HAY, HUSKA REUNITE BEHIND CANADA BENCH
When Don Hay took his first gig as head coach of Canada’s National Junior team, Ryan Huska was back in Kamloops watching as Hay guided the 1995 edition of Team Canada to a Gold medal in Red Deer, AB.
Huska, then, was a member of the Kamloops Blazers, coached by Hay, and got to cheer his coach and two teammates, Darcy Tucker and Nolan Baumgartner, as they completed a perfect 7-0 run at the tournament to win Gold for a third consecutive year.
Now, Huska finds himself alongside his former coach in Alberta, readying Canada’s national junior team for a shot at a Gold medal as an assistant coach. Hay, the head coach of the Vancouver Giants, is serving his second term as Team Canada’s bench boss.
“It’s a thrill for me to be able to work with him,” said Huska, who, as head coach of the Kelowna Rockets, regularly faces off against Hay’s Giants in the WHL’s B.C. Division.
“I was lucky enough to be in Kamloops at a great time when Don was the head coach there, and I feel like I learned how to play the game from him,” said Huska. “A lot of the things I learned as a player have transferred over to my coaching style.
“I really feel like he’s been a mentor of mine as a coach,” he added.
Huska, under Hay’s tutelage, won three Memorial Cup rings with the Blazers as a player. Later, as a coach, Huska helped guide the Kelowna Rockets to a pair of WHL championships and a Memorial Cup as an assistant coach before leading the Rockets to the 2009 WHL championship and a Memorial Cup appearance in his second season as a head coach.
For his part, Hay has a strong sense of pride in having watched Huska’s progression from player to successful coach in the Western Hockey League. Now, having Huska beside him on the Team Canada bench, Hay describes it as a pretty cool experience.
“I’ve watched Ryan grow up, stood beside him when we won three Memorial Cups, he tutored my girls in math when he was about 17 or 18 and they were about eight or nine,” said Hay.
To see how far Huska has come – from being a former player under his watch, to becoming one of his peers in the WHL coaching ranks, to joining him on Team Canada’s bench – gives Hay and almost fatherly sense of pride.
“Ryan has gone on to become a really good, young coach,” said Hay. “To get the opportunity to get to work with him is quite an honor because he’s going to do a lot of great things and have a great future as a coach, I believe.
“To coach against him in the WHL is fun and challenging, but to coach with him is, in certain ways, like being a parent and getting to do things like this with your son.
“I think it’s really neat for both of us,” he said.
