Walsh’s love for game of hockey evident at camp for young players

I didn’t meet Shawn Walsh like most people. Yes, during the 1991-1992 season, I drove from Windsor with my oldest boy and waited in the cold to buy tickets for the last game, against Providence.

But I met Shawn in the summer at his hockey school, the year it was held at the Sockalexis Arena (now used for high-stakes bingo) on Indian Island because Alfond was under renovation. My son Paul was about 7. Shawn wasn’t with the kids all the time. Coach Red Gendron was there as was coach Lacouture from Natick High School (dad of David Lacouture.). Players like Patrice Tardif were helping out.

But it was something. I have never, ever seen a coach at any level enjoy himself quite as much as Shawn did, and my oldest boy has played now for 14 years, and I’ve seen a lot of coaches. You could tell Shawn loved the game.

LOVED the game. He loved working with the kids. Walsh found ways of making drills FUN! For example, if a kid was out of line, he’d laugh and push him into the net, then turn the net against the boards so the kid was trapped. He played keep-away with them on the ice. Kids played soccer on ice. He’d divide kids into teams, and line kids up on the red line with a huge pile of pucks and see which side could shoot all the pucks across the other “team’s” redline.

He encouraged all his players, including Jim Montgomery, Paul Kariya and Kent Salfi, and his coaches, to have fun with the kids. When I wrote him a letter with suggestions on camp he was kind enough to reply.

He also welcomed youth hockey coaches to his camps, and did clinics to support youth hockey. I know coach Bill Morgan and other Waterville hockey coaches came to camps to see what Shawn and coach Gendron did. And Waterville found ways to make hockey fun, also. My sons were lucky to play with guys like coach Bill Morgan in Waterville. Even though we lived in Windsor, Waterville Youth Hockey made us feel welcome.

Coach Walsh instilled values of teamwork and effort into Paul. As a high school freshman in New Hampshire, Paul was a “starter” and won two trophies, Coach’s Award and Unsung Warrior. Perhaps Shawn’s influence was also apparent when my son sat out his junior year of high school hockey in protest of some ugly locker room episodes.

You see, he attends a regional high school, and his high school hockey coaches did nothing while the less-capable guys on the team were bothered. My son was not one of the victims. But Paul did not want to add his energy to a situation where teamwork wasn’t valued. Shawn believed in teamwork, and no prima donnas, whether your name was Kariya, Ferraro, or anything else.

I also believe Shawn was the best bench coach in hockey. I believe if he had coached UNH, UNH would have won the title in 1999.

Many of us saw the intense side of Shawn, I wanted to share this other side with you.

Robert Koenig

North Hampton, N.H.