Co-coaches offer new perspective Man, woman share Orono job

The Orono High School hockey team has co-coaches this season and each gender will be accounted for.

Winslow native Dominique Boutin, who has been an assistant football coach for four years at Orono High, and Susan Williams, who hails from Colorado Springs, Colo., will replace the departed Charlie Carroll.

“They both bring something to the program and that’s why we named them as co-coaches,” said Orono interim athletic director Steve Gardner. “Dom knows all the kids from being involved with football and Susan has a lot of background in skating and some of the technical aspects of the game.

“They’ll make a good match,” added Gardner.

Boutin assisted Carroll a year ago while Williams was working as a team travel coordinator for the University of Maine’s hockey program.

“Hopefully, everything will work out,” said the 25-year-old Boutin, a former Black Bear football player who is studying for his teaching certificate at the university. “We both have something to offer. We’ve been breaking down practices into two separate areas. She’ll work with one group; I’ll work with another and then we’ll switch off.”

“It has been working out great so far,” said Williams, who is working toward her master’s degree in sports science at the university and is a goalie for the Maine’s women’s club hockey team. “We both have confidence in our knowledge of the sport. He knows the players already from last year and that has made things easier for me.”

Williams said her strength is in her knowledge of the technical aspects of the game. She is one of the owners of two hockey schools, one in Saskatchewan and another in Colorado.

“I know the game inside and out but I need to work on relaying my message and this is a good opportunity to do so,” said the 24-year-old Williams, a University of Northern Colorado graduate who also coaches a squirts team in the Orono youth league.

Female coaches are rare in hockey but Williams said she has been well-received by the Orono players so far.

“They’ve accepted me well. There hasn’t been any negative feedback. They call me `coach’ and ask me questions,” said Williams.

The Big East Tip-Off Tourney will be held on Friday and Saturday with the seven boys teams squaring off at Hampden Academy and the seven girls teams playing at Old Town High School.

There will be seven exhibition games at each site each day. They will begin at 10 a.m. with the final game on each day starting at 7 p.m. for a total of 28 games.

Each team will play four games. There won’t be overtime.

Second-year coaches Lauree Gott (Brewer girls) and Earl Anderson (Hampden boys) like the idea of having a preseason exhibition tournament and said winning takes a back seat to player evaluation.

“It gives me an opportunity to watch everybody in game situations. You get a chance to see how quickly your young players react,” said Gott.

“And you get to see the personnel from other teams, which is important,” said Anderson. “This also promotes the league and helps us raise money for it.”

The admission fee will be $4 per adult per day and $2 per student. Fans who pay at one site can go to the other site the same day without paying again.

Anderson said his primary reservation about the tournament is that it is too early.

“We’ll have only three days of practice before the tournament,” said Anderson.

League Director Paul Soucy said there were a couple of considerations when it came to putting together the schedule for the second-year tourney.

“We didn’t want teams to play teams they were going to open their regular season against,” said Soucy. “And we wanted to schedule Presque Isle and Caribou for early games on Saturday so they could leave and get home at a reasonable hour.”

Soucy also said the tournament will also serve as a good tune-up for the referees.

Last year’s tourney raised approximately $1,300 and that was put toward things like the league’s junior varsity tournaments and postseason awards banquet, according to Soucy.

He added that the Class A schools won’t be able to begin practicing until the Monday after Thanksgiving next year so they will have to re-evaulate the tournament structure since that first Friday of practice will be a school day.