Ben Boudreau is the Assistant Coach for the Norfolk Admirals. Even though he is young, he has more experience than most since his father is the head coach of the Anaheim Ducks, and Boudreau played minor league hockey for three seasons. The Roving Reporters sat down with Coach Boudreau after their scrimmage on October 6, 2014.
Q: With this being your first year with the Norfolk Admirals organization, how does it feel to be a part of the Admirals as an Assistant Coach? A: The Admirals have a long history; I was excited as soon as I knew I was coming here just because it's great to be a part of that history and just to look at some of the guys that have been here before. John Cooper, who is in the NHL right now, and Trent Yonnai who is the NHL, are a couple of examples. A lot of great coaches walked these halls, and great stories have come out of Norfolk. To be able to get in here, to have a job here, and to be able to contribute to a great organization, I am very humbled and very lucky to be in such a great position. Q: How did you become the coach here? How did you get to this point? A: I finished playing hockey when I was twenty. I went to school to get my education first. I didn’t even play hockey in school, but I knew it was something I wanted to do. After a four or five year playing career, I retired at twenty-eight. I always grew up in a hockey family, and I knew that I always wanted to be involved in hockey. As soon as I could, when I was twenty-eight and retired from playing, I looked for any kind of opportunity to get back in the game and coaching. There was an available position in Western Canada, so I packed up and moved, went to school to become a teacher and coach. I spent a couple of years doing that, and that led to the next opportunity with the Edmonton Oilers as a coach. I am in my second year as a coach with that franchise right now. Q: Are you more of an offensive or defensive-minded coach? How do you use your playing career as experience in your coaching? A: I was always a forward, and when you’re playing, you don’t really pay attention to what the defense is doing and all of the details. Now in my position as an assistant coach, I have always been in charge of running the defense and implementing the defensive systems. There’s a lot more attention to detail. You have to study a lot more and do more research. We call it R&D--rob other people’s ideas and do it a little bit better. You don’t take anything for granted. You always strive to be a little bit better, and when you are young like I am and trying to break into the industry and cement a good reputation for yourself, you really have to have some success. That’s what we’re looking to do. Q: What are your goals for this team? A: Well, last year, it was kind of like an open canvas. We didn’t know exactly what to do. Our immediate goal is to make the playoffs. We discussed it on the very first day. It is our intention to make the playoffs, and, hopefully once we're there, the next step is obviously winning a championship. Q: Currently you have about thirty players and have to cut the roster down to twenty-one, how does it feel when you have to cut players? A: It is by far the toughest part of the job, especially when you develop relationships with some of these guys. They are all great guys, but it’s a numbers game, and you have to try to do what is best for the team. That’s the business side of it, which is also new to me, but I have also been in that office when it was coaches telling me that I wasn’t good enough. It’s not easy. You understand that going in, and you have to respect the player. He just wants to hear it straight, and you tell him. That’s the nature of the beast. Obviously, if they're good enough, they will find another team. If it was easy, everyone would do it. We're a victim of the numbers. It is by far the toughest part of the job and not anything we look forward to. Q: How long have you been in Norfolk? Have you been able to see the area (Norfolk, Virginia Beach, and Yorktown)? A: It is a great area. I haven’t seen much of it yet because I don’t know anyone. I only know the immediate staff right now. As for sight-seeing, I have a girlfriend and a dog that are going to be moving down from Canada, and I want to save the sight-seeing for when they come down so we can share it together. There are a lot of things on my list. I wanted to go to the Outer Banks, but the hurricane put a damper on that. Virginia Beach is great. I’m living in Chesapeake, so it’s not very close to Virginia Beach, and there’s not that much sight-seeing in Chesapeake. I heard the team has great support, and being on the East Coast instead of the West Coast where we were last year is a major scenery change. On some of the days off, I can’t wait to go and see what’s out there. I like to learn a little bit about the places we will be visiting, and I just love the history. It’s not like this area popped up overnight. There has been a lot in this area that has happened, and I would love to find out about it. Q: Does all the traveling during the season become stressful, or have you learned to adapt to all the traveling? A: Sometime it’s a big benefit. You have your entire team there, twenty plus players that you are always traveling with. You become a tight-knit family. There are not a lot of jobs in the world where you get to experience a lot of different places. For example, we will be in Florida the first week of the season, then South Carolina during Christmas, then back up to Canada--a lot of different cities. I look forward to it all the time. The only negative is when we have to leave our families at home, but that means I cherish the time at home a little bit more. As for travel, I think it is a big time benefit. Obviously, the longer the trip is, the harder it is, living out of a hotel and not being able to cook your own food, always eating out, and stuff like that, but I always look forward to it. Q: How do you plan on building team chemistry? What type of atmosphere do you want to build within your team? A: What a lot of teams do when they finalize the roster is they find a way to go out to dinner or a social function. We will have twenty-three players from all different parts of the world. Some might know each other, but most don’t; we have English, French, Russians, and Canadians. We have to find a way to bring them all together and get them on the same page. Sometimes, it’s a pretty tall task. Some teams play golf or go to the beach, but they find different ways to get the team under the same roof by sharing stories and meeting different people, and the teammates become brothers. At the end of the day, that’s the goal we want--a tight-knit family with a great bond between everybody.