The new head coach of the Yorkton Harvest midget AAA hockey team, Jeff Odgers, is hard at it along with Harvest board and staff, scouting and conducting the recent spring camp looking to put together a team for the upcoming season.
Odgers, who will be 42 at the end of May, is a native of Spy Hill, Sask. He played four years with the WHL Brandon Wheat Kings and one year with the Kansas City Blades of the International Hockey League before moving on to play in the NHL for 12 years with the San Jose Sharks, Boston Bruins, Colorado Avalanche, and Atlanta Thrashers. During his NHL career Odgers totaled 821 games, 75 goals, 70 assists, and 2364 penalty minutes. "I loved every minute of it," he comments.
He has two sons who seem to love the game with the same passion as he does.
After working with minor hockey for several years, Odgers got the opportunity to coach in the SMAAAHL as assistant to Graham Garrett. Following Garrett's resignation to work in another field, Odgers was appointed head coach at the end of the season. "When this opportunity came up to coach at the AAA level, it was very exciting and intriguing. It's a fun age group to work with. It's kids who want the next level. They want to get better and they want to learn and they're full of energy and life. It's actually stuff that I feed on. It does me good to see kids who have a passion for the game," he declares.
Odgers says he's not using his current coaching job as a stepping stone to get to the next level. He's looking at the job as something he has a passion for and a desire to share some of his knowledge and passion with young players who are trying to move on to the next level. "It's a learning experience for me and I'm excited about it," he suggests. As far as suggestions he may be moving up with his players or starting a coaching career path, Odgers isn't currently looking in that direction. "I just want to do it because it feels good right now," he insists.
Odgers believes youngsters today want to be a part of something as a group. The biggest challenge a coach coming into the league has is to get his players to buy into a team system. "So, it's not what can a team do for me, it's what can I do for the team," he states. To get there, the players must be able to trust in their coach. To get them to believe in the coach and to believe each other and play as a team is the biggest challenge a coach at any level has, Odgers suggests. There are so many outside variables that the kids face, it's not an easy task to get the kids to trust the coach and buy into his systems.
Parents also play a major role in the players' development. If parents see their sons coming into a program and getting better and enjoying themselves it helps them accept and believe in the coach as well. There are always going to be some issues because there are a lot of different ways to coach a team and a lot of different systems which can be played. There's really no right one. "To me, it's having one that everybody buys into and plays into. Sometimes it takes a little bit of patience and a little bit of understanding," Odgers states.
He admits it's sometimes a little difficult for a parent to be truly objective about his child. "If you can have a kid that's happy on a team and believes in what they're doing, the parents will follow suit," Odgers claims.
Odgers says he had many people, including coaches and scouts, who believed in him and unselfishly helped him get to the next level in his hockey career. That's what he wants to do for the players who play for the Yorkton Harvest. He'd like the organization to help the young players attain the next level. "Not only the next level hockeywise, but just to be better people, to be a part of something and have that sense of togetherness, a sense of family, all the basics not only to be a better hockey player but to be a better person," Odgers concludes.
