Early in his coaching career, while Richard Matvichuk was helping coach the Allen Americans to back-to-back Central Hockey League championships, the Americans found their power play suffering.
Matvichuk had just the right tonic.
Having made his living for 14 NHL seasons trying to prevent teams from scoring as a defenceman, he turned to one of his buddies, retired superstar Mike Modano, to show up at the rink in Allen, Pa. to offer some tips to the team. He and Modano played together for 12 seasons with the Dallas Stars and won the Stanley Cup in 1999.
If the Prince George Cougars have similar problems with their special teams next hockey season, don't be surprised if Matvichuk taps Modano to try fix the problem. In a public gathering Thursday at the Kin Centre atrium, the 43-year-old Matvichuk was introduced as the 12th head coach in the Cougars' Prince George history after signing a three-year contract.
In four seasons of coaching in the minor pro ranks, Matvichuk established a winning habit, most recently with the Missouri Mavericks of the ECHL. In his second year as the Mavericks head coach and director of hockey operations, he led the team to a 52-15-5 record and the regular season title, before losing out in the second round of the 2016 Kelly Cup playoffs. He was later voted the ECHL's coach of the year and executive of the year. That came on the heels of two championship seasons in the CHL with the Americans.
The Cougars are loaded with 1997-born talent and are expected to be contenders for the B.C. Division crown and beyond. As they head into their 23rd season in Prince George, the team is still still looking for its first WHL banner and Matvichuk knows Cats fans are desperate for a winner.
"It's added pressure but, personally, I love it, it brings a bigger challenge to the table," said Matvichuk.
"I love teaching kids, and when this job became available and I spoke with Todd (Cougars GM Harkins) and I see the depth with this (team), and this seemed to be a great fit," he said. "I looked at the style of play they played over the last couple years and it was very similar to how I played and that's going to continue here."
Matvichuk replaces Mark Holick, who left the team in April after 3 1/2 seasons as head coach. Matvichuk has adopted his coaching style from watching his NHL coaches -- Ken Hitchcock, Dave Tippett and Larry Robinson - find success at the highest level.
"With our systems we're going to be aggressive, if we don't have the puck we're going to get it and if we do have it, hold on to it," he said. "The old game, the dump-and-chase hockey is gone, the clutch-and-grab thing is gone, you have to have speed and tenacity. If you look back 30 or 40 years ago, the style we're playing now is the game the Russians used to play. Very aggressive, very physical, but when they had the puck they held on to it. Defence wins championships but we want to score goals and our forecheck, we're going to be aggressive."
Picked eighth overall in the 1991 NHL draft by the Minnesota North Stars, Matvichuk played one season in Minnesota before the franchise moved to Dallas in 1993. He signed as a free agent with the New Jersey Devils in 2005 and played one full season with the Devils. Back surgery kept him out of all but the last game of the 2006-07 season and he finished his career the following year with the Devils' AHL farm team in Lowell.
He won a world championship gold medal along with Cougars owner Eric Brewer in 2002 and also played for Canada at the 1992 world junior championship.
Matvichuk left home at age 15 to play junior hockey for the Saskatoon Blades. He knows from his own experience the WHL is a direct pipeline to pro hockey -- for players and coaches -- which is what made the Cougars' offer so attractive.
"It's the most respected junior league in the world, these are the best of the best and I know back in the day when we played (1989-92) we had to make a decision that if you thought you were going to play professional hockey that major junior was the route to go and schooling wasn't that big of a deal," Matvichuk said. "But nowadays, you come here and you have a chance to get drafted, you get your education. There's not a better route to the NHL than major junior."
Matvichuk and his wife Tracy, a native of Dallas, have three sons -- Cole, 20; Dillon, 12; and nine-year-old Dalton. All but Cole, who attends college in the U.S., will be moving to Prince George this summer.
Matvichuk was born in Edmonton, raised in nearby Fort Saskatchewan, and has family ties in Prince George. His aunt Angela and uncle Marshall Sharun (the brother of his mother Bonnie) are longtime residents of the city. He visited Prince George a few times as a kid and made his summer home in Kelowna for 12 years while he was playing pro. Before he became a coach, Matvichuk was a firefighter at Big White ski resort for four years.
Matvichuk was on the bench when Brett Hull scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal in Game 6 of the 1999 final in Buffalo. On the controversial play, Hull kicked the puck onto his stick while dragging his skate into the goal crease and his shot beat Sabres goalie Dominik Hasek to trigger the Stars' celebration. Matvichuk has watched that game a few times and the ending still gives him chills.
"When we scored, the whole team went left (to embrace Hull) and I went right to find Eddie Balfour and thank God we caught each other in midair because we would have looked really silly," said Matvichuk.
The NHL draft is in Buffalo, June 24-25, and Matvichuk will be there to represent the Cougars.
"It's funny, I was drafted in Buffalo, won a Stanley Cup in Buffalo, and now I'm going back to Buffalo," he said. "We have some players who should go (in the draft) and it's special. My mom told me to buy a lottery ticket in Buffalo."
Matvichuk is now looking for a house in Prince George. He plans to meet personally with all the players and their parents in their off-season homes and will also phone all the team's listed players before he goes back to pack up his belongings in Missouri.
