When Dale Hunter stepped behind the bench for the London Knights in 2001 he had virtually no coaching experience.
But the best way to get experience for something you’ve never done is to sink your heart into that something and figure it out.
And Dale already had the most important line any resume could possibly have in hockey.
He was just two years removed from finishing a 19-year National Hockey League career where he not only figured out ways to survive but also to thrive and to reach totals that likely will have him on his own pedestal forever.
No one in National Hockey League history has ever put up more than 1000 points while also accumulating more than 3000 penalty minutes.
Put up those stats and along the way you also accumulate a whole lot of knowledge about how to play the game and also about dealing with the people who play it.
That recipe has now allowed Dale Hunter to reach 1000 career regular season wins as a coach in the OHL.
The beginning
One thing Dale knew when he took over the head coaching job in London was how his teammates had felt about every other coach he played for.
There are things those coaches did that the players liked and there were things that they did that the players definitely did not like.
Job number one was to use as many of those likeable things and avoid as many of the other things altogether.
And it didn’t hurt that Dale was still in playing shape when he started.
His very first season behind the bench provided a sneak peek at the brilliance to come throughout Dale’s 25 seasons as head coach.
On paper the Knights went 19-25-6 in the 50 games Dale was behind the bench.
However, they were a very different team than the numbers suggested.
Dale’s former teammate Mike Liut once walked into the London dressing room after a game on the road in Plymouth and announced, “Huntsy, you’ve turned back the game of hockey 25 years! What was that, an 0-5 forecheck?”
But the Knights had just tied the juggernaut Whalers 3-3. Whatever Dale had done in that game had more than worked.
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It worked some more later that season when 8th-seeded London knocked out 1st-seed Plymouth in six games in the first round and then gave the eventual OHL champion Erie Otters all they could handle in round two.
Dale doesn’t just understand what makes his players better. He understands how to use those attributes to make the game hard for London’s opponents.
The first Memorial Cup championship
The fireworks had just gone off inside the building. The fans were standing and screaming. The players were jumping around on the ice.
It was May, 29, 2005 and the Knights had just won the Memorial Cup for the first time in franchise history.
“I’m proud of my boys.”
That was the first thing Dale said when things began to settle down slightly at ice level.
Dale and Mark Hunter had set out a road and the goal of reaching the top of the junior hockey world as hosts of the 2005 Memorial Cup tournament.
They had orchestrated it in the construction of the team and the in-game decisions that helped propel the team to the top but the credit always went to the players and their execution.
London had faced Sidney Crosby and the Rimouski Oceanic twice in the ’05 tournament and had beaten them both times.
Check the statistics. That doesn’t happen very often.
Dale’s use of Trevor Kell, Dylan Hunter and Brandon Prust against Crosby and the five-man unit that the Oceanic employed was sheer brilliance. That trio and the support that came from Dany Syvret, Marc Methot, Dan Girardi and Bryan Rodney shut down one of the other elite squads in major junior that year.
And it brought the city of London their first Memorial Cup title.
The willingness to try something
A story from the 2015-16 season perhaps gives the best example of something that sets Dale Hunter apart.
It’s a cross between creativity and fearlessness.
It was a key to Dale as a player and he has transformed it into a tremendous asset as a coach.
A game is never over. There is never a reason to just let the time tick down.
In the 2016 Memorial Cup final against the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies the Knights were down 2-1 heading into the final TV timeout of the third period.
Christian Dvorak stepped onto the ice to take the faceoff and Dale called to him and told Dvorak to, “stay out.”
Being such a strong faceoff guy Dvorak had been taking draws and then coming to the bench to go out with his regular linemates in Mitch Marner and Matthew Tkachuk.
Dale admitted afterward that he just felt the need to “change things up” and try to “get something going.”
Dvorak won the faceoff and less than a minute later he was in front to bury a pass from Aaron Berisha for the game-tying goal which would set up the championship winning goal at 7:49 of overtime. If not for Dale’s coaching move, Dvorak would have been sitting on the bench.
Dale could have just kept sending his guys out and hoping but this innate sixth sense often shows up at just the right time to use a player who Dale has a feeling about or change something quite subtle that can ultimately being some of the biggest rewards.
The true rewards
The formula for success in London is not a complicated one.
At the same time that formula is almost impossible to duplicate.
It comes from a perfect blend of hard work, knowing how to help players become their best and from and years around the game of hockey.
As those years being milestones like 1000 games you will find Dale talking with pride not about his own accolades but those of his players.
They stay in touch. They come and visit. They share their stories both on and off the ice. They bring their families.
As Dale admits, “They all come back. And we follow them (wherever they are). And that’s truly what’s great.”
It’s what knits a team and a franchise together in the tightest way. In the best way.
It’s also what brings the ingredients needed for the ultimate success.
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