The day was such a swirl, that it didn’t hit former Victoria Salsa (now Grizzlies) BCHL forward Kirk MacDonald until after the game: His first win as a head coach came on April 5, which was the 12th anniversary of being diagnosed with testicular cancer at age 21.
The latter is a date seared in his memory as the start of a battle bravely faced so young and won.
“I thought, holy cow, this is the same day,” said MacDonald, the former assistant, who was elevated to Reading Royals ECHL head coach and director of hockey operations late in the season from the dismissed Larry Courville.
MacDonald has now been extended with a three-year contract. The Oak Bay High graduate is only 33, and along with 35-year old Claremont Secondary graduate Spencer Carbery, is on the leading edge of young hockey coaches out of Victoria to watch for in the future.
Carbery was only 29 when he took over the coaching reigns of the South Carolina Stingrays of the ECHL and is now head coach of the Saginaw Spirit of the major-junior Ontario Hockey League. Carbery received his first Hockey Canada national team assignment when he was named an assistant coach with Team Canada Black for the 2017 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge Nov. 5-11 in Dawson Creek and Fort St. John.
Both grew up as all-rounders with strong connections to University of Victoria Vikes athletics. MacDonald’s dad, Wayne MacDonald, was the former UVic athletic director. Carbery’s father, Bryan Carbery, is the former UVic golf coach who guided the Vikes to four RCGA national titles in 13 years.
Spencer Carbery was a star golfer at Uplands, the Greater Victoria age-group champion at 14, and a Racquet Club of Victoria, Peninsula Panthers and Cowichan Valley Capitals hockey player.
MacDonald, too, was influenced by the breadth and variety of the Island sports scene: “I think a lot of that sunk in. I used to go to Vikes basketball and soccer games with my dad. I played soccer for Bruce Wilson, a guy who captained Canada in the World Cup, and played everything else from lacrosse to rugby to baseball.”
But it was on the ice for the Racquet Club that MacDonald shone the most, rising to a standout BCHL career with the Salsa and earning an NCAA Div. 1 hockey scholarship to play for the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers, where he earned a degree in business, and later forged a pro career in the AHL and ECHL as a six-foot-two power forward.
Both MacDonald and Carbery dream of making it to NHL benches, and they are on trajectories that just might get them there.
“My immediate goal is to bring a winning culture to Saginaw. My long-term goal is to one day coach in the NHL,” said Carbery, when he took over the OHL’s Spirit last year.
MacDonald was asked about his evolving coaching philosophy.
“Hard work and attention to detail can make up for a lot of other things a team may lack,” he said.
“Modern hockey is all about five up-tempo guys on attack and who are in your face all the time,” added the Islander, who as a player, won the 2001 BCHL championship with the Salsa and 2013 Kelly Cup with Reading.
MacDonald will marry his fiancée, Caroline Morgan, next month at the RPI chapel in Troy, New York. The two met when MacDonald was a Boston prospect playing in the AHL with the Providence Bruins.
Although facing down cancer keeps things personally in perspective for MacDonald, he said he doesn’t mention that part of his background to his players.
One thing for sure is there is no better training ground for a head coach than the ECHL. Two steps down from the NHL in the pro game, you pretty much have to do it all – “from recruiting, arranging road trip details, dealing with the salary cap and your NHL and AHL affiliates” to even airport pickups for new players arriving late at night.
“It prepares you whatever they can throw at you in this business,” said MacDonald.
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