A North Bay goalie coach is an overseas success story

Tom Hedican alongside Montreal Canadiens goalie Cristobal Huet. The North Bay native was his goalie coach in Lugano of the Swiss Elite League.

Many of us commute to work every day, but none of us can compare our travels to those of Tom Hedican.

The former associate coach and G.M. with the North Bay Centennials is entering his fourth season as a goaltending consultant in the Swiss Elite League.

As crazy as it sounds, Hedican insists he has more free time now traveling overseas for work than he did working in the OHL with the Centennials and the London Knights.

“I just go back and forth every month through until the end of the season,” said Hedican relaxing with a Tim Horton’s coffee in hand.

“I don’t always go in December because of the schedule but it works out pretty well because when I’m home even though I’m still working with the team we are in contact almost daily as far as what we are doing with drills and running practices and things like that so I’m still working for the team when I’m here but we still have weekends off and time off and it just gives me a far more balanced lifestyle.”

Turning a shinny goalie into an NHLer
The former St. Joseph’s-Scollard Hall Bears goalie started working overseas back in 2000 with Lugano. That’s where Hedican helped mold Cristobal Huet into one of Europe’s top professional goalies.

“He came out of France and I was working with him in Lugano and about halfway through his first season I asked him if he ever thought about the NHL and he thought I was crazy,” Hedican recalls.

“Huet basically came out of this very low level league in France and after 2 years he ends up being drafted by LA, plays a year in the AHL and last year he played more games than Cechmanek (in the off-season he was traded to the Montreal Canadiens). It’s a really neat story to see a kid go from almost just better than pickup hockey in France to the NHL inside 4 years.”

Last fall, Hedican changed teams moving to Langenau in the Swiss A league where he ended up doing more than he expected. The head coach got ill and Hedican ended up coaching the team alongside another former OHL coach, Dave Chambers for the second half of last season.

NHL players arrive
Of course this fall, the North Bay native saw a slight change in the Swiss League, as NHL players have flocked overseas because of the lockout.

“I think one of the surprises is that those players are not dominating as much as people think they would,” Hedican said about players like Joe Thornton, Rick Nash and Martin St. Louis who are playing in the Swiss league.

“When it comes down to the technical skills of the game, the Swiss A league is not that far below the NHL. The passing, shooting, skating a lot of those guys are as good as NHLers or better than a lot of them but the difference is the physical game, they don’t play a physical game the way they do here.”

Lockout Bitterness
Hedican has also experienced the bitterness involving NHL players coming to Europe.

One of his goalies in Langenau, former NHL goalie Corey Hirsch, lost his job early in the season to Carolina Hurricanes goaltender Martin Gerber (Hirsch and Gerber both are no longer with Langenau).

Hirsch expressed his frustrations to the North American Press in the fall about NHLers taking jobs away from players like him.

Hedican believes if the lockout lasts past next fall, players like Hirsch would be the first ones to cross the picket line.

“I think they feel if the NHL goes with replacement players next fall that the door is wide open to players like Corey Hirsch who will then say look, you came to Switzerland took my job, I want to play in the NHL under a new NHL or new rules, and no one should complain.”

The future?
Hedican enjoys his work over in Switzerland but like many of the NHLers playing in Switzerland, he too would like to ply his trade in the best league in the world.

“I would hope the NHL gets back to playing in the next couple of years, because that’s everyone’s ultimate goal is to work in the NHL in some capacity, “said Hedican, who’s seen interest from both the Vancouver Canucks and Florida Panthers in the past.

“If you’re not going to be a player then maybe a coach or maybe something else but for me it would probably be a goaltending coach.”

Within the next five years Hedican hopes that dream becomes a reality, perhaps in Vancouver, where he could reunite with one of his old students named Alex Auld.