Pats' Dean named Coach of the Year
Toronto Patriots general manager Mark Joslin knew his new head coach, John Dean, was committed. He may not have known how committed.
“It’s a 4:30 Tuesday practice and John’s at the rink at noon,” recalls Joslin. “He’s cleaning up, making sure things are clean and right for when our players arrive. He’s in the lounge, then the weight room, the ping-pong area … That’s John.”
“John loves this team.”
The Ontario Junior Hockey League awards committee loves Dean, naming him Coach of the Year for 2017-18.
After three years as an assistant coach with the North Bay Battalion of the Ontario Hockey League, Dean was introduced as head coach of the Patriots last summer.
The Pats improved from 29-23-0-2 in 2016-17 to a league-best 40-8-3-3 this season. They were in the top half of the Canadian Junior Hockey League’s weekly Top 20 much of the year, finishing sixth-ranked in the nation.
Dean, 37, was head coach of Team East at the CJHL Prospects Game in Mississauga Jan. 23.
His Patriots are three rounds deep into the OJHL playoffs, after series wins over the Orangeville Flyers and Oakville Blades. They won the first game of the South/West Conference final over Georgetown Thursday. Game 2 goes tonight.
Dean’s honoured and grateful to be named coach of the year but quickly shares the glory.
“When you have success like this, it’s usually from the top down,” he says of the Patriots big year. “And the culture created here is unbelievable. You want to be at the rink. People enjoy each other’s company. They hang around just to talk.”
He talks glowingly of team owner Manny Mounouchos, GM Joslin and assistant coach Mike Daley.
“And all 22 of our players” – five of whom have made NCAA Division 1 or 3 commitments.
Dean also loved working in North Bay, the OHL city he played in when the home team was the Centennials, but it wasn’t best for his Toronto-based family.
He spent his one day off a week making the three-and-a-half hour commute back to the GTA “then got up at 5 the next day to get back to North Bay for our coaches’ meeting.”
“If anyone else but Mark Joslin had called, I probably would have say no,” Dean said of last year’s job offer from the Patriots. “It just seemed right.”
The pair first worked together with North York Rangers of the OJHL seven years ago, hired by Toronto hockey legend Brant Snow. Ironically, the Patriots are the first recipients of the Brant Snow Memorial Trophy as 2017-18 OJHL regular season champions.
After two seasons as an assistant, Dean led the Rangers into the second and third round of the OJHL playoffs while winning at .650 clip. Then North Bay came calling.
The secret to his success?
“I’m a huge believer in relationships,” he said. “People forget how smart these 16 to 20-year-olds are. When you have mutual respect and then when you push them harder they know it’s in their best interest. When you start barking out orders you’ve lost them.”
Dean is just the latest 2017-18 OJHL award winner from Patriotland. Joslin is league executive of the year and NCAA bound-forward Dante Spagnuolo was named most improved player earlier this week. Andrew Petrucci led the league in goals and points.
Thomas Milne was voted runner-up as coach of the year. Milne took over behind the bench of the Newmarket Hurricanes 10 games into the 2016-17 season, leading the team into the playoffs with a 22-26-2-4 record. This season, his Canes went 33-14-6-1, good for the third seed in the North/East playoffs. After eliminating the Markham Royals in the first round, Newmarket bowed out in seven games to the Wellington Dukes last week. Milne’s OJHL resume also includes stops as a head coach, assistant coach or general manager in Stouffville, Aurora and Orillia. -
Article courtesy OJHL Website
Image courtesy OJHL Images
