Tisdale Trojans Head Coach Dennis Kubat (grey blazer) and Assistant Coach Daven Smith (black blazer) observe during the Trojans' final game prior to the 2019 holiday break. (Aaron Schulze/northeastNOW Staff).

By Aaron Schulze

Year in Review

Sports Year in Review: Trojans’ regime change

Dec 27, 2019 | 12:00 PM

northeastNOW is taking a look back at the biggest and most interesting sports stories of 2019, as selected by our sports reporters Mat Barrett and Aaron Schulze:

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Dennis Kubat hoped to one day take over the Tisdale Trojans Midget AAA Hockey Club.

After five previous years of coaching – split with serving as head coach of a PeeWee team in Hudson Bay and then an assistant for the North East Wolfpack Bantam AA team – Kubat was hired as an assistant coach with the Trojans ahead of the 2018-19 Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League (SMAAAHL) season.

Kubat acknowledged how rare it was for a Midget AAA Hockey team to have four coaches, with the Trojans already having Head Coach Darrell Mann and assistants Colin Ruether and Gary Janke.

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“Just to be given that opportunity, I’m obviously very thankful he allowed me to do that and learn from him,” Kubat said.

He still hoped to one day take the top spot on the team’s bench. That day came sooner than anyone could expect.

Three days after the Trojans won bronze medals at the 2019 Telus Cup national midget ice hockey championship in Thunder Bay, northeastNOW learned that Mann’s contract had expired on May 1, and the team’s board opted not to renew it. Ruether and Janke also left the organization.

With his future as an assistant coach uncertain, Kubat threw in his resume to become the Trojans’ new head coach. Two weeks following the regime change, Kubat had achieved his goal and took over the Trojans program.

“It was such a quick turnaround,” he said. “I know with Manner’s track record and success, it was tough. You don’t really want to take over a program because a guy gets fired, but it opened up that opportunity for me. I just took it and I’m thankful the board thought I could be the guy to get the job done, hopefully for years to come.”

Joining Kubat on the new coaching staff ahead of the 2019-20 season was a pair of former Trojans. Cole Simpson, a defenceman on the 2002 Trojans team who won the Air Canada Cup as national midget hockey champions, was named general manager. Three months later in August, Kubat hired 21-year-old Daven Smith as his assistant. Smith spent two seasons with the Trojans between 2014 and 2016. Rob Pollon was also brought on as a part-time assistant coach.

“It’s been a lot of ups and downs, but I’ve loved every second of it,” Kubat said. “[Daven has] exceeded my expectations in every way. He comes on every road trip and recruiting trip with me. He doesn’t always agree with me; he challenges me, which I want in an assistant. I couldn’t ask for a better guy to go on the bench with me every game. Hopefully I’m teaching him what it takes to maybe be a head coach.

“With Cole, he’s a busy guy having three kids and being a family man. We don’t see him much, but we now understand our roles in regard to coaching, recruiting, booking hotels, signing alternative players; we know what our jobs are and it’s getting easier that way. As a head coach, it’s nice to have guys you can trust and have the same goals and visions you have.”

Heading into 2019-20, Kubat had enough work to do with only five fulltime players from the 2019 Trojans returning: forwards MacKenzie Carson, Trenton Curtis, and Kalen Ukrainetz, and defencemen Jeremy Hancock and Zac Robins.

However, on ice management hasn’t been Kubat’s steepest curve.

“I think when you’re an assistant, you don’t realize much that goes with being the head coach,” he said. “All the little, tedious things like making sure your jerseys are ordered and you have enough shampoo and socks for the boys.”

The biggest learning curve for Kubat has been the depth of communication needed as head coach of a Midget AAA hockey club. In Bantam AA, he recalled the players going home to their parents at the end of practice and that would be his day.

As head coach, the players are with their billet families and they’re Kubat’s responsibility 24/7. At school, the gym, the rink, in the community, and all the extra situations involving teenage players.

Prior to the holiday break, Kubat addressed his players and thanked them for their service and patience in the first half of the season.

“The schedule we have with the workouts, classes, and the on-ice product, I thanked them for the effort they’ve been giving me,” he said. “I told them it’s a positive and a negative that you’ve got a first-year coach. The positive is there won’t be a coach in the league that’s going to work as hard as us, and the negative is we’re learning a lot throughout the way and we’re going to make mistakes. Hopefully we can grow from those and we’ll learn from them. We all have the same goal, and that’s to get [the players] to the next level.”

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aaron.schulze@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @SchulzePANow