OJHL: Oakville's Tarantino named OJHL Coach of the Year
Photo: Head Coach Mike Tarantino speaks to Referee Ryan Elbers on October 19 at Sixteen Mile Sports Complex in Oakville. (Photo by Spencer Smye / OJHL Images)
Article courtesy of OJHL
Mike Tarantino of the Oakville Blades is the 2018-19 recipient of the Coach of the Year award in the Ontario Junior Hockey League (OJHL).
The awards are voted on by a panel of OJHL general managers and media reps who cover the league.
The Oakville native led the Blades to a 44-5-1-2 record and the Brant Snow Memorial Trophy as regular season champions of the 22-team OJHL. The Blades were ranked third in the nation in the end-of-season poll conducted by the Canadian Junior Hockey League.
After eliminating the Brampton Admirals in the first round of the OJHL playoffs, the Blades are tied 1-1 with the Buffalo Jr. Sabres in the West Division championship series.
Tarantino, who starred for the Blades on the ice, was named their head coach in 2014. The Oakville native had just led the Toronto Patriots to the OJHL championship that spring as the club’s general manager. He was named the league's executive of the year that season — after serving as the Patriots’ coach and GM the previous three years.
Tarantino took over a Blades team missed the post-season for the first time in 13 years.
Since then, they’ve gone 31-19-2-2, 34-17-2-1, 40-14-0-0, 38-13-2-1 and, this year, 44-5-1-2.
It’s a hometown success story for Tarantino who “grew up … a kid going to Blades games”. His father worked with and his brother also played for the franchise that was founded in 1966.
After averaging nearly 1.5 points per game during two full seasons with the Blades, he played four years at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he racked up 171 points in 103 games.
Tarantino served as an assistant coach at Bowling Green State University in 2004-05 (where he did his masters) before returning to the GTA to look for coaching opportunities closer to home. In 2010, he guided the Greater Toronto Hockey League’s Mississauga Reps midget AAAs — a team that included future NHL draft picks Malcolm Subban and Eric Locke — to the Telus Cup national final.
Tarantino became the Patriots’ coach and GM in 2010, inheriting a program that had won just 15 games the previous season. The Patriots nearly doubled that win total the following year, earning 28 victories, and increased its point total each season under his leadership. He relinquished the Patriot coaching reins to Jason Fortier in order to spend more time with his wife, Melinda, and then newborn daughter, Zoey, now 5. A second daughter, Maizie, was born three years ago. Both children play hockey.
Tarantino, 38, teaches business and student success at Garth Webb Secondary School in Oakville.
Now honoured for his work in the OJ in both roles, does he prefer the coaching or management side?
“I like the coaching side better,” he told the OJHL. “You get to interact with the players more, obviously. To me it’s the competitiveness of it, which is enjoyable. And seeing the players improve and reach goals.”
The Blades have already announced eight NCAA Division 1 commitments this season, with more pending.
Does the coach of the year also aspire to advance to another level?
“If it was the right opportunity, you always consider it,” he said. “Obviously, the coaches from our league who have gone to the next level are doing well. They’ve kind of opened up the doors for guys still in our league.”
That OJHL coaches alumni club now includes Ontario Hockey League head coaches James Richmond (Mississauga), Stan Butler (North Bay), last year’s coach of the year, John Dean (Sault Ste. Marie), Chris Lazary (Saginaw) and Greg Walters (Oshawa). All their teams have qualified for this year’s OHL playoffs.
Tarantino and other OJHL trophy winners will be honoured at a ceremony this spring.
