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With the Coach: Chris Sevigny
Sevigny: He just loves to coach
John Meagher
The Gazette
Thursday, December 10, 2009
With the Coach is a weekly series featuring a conversation with a local coach.
Coach: Chris Sevigny, 39-year-old Île Bizard resident and account manager at Traffic Tech, a transportation logistics company
Team: Île Bizard novice A Aigles hockey team
Years coached: 12
Playing experience: North Shore junior AA
Best coaching tip: Play everyone and have fun.
Chris Sevigny started coaching at age 21 and he just can’t get enough of it.
In the winter, he mentors youngsters in Île Bizard. During the summer, he coaches in the Montreal Metropolitan Hockey League, from April to August.
Did you play local minor hockey growing up?
Sevigny: I played in Dollard all the way up to the junior AA Pirates. I’m an old North Shore guy. My father, Pierre Sevigny, also coached. There were only two Lac St. Louis juniors teams back then, North Shore and LaSalle.
How did you get started in coaching?
Sevigny: I started off in Dollard my first seven years and then took a three-year hiatus. I’ve been in Île Bizard for five years now. I started with the MAGH program and I’ve been coaching novice the past two years.
How do you like coaching your 8-year-old son Alexandre?
Sevigny: I’ve coached so long without having a son on the team, so it’s very different. I make sure to coach the forwards, because my son’s on defence. As much as I try not to meddle with the defence, it’s hard. But he understands he’s a player like everyone else and doesn’t get any advantages because he’s the coach’s son. If anything, you try not to over-criticize your son because that can happen, too. Sometimes parent-coaches are too hard on their own kids. I also coach my 10-year-old daughter Vanessa in soccer.
You’ve also officiated.
Sevigny: Yeah. I reffed for almost 10 years. I was part of the North Shore Referees Association during my teenage years and then again in my mid-20s.
Who inspired you to be a coach?
Sevigny: In junior, it was Morris Boyachuk. He was like Toe Blake. He had the Toe Blake hat and could really give a speech. I remember him giving one speech with coffee spilling over his hands and not even being fazed. (Laughs.) Twenty guys in the room, we were just watching his hand get burned as he’s yelling at us between the second and third. Wow! So intense. Ten years after I stopped playing, I would still go to his house every Christmas Eve. You had to go by his place on Christmas Eve because he had a big spread for all his former players. He had such love for his players. He’d take a bullet for his players.
How does double-letter hockey work in Île Bizard?
Sevigny: Well, Île Bizard and Pierrefonds (are merged) in double letters and that’s not the same as in the other organizations, like West Island, Lakeshore or Dollard. If you register to play in Dollard, you play in Dollard. But in Île Bizard and Pierrefonds, it’s different because they fight against each other all year long and then, if you graduate to double letters, the following year you play together in Deux Rives.
What’s the stumbling block? Control?
Sevigny: Exactly. It’s power, or power trips at different levels at trying to run things the way they want to. They all want power. It’s not working out at all.
Do you think Île Bizard and Pierrefonds should be merged?
Sevigny: I don’t. A lot of people would like them to be, especially from Pierrefonds, but I don’t.