CYCLONE’S HOCKEY DIRECTOR GET’S THE ULTIMATE SHIFT WITH THE BLACKHAWKS
By:
John Price
Anyone who has ever laced up the skates, whether on the backyard, or on the biggest stages that the
amateur game can offer, has dreamed about what it would be like to have an NHL superstar standing
right next to you on the ice. Every kid who plays hockey dreams about scoring the game winner in the
Stanley Cup Finals, just like Patrick Kane did in Philly a few years ago. Every kid who plays has at least
attempted to imitate Kane’s frenetic celebratory dance after that goal, as the gloves fly off and the arms
wave in the air like spaghetti.
Have you ever wondered like I have, do coaches have the same dreams? Does a Mite coach wonder
what it would be like to put pros through the same drills he puts his own team through? What it would
feel like? Would it be any different? C’mon, hockey’s hockey…..right? After all the hours they spend at
the rink sketching plays on the dry erase board, setting up cones, running drills, having a whistle
permanently attached to their lips. Do they ever dream about working with NHL players? Do they
wonder about blowing that whistle and feeling the breeze as a group of NHL’ers fly by during their
warm up laps? Amateur coaches are the lifeblood of the game and many of them work in obscurity.
They do it because they love the game and they want to pass it on to the next generation of players. My
guess is though, given a chance, any hockey coach would jump at the opportunity to run an NHL practice
session. Dreaming about it, and actually getting a chance to do it….well….sometimes that comes down
to who you know…… and who knows you.
Hockey creates lasting friendships. The longer you participate, as player or a coach, the more those
friendships develop and the stronger they become. Cyclone’s first year Hockey Director Peter Rutili has
many friendships from hockey that have endured distance, time and job changes. One of those
friendships is with Kevin Delaney, the power skating instructor for the Chicago Blackhawks. I had heard
some rumblings around the rink that Rutili had recently been contacted by Delaney with a request. Did
he call to offer some power skating tips for the Cyclones? Did he want to get together for dinner with
their wives? What did he want? Could he be calling with the ultimate offer for an amateur coach and
an old friend? That is exactly what it was! Longtime Cyclone coach and men’s league veteran Tom
Baginski gets credit for breaking the story as he tipped me off with an e mail one morning a few weeks
back. Being a former sports reporter, I was curious and I thought it might be a fun to find out. Did
Rutili really run a hawks practice? It sounds pretty cool…..and the answer is yes he did. So I caught up
with Coach Rutili recently to ask him about it. This is the story about how it happened, and how “cool”
it really was.
“ So I get a text, from my friend Kevin Delaney, the Blackhawks power skating coach…..you want to run
a bunch of the guys through 45 minutes of drills at Johnny’s West? I’m like yeh….who? A bunch of the
Hawks guys”, Delaney answered. At that point, as Rutili and I sat in a small room at Fox Valley Ice
Arena, amidst the sticks, equipment bags, pucks, the familiar scent of the game, I knew this was going to
be a fun conversation. I could see the excitement in his eyes as he grinned and raised his brow. “So I
asked Kevin, which guys? He tells me it’s the whole team. Not only the current Hawks, but a couple of
former Hawks who still live in Chicago, like Brian Campbell and Ben Eager and then there was Blake
Geoffrion who plays for the Montreal Canadiens, plus some Hawks minor league guys….. so there will be
about 30 guys out there………..and me.”
“So what is going through your mind?” I ask. “I’m thinkin how cool this is going to be and then……what
am I going to do with these guys…you know, fortunately I have had some experience working with pros,
some NHL’ers, but mostly minor league guys, so this is going to be my first experience with a full group
of NHL guys”. Were you nervous?. Rutili smiles, “yes”.
This was not the coach’s first trip to Johnny’s, but it certainly was the first time he entered the building
with a different feeling. “So I get buzzed into the parking garage by the strength coach, and I’m walking
up the stairs and Patrick Kane is walking down the stairs, and a local kid, Terry Broadhurst is the next guy
I see, and I know him, so I have a little connection there”. It was clear that the Broadhurst connection
provided a bit of comfort for Rutili as he entered space that most of us don’t get to see. Did Kane have
any idea who you were? “Not a chance”. “Once you got on the ice I assume he knew what you were
there for”, I asked. “Yeh, he’s thinking this is the guy who is going to get us going, get our feet moving,
and get us one workout closer to training camp. What a talent, to be able to watch a kid like that on the
ice is unbelievable….at the end of the day, they just want to get their feet moving, get the puck moving
and scrimmage..same as our guys”, as Rutili gestures to the group of Cyclone squirts practicing on the
International rink outside the door. Pucks were pounding off the boards as we talked. Rutili added,
“you know, it’s amazing, all those guys are unbelievable players, but there is a difference between a
Patrick Sharp, Jonathon Toews, Duncan Keith, how hard they work compared to some of guys trying to
break in, because there were some American Leaguers out there too. It was really cool to see a kid like
Terry Broadhurst in that environment. I coached against him when he was a teenager. I watched
Jonathon Toews play at Shattuck St. Mary’s and I watched Patrick Kane play as a 14 year old in AAA with
Honey Baked…so to be in that setting with those guys at that level was just really cool. I did drills with
them that I would do with my Bantam team.”
Youth hockey players and parents are accustomed to strict time constraints and being punctual. This
game will teach you to be on time! 60 minutes of ice is 60 minutes of ice, not 55 or an hour and ten.
Let’s just say the pros are not as concerned about the hourly rate for ice as we are. Rutili adds, “these
guys filter onto the rink…if the session is at 10:30, the ice is ready and waiting at 10:00 and they trickle
out, one or two at a time. Most of them come out at 10:20, 10:25.” They are just as eager to get on the
ice as any Cyclone team. The difference is, they don’t wait at the door for the Zamboni to exit. “So
how did the practice get started, what did you do?” I asked. “Well, it’s kind of loose at the beginning,
unlike us, again they don’t have to worry about the next group coming on the ice in 50 minutes……so for
the first 5 or 6 minutes they run this give an go drill they like to do to warm up the goalies. After that,
we just ran some drills to get them moving and to get the puck moving, pretty much the same kind of
drills we put our Cyclone players through at every practice. Granted these guys are pros, but the game
is the same, drills are drills, work hard, hustle, be accountable and compete. After my 45 minutes was
up, I stuck around to watch them scrimmage for about 45 minutes.”
I wondered what Rutili’s memories were now that a month or so has passed. “You know what, as they
were all getting showered and heading out, they thanked me for coming, thanked me for working with
em, and to shake their hands and be in that environment, was just really cool and really fun, and I will
remember it for a long time.”
“What about public perception of these guys…like Patrick Kane for example?” “You know what John,
the best players on the ice that day were the nicest of the group. Kane, Toews, Sharp, Keith, Campbell,
those were the guys who really went out of their way to make me feel welcome and appreciated me
being there, and told me so. You know my wife has a friend whose son is battling leukemia, he is four
years old, and they were organizing a fundraiser for him… I have another friend from the Hawks front
office who came to watch the skate that day and I asked him, hey, can you get me something for this
auction, anything? He disappeared and returned a few minutes later with signed stick from Kane. That
stick sold at the auction for about a thousand bucks…..my point is these guys are good guys and they
care.”
Rutili has spoken at Cyclone parent meetings about the opportunities that are available to young hockey
players as they develop. I asked him how this experience and exposure for the Cyclones Organization,
along with his network of friends in hockey, can help future Cyclones? “You never know, I mean the only
reason I got the chance to do this was because of a friendship, a relationship that I had with Kevin,
through hockey. The neat thing for me was to see a Terry Broadhurst, as I said earlier, a kid I coached
against when he was younger, but to see these kids move up to that level, doing the same things that
we do with our kids, was really special. If you work hard, and dedicate yourself, anything can happen.
My hope is that through opportunities like this, and through my relationships and friends in the game,
that I can represent The Cyclone Organization to the best of my ability. I hope to leverage these types
of things, and expose our organization to people and events, that other organizations can’t. You know,
the opportunity to bring NHL’ers into our rink, Rockford Ice Hog guys into our rink. That is what I want
to do, and I am proud of that. I also want to continue to develop our coaching staff, and I think we are
on our way in that regard. Whatever I can do, the goal is the same, to make the Cyclone Organization
the best in Illinois.”