Building a junior hockey team from the ground-up is no easy task.
But you have to start somewhere, and that’s just what North Bay’s Nathan Hewitt and his new team, the Elliott Lake Wildcats, did this past weekend at Pete Palangio Arena.
The team’s first ever development camp saw prospects take part in two days of fitness testing, practice and scrimmage, all the while trying to earn their invite to the main camp next month.
“We were very pleased,” Hewitt said of the weekend’s turnout.
“On top of the guys we’ve already signed and the free agents that we brought into the camp, I think we are where we want to be at this point. I feel very comfortable with what we have heading into the season.”
Will Hewitt ultimately be able to coach Elliot Lake and the town’s faithful hockey fans to success in the NOJHL? That’s been the question in the minds of Northern Ontario hockey fans since the North Bay native was awarded the position late last month.
He and the management of the league’s newest team definitely think so, and it’s easy to understand why.
His CV tells the story of a refreshing coaching candidate that voluntarily cut his own playing career short in favour of getting his feet wet in coaching.
Since then, Hewitt has moved up quickly in the coaching world. First, it was as an assistant position with the North Bay Junior ‘A’ Trappers, then a head coaching position with the Temiscaming Titans of the GMHL, and most recently a two-year stint as the assistant coach and eventually head coach for the Cumberland Grads in the CCHL.
Whether you know Hewitt from his standout high school hockey career with the Algonquin Barons, his time with the North Bay Skyhawks and Nipissing Lakers, or his storied junior coaching career to this point, Hewitt is a man with high aspirations in the corridors of junior hockey rinks.
But perhaps that is why he was so appealing for the Wildcats. After all, his very first head-coaching job saw him lead the expansion Titans to a league-best 38-3-1 record in their inaugural season.
“There haven’t been very many surprises because I’ve been through that experience before and I know the kind of work it takes,” said Hewitt.
“This situation is a great opportunity because we’re building something where every kid that comes in here has the chance to play a significant role in the team right away; there are no veterans, no incumbents.
“You just take the perceived negatives of coaching an expansion team and spin it into a positive, because it truly is an opportunity.”
Whether this is going to be the job that eventually gets him into more lucrative positions remains to be seen as well. But it’s quite clear that his own personal long-term future isn’t exactly at the forefront of his mind right now.
Instead, the paramount objective is to win, and win now.
“My only goal is to win a championship,” Hewitt put simply.
“I know that I’m young and I know that I’m coaching at a pretty high level for my age, but it doesn’t mean anything to me if we don’t win a championship.”
You might think that the most rewarding part of being a junior hockey coach would be the wins, the playoff berths, or the personal accolades. But not for Hewitt.
“I am really, really satisfied when my players succeed,” Hewitt explained.
“Placing the players where they want to get to, where they want to be, that’s really satisfying to me and that’s what I want to do in Elliott Lake.
“People play junior because they want to develop and move on to the next level and that’s our mission,” Hewitt continued.
“I think in doing that, you attract good quality people to your organization too.”
When asked about returning to the North to coach an expansion team instead of trying his hand at other coaching opportunities in the bigger spotlight of the CCHL after being relieved of his duties in Cumberland, Hewitt said the decision was a no-brainer.
“To be honest with you, I think it was a blessing,” said Hewitt. “I’m really happy with where I am right now and everything is going so well that I’m really not soured about that at all.
Hewitt says after this past weekend’s development camp, the organization is happy with their recruiting efforts heading into next month’s main camp. Before that happens, Hewitt plans to move to the Elliott Lake area in the next few weeks and immerse himself in the community whose hockey hopes lie on his shoulders.
“I’m very happy to be back in the NOJHL, to be honest,” Hewitt continued. “It’s a league that I played in and a league that I have a lot of great memories from, so getting the opportunity to coach in it is pretty special.
“Now, we want to win,” Hewitt concluded. “I know we’re going to work our hardest with every spare second that we have to make that happen.”
