season.

    He was set to take on the head coaching duties.
    McEwen was a Tigers head scout and had a successful track record as a WHL general manager. He was ready to fill that spot.

    After Desjardins stepped down, Clouston and McEwen took on the respective roles of head coach and general manager about three days later. I had known both for a lengthy stretch of time before they assumed those positions.
    At the time, I was the beat writer for the Medicine Hat News who covered the Tigers. Many media colleagues covering the WHL would joke saying I made those hires so I wouldn’t have to get used to someone new holding those roles that might not be media friendly.
    My media colleagues also joked that I wanted to ensure I kept covering playoff action in April. The presence of Clouston and McEwen would ensure the Tigers kept winning.

Shaun Clouston explains a point on the Tigers bench.

    Both were great guys, and I admit I wanted them to succeed. Good feelings aside, I was aware they were stepping into a tough situation following Desjardins.

    While it is a tough job to take a struggling team and make that club a winner, I believe it is even tougher to take over a winning program and keep the success coming.

    When you take over a winner, fans have a built in expectation that they want to see success now. In order to come out on even footing, Clouston and McEwen would have to guide the Tigers to a WHL championship and a Memorial Cup title.

    Anything short of that would be viewed as a disappointment.

    In following Desjardins, their position was similar to that of Steve Young when he had to succeed Joe Montana as quarterback of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers, or Danny White when he had to follow Roger Staubach as quarterback of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.
    The expectations for the successors in all cases were always going to be unfair to some degree.

    In August of 2012, Clouston added the duties as general manager to go with his duties as head coach. McEwen moved to the role of assistant general manager and took on duties as the club’s head scout. In August of 2014, McEwen left the Tigers to become a scout with the NHL’s Calgary Flames.

    Looking back to July of 2010, I was aware of what Clouston and McEwen could be in for. From my end, I wanted to ensure they received a fair chance.

    I wanted to make note of the noise when things didn’t go right but try not to let it affect how I graded the team’s performance.

    Of course, Clouston held the head coach role for nine seasons and was also the general manager for the last seven of those campaigns. In the NFL analogy, he mirrored what White did with the Cowboys by winning but not winning enough.

    White quarterbacked the Cowboys to three straight appearances in the NFC title game from 1980 to 1982, but the Cowboys were unable to advance to the Super Bowl negating any chance to win it.

    Clouston became the all-time leader in regular season head coaching wins with the Tigers. The 51-year-old product of Viking, Alta., put together a stellar 375-241-46 regular season coaching record.

Shaun Clouston tracks play in the defensive zone.

    Under his guidance, the Tigers advanced to the WHL’s Eastern Conference Championship series in 2011 and 2014, but the squad wasn’t able to earn a berth in the WHL final.

    I thought the Tigers had a great shot to potentially win the WHL title and advance to the Memorial Cup in 2010-11, which was the first campaign after Desjardins departed.

    The Tigers were plagued by injuries that season. In the 20 seasons I’ve covered the WHL, I had never seen a team deal with as many injuries as the Tigers did in 2010-11.
    I believe there were only three occasions, when they hit the ice with everyone on the roster being available to play. Some days it felt like Clouston came to the rink, asked Tigers athletic therapist Mikki Lanuk who was healthy and proceeded to make out the lines for that day.

    That campaign was one of Clouston’s best coaching performances as the Tigers managed to post the fifth best record in the WHL’s regular season at 46-18-4-4 despite all the injuries. Medicine Hat advanced to the Eastern Conference Championship series before being swept by the Kootenay Ice.

    The Tigers were in a great position to contend for the WHL title again in the 2016-17 campaign, when the club posted the second best regular season record in the league at 51-20-1.

    In the second round of the playoffs, the Tigers fell in a series-deciding Game 7 to their archrivals the Lethbridge Hurricanes 5-4 in overtime. Hurricanes captain Tyler Wong scoring the winner in extra time.

    Had the Tigers won that game, it might have given them a momentum shot to ultimately win the league title.

    As the years progressed, the vocal critics of Clouston came out of the woodworks in Medicine Hat because the Tigers didn’t win enough. With that said, there are a lot of teams in the WHL that wish they had the record the Tigers did with Clouston as head coach.

    It seemed the critics would harp heavily any time a player came up with a trade request for not getting enough ice time. Clouston handled all of those situations honestly saying exactly how they came up.
    The critics were silent when a large host of former players and current players congratulated Clouston when he became the Tigers all-time leader in regular season coaching victories. The number of players passing on congrats made the number of players looking for a trade look really small.

Shaun Clouston tracks play in the centre ice zone.

    Even when Clouston parted ways with the Tigers on Thursday, he received well wishes over social media lines from a number of former players.
    He cared about the players he coached and hoped he could help them become better people. I remember how tough it was when he traded Boston Leier in his overage year in 2013-14, which was the correct move to make at the time regarding roster composition.

    Leier was a favourite in the dressing room and amongst the team coaches and staffers, and I recall Clouston saying he didn’t feel good making that deal.

    Away from the rink, Clouston is a star father to his children. He cherishes time he could spend with them.

    If you couldn’t call him in the evenings due to his mobile phone being off, he was ensuring he set a boundary so he could focus on being dad.

    Clouston is a great hockey coach. The concept of being a unit of five in all three zones is something that is stuck in my head, because it was something he always went over with his players. A lot of his former players will recall various success factors or goals the team aimed to achieve game in and game out to pile up wins.

    He is also one of the most genuine persons I’ve come across in this world. We had some real good visits at Starbucks talking about all sorts of things in life.

    As for a bonus point, he was the head coach of the Tri-City Americans when they brought Shannon Szabados to training camp before the start of the 2002-03 campaign. I think it would be safe to say most WHL head coaches at that time would view bringing a female player to training camp as unthinkable.

    Szabados was in camp because she deserved to be there. Clouston was able to joke he was doing pretty good in goal one game due to the fact Carey Price and Szabados were his netminders.

    When the Tigers staffing changes were made during Desjardins departure in 2010, McEwen told me how coaches and managers do have expiry dates with teams even when they are successful.
    The Tigers put up a solid 35-27-4-2 record last season despite suffering some key injuries down the stretch. They fell 4-2 in a best-of-seven first round playoff series to the Edmonton Oil Kings.

Shaun Clouston, middle, oversees the Tigers bench in the 2017 playoffs.

    Desjardins was a left a good hand to take the Tigers into their 50^th anniversary season.

    After 16 seasons with the Tigers, Clouston hit his expiry date with the club. In this day and age in sports, to stay with one team for 16 seasons is an eternity.

    This door closed for Clouston, but you can bet others will open. He is too good of a coach and a person to stay out of the sport for long.

    If he wants to continue working in hockey, you can be sure something will materialize for him.

    If you have any comments you would like to pass along about this post, feel free to email them to stankssports@gmail.com.

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