Dave Cameron had simply hung up his skates.
It was 1985 and he wanted a brand new job after 168 NHL video games, plus a lot extra within the minors.
He discovered his place working at a younger offenders’ facility and as a high-school steerage counsellor. There was ardour for the craft — equalled solely by what he felt for the game ingrained in his soul.
A plan was hatched.
“Teaching mixed them each,” Cameron defined. “My love of hockey and my love of educating.”
The product of Kinkora, P.E.I., coached junior An element-time for almost a decade after retiring as a participant till he made life behind the bench his full-time gig.
It’s been a winding street ever since with stops throughout North America — together with seven seasons within the NHL — together with a stint in Austria and success on the worldwide stage.
Nearly 40 years into that journey, Cameron wouldn’t have it another approach as he prepares to steer Canada into the 2025 world junior hockey championship in Ottawa.
“You bounce round a little bit bit and you need to settle for the problem,” Cameron mentioned. “I began in what we might name ‘old-school hockey’ and ‘old-school teaching.’ I’ve been capable of adapt and sustain with the altering sport.
“That’s most likely the factor I’m most happy with.”
Hockey Canada reached out to Cameron following final yr’s disastrous fifth-place end in Sweden that noticed the powerhouse nation meekly bounced on the quarterfinal stage in gorgeous style.
The crew sporting the nation’s purple Maple Leaf by no means acquired getting in Gothenburg, unable or unwilling to do what was required in powerful moments.
The group’s mind belief — the must be extra “aggressive” was on virtually everybody’s lips at choice camp — is assured Cameron will push this iteration additional.
“Dave is of a classic the place his expectations in the way in which that he holds gamers accountable could be very clear,” mentioned Scott Salmond, Hockey Canada’s senior vp of excessive efficiency. “A confirmed observe document with us and in different places to get the perfect out of gamers and groups.”
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Cameron beforehand captured world junior silver in 2011 and gold in 2022 as head coach to go together with two tournaments as an assistant, together with in 2009 when Canada topped the rostrum within the nation’s capital.
He will likely be on residence turf at this version of the showcase that runs Boxing Day by way of Jan. 5. In his fourth season as head coach of the Ontario Hockey League’s Ottawa 67’s, the 66-year-old additionally guided the NHL’s Senators for 143 regular-season and playoff video games from late 2014 by way of 2016.
“Perhaps it’s the Maritimer in him, however he has an actual good mixture of hardness and but can lighten the second,” mentioned Hockey Canada’s Peter Anholt, who leads the nation’s under-20 program. “His character is simply good for what we’re going into.”
Cameron noticed a world junior crew come collectively in Ottawa some 16 years in the past working alongside the late Pat Quinn.
“One of many highlights of my hockey profession,” he mentioned. “The factor I took most from it’s how sensible a person he was and the way in which he handled folks.
“I can’t put in phrases what this implies to me when it comes to getting one other alternative.”
Cameron has needed to repeatedly reimagine and reinvent himself over the course of a profession that’s seen drastic shifts in athletes and expectations.
“It’s a kinder, gentler world, that’s for darn positive,” he mentioned with amusing. “It’s about communication, it’s about relationships. Once you coach on the junior stage, for probably the most half, the large change is that due to the elite youth packages, that is the primary time children have any obstacles when it comes to their ice time.
“You need to persuade them it’s OK to earn issues.”
Canadian winger Porter Martone, who performs for the OHL’s Brampton Steelheads and is predicted to be a excessive choose on the 2025 NHL draft, has seen Cameron-coached groups up shut.
“They’re very arduous to play towards,” mentioned the 18-year-old. “They play the proper approach.”
Cameron will even need to handle children beneath an intense highlight on residence soil because the nation goes for its twenty first gold medal.
“It’s not a lot of a strain,” he mentioned. “It’s about alternative.”
Cameron’s path will convey him to the Canadian Tire Centre subsequent Thursday when the match hosts open towards Finland in entrance of a sold-out crowd and a nationwide TV viewers.
It’s not a second he’ll take with no consideration.
“I’m actually humbled,” Cameron mentioned. “I’m very lucky to have the ability to do one thing I like.”
All that educating — he hopes — will finish in additional hockey glory.
© 2024 The Canadian Press
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