Predators introduce next season’s head coach

When the Niagara Predators begin their 2022-2023 Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League season they will have a new head coach on the bench. 

Team owner Robert Turnbull, who at 72 years old filled the additional roles of head coach and general manager for a large portion of the schedule last year, has hired former Durham Roadrunners and Oshawa Riverkings head coach Kevin Taylor to take the helm. 

“He’s someone that I know I can trust implicitly,” says Turnbull. “He’s coaching for all the right reasons.”

Taylor recalls that when Predators coach Andrew Whalen resigned from the team in late October, 2021, he spoke to Turnbull about potentially taking over the reins for the remainder of the Predators maiden season at Niagara-on-the-Lake’s Meridian Credit Union Arena. 

“I’ve talked to Rob for years,” Taylor says on the phone from the parking lot of the Bowmanville Home Depot. “He asked me if I was interested last year, and I wanted to take the job. But I run a business out of my house in Oshawa, and it was such a short notice. It wasn’t the right time.”

Turnbull subsequently stepped into the role and guided Niagara to a third place Southern Division finish. They swept Plattsville in the first round of the Russell Cup playoffs before losing three games to one to the North York Renegades in the semi-finals. 

Following the close of the Predators GMHL season, Turnbull turned once again to Taylor, who had been acting as defence coach for the GMHL’s Northumberland Stars. With enough time to prepare for the job between now and late summer, the Pickering native jumped at the opportunity. 

“We have the same mentality in terms of what the program is about,” Taylor says of Turnbull. “I have always tried to run a program, not just a hockey team. You have to ensure that there’s more to the team than just hockey. Rob and I both stress school and life. We want to shape these players into productive people in society.”

Taylor knows too well through friends and acquaintances how hard life can be for hockey players facing life after the game. He talks of former teammates turning to drugs and alcohol to cope with the dashing of their athletic dreams. 

When his own hockey career was waning, Taylor finally returned to school at Trent University as a 30-year-old. He earned a degree in history with a minor in sociology, and at 35 years old he earned his social worker’s certificate. 

In 2019, Taylor and his fiancé Darlene Dobbs opened Tristan’s Place, a psychotherapy and counselling service in Durham Region. It’s named for Dobbs’ daughter’s boyfriend, Tristan Connelly, who took his life while waiting for mental health support. 

“We opened this agency to make sure there will never be a waitlist for people in need,” explains Taylor. “We also run ‘Supportive Steps’ out of our house. It’s an adult day program where we support anyone, adults or children, by taking them out in the community and building friendships with each other.”

Tristan’s Place has become important to Taylor and Dobbs, making them reluctant to move to Niagara permanently at this time. Taylor says he will spend the next few months looking for an apartment in Niagara to better facilitate the amount of time he will need to dedicate to working with the young Predators players. 

Now 44 years old, Taylor’s own hockey playing career began during his minor hockey days with the Toronto Red Wings AAA organization. He began his junior career with the Junior C Uxbridge Bruins of the Provincial Junior Hockey League before leaving for a short stint out west. 

He returned to Ontario when the Port Hope Buzzards of the Metro Junior A Hockey League called him. He played for them for three years, encompassing that league’s merger with the Ontario Junior Hockey League, before being traded to the Cobourg Cougars. 

In 2000-2001, Taylor played five games with the Fort Worth (Texas) Brahmas of the Western Professional Hockey League, then left hockey until 2005, when he signed with the Frankford Huskies of the Eastern Ontario Senior Hockey League.

Along the way Taylor and his father had bought an Oshawa bar, which they ran for 10 years. Ironically, Taylor says today that his return to university at 30 years old resulted in his favourite stretch of playing hockey. 

“At that time the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) Ridgebacks hockey team had just started,” Taylor says. “Trent shared a campus with them, so I was allowed to try out for their team. I ended up playing with a bunch of 20-year-olds, and I had the time of my life.”

When he and his father closed the bar, he began working at a Buffalo Wild Wings franchise, where his opportunity to transition to coaching presented itself. 

“A hockey team came in one day, and the coach and owner was Kahlil Thomas (father of current NHL player and former Niagara Ice Dog Akil Thomas),” Taylor recalls. “They were a new (GMHL) team, the Oshawa Riverkings, and their trainer was an old lacrosse contact. I offered to help them out and Khalil took me in.”

That was in 2015. Taylor stayed with the team through 2019, becoming the head coach in 2017. When Thomas left to coach in the U.S., his wife Akilah took over the day-to-day operation of the Riverkings, enlisting Taylor to help. 

The Riverkings morphed into the Durham Roadrunners, and Taylor stayed on as head coach for two more years, but wasn’t enjoying the minutiae of helping to run the team, as it was taking away from the time he needed to coach effectively. 

So he stepped away following the 2020-2021 season in favour of  coaching the blue liners for Northumberland last year. 

Taylor calls himself a player’s coach, one who is likely to be found playing video games with his current and former players. Outside of Tristan’s Place and his on-ice duties, he helps train young hockey players on specialized treadmills at a skills training facility in Bowmanville. 

He says Turnbull has told him he won’t have to worry about that minutiae as he did in Durham. He just wants Taylor to coach. 

“One thing with Rob is that when he says something, he delivers,” Taylor explains. “There’s nothing hidden with him.”

And he’s looking forward to working with second-year assistant coach Connor Shipton.

“I spoke to Connor last week,” says Taylor. “We’re both excited to work with each other. Rob has said a lot of good things about him, and Connor wants to learn. I’m not looking to work with a puck-pusher. He’ll run the defence. I relish the role to get Connor to the next level, and I look forward to learning from him as well.”

After a season during which both a coach and general manager departed the Predators, forcing Turnbull to do triple-duty, Taylor assures The Local that he’s in for the long haul. 

“I’m a person of my word,” the father of three promises. “No matter what, I’m sticking it out. I have wanted to be a head coach again for a while. I’m really excited about this.”      

Predators Notes

Though Connor Shipton is staying on with the Predators as associate coach, trainer and assistant general manager, Samantha Marson has moved on to the North York Renegades as their trainer. 

The Temiscaming Titans of the GMHL’s Northern Division swept the Durham Roadrunners in four straight games this month to win the 2022 Russell Cup.