‘Oshawa trio’ relishing OHL championship series coaching matchup

NORTH BAY, Ont. — John Goodwin's return to coaching in major junior has fostered a fun fact in this OHL final — three coaches who presided over the Oshawa Generals during the 1990s, all involved in one series.

North Bay assistant coach Goodwin, back after a 13-year hiatus away from working in major junior hockey, previously worked under Battalion bench boss Stan Butler with the Gens from 1994-96. The following season, with Goodwin on staff under present-day Guelph Storm assistant coach Bill Stewart, the Generals won the J. Ross Robertson Cup. When Stewart departed for an AHL post, Goodwin stepped into the Gens' top job for three seasons; the Whitby, Ont., native then opted to focus on his family of three children and career with Ontario Power Generation, which he retired from last year.

The tie that binds is Goodwin, at age 52, getting a second wind as an OHL coach.

"It's great — I love it," Goodwin said on Tuesday night, 17 years to the day of the '97 Generals' OHL championship-clinching Game 6 overtime win over the Ottawa 67's. "During the six years I was in Oshawa I never gave up my job at Ontario Power Generation — Ontario Hydro at the time — just due to the fact that as a player I played six years pro and you're always looking for that next contract. I had three young children at the time and both me and my wife [Joanne] worked for OPG, so I wasn't ready to move away from them.

"I'm at a little different level now," Goodwin added. "I'm going to be a grandfather, my two oldest ones have graduated from university, my third one is in her third year. It's really worked out well. It's really a different atmosphere, being able to coach full-time now instead of having to work till 11:30 like I did in my days in Oshawa and then come to the rink.

"But there's so much more to do. I couldn't believe how much it's changed just from 14 years ago. It doesn't seem like that long ago but it's like night and day. It's a professional league. The expectations, figuring out what other coaching staffs are doing, the time you have to put in, it's really come a long way."

Hockey players at any level are conditioned to say that friendships are on hold during a playoff series. Coaches don't have to observe the same piety.

"The game's out on the ice," Stewart said on Tuesday. "It's a heated battle when you get to a final, but we don't talk about what's going on on the ice. We talk about what's going on this winter, this summer. Friends are friends and that's the way it is."

Once the Battalion relocation to North Bay from Brampton was finalized last year, assistant coach Jason Ward decided not to move with the team. That opened up the chance for Goodwin — "Stan and I had always stayed in touch throughout the years and I had always stayed not too far away from the game," he says — to get back in the game.

"He brings a lot of experience to our hockey team and has done a great job," Butler said following Tuesday's tilt.

Goodwin's thumbprint has definitely been on the series, particularly on special teams. The Battalion's oftentimes-sporadic power play, which was last in the league in the regular season, is 4-for-9 through three games against Guelph. Matching wits with his one-time Oshawa contemporary Stewart also makes for a trip down memory lane.

"The memories being with John, and working together and having a good time — as well as being successful — that what it's all about," Stewart said on Tuesday. "You always remember the good times.

"It was nice to see that John went on and had a good coaching career as a head guy [in Oshawa in the late 1990s]," said Stewart, 56, who's in his third season on staff under Scott Walker.

"It's really nice to see him back in the league. He was a great hockey player in the league and he's a good communicator. You can see his influence on the Battalion. He's a creative guy as a coach and he was a creative guy as a player and certainly in our little scheme of things in Oshawa I let him freelance that as well. You see some similarities with the Battalion and it's just nice that he's being an influence in a critical time of the year."

The Generals were above .500 in both of Butler's seasons, but sustained a five-game first-round playoff loss to the Belleville Bulls in the spring of '96. (Butler ultimately would spend a season steering the Western League's Prince George Cougars before returning to the OHL to start from ground zero with the expansion Battalion, taking a year to lay the groundwork for their debut in 1998-99.)

Stewart, at that point, had only coached for a season with the Muskegon Fury of the minor pro Colonial Hockey League, but there was an Oshawa connection.

"Cory Banika, who had played for Oshawa [when the Generals won the 1990 Memorial Cup], had played for me in Oshawa," Stewart recalled. "He talked to Mr. [John] Humphreys [Oshawa's owner] and Mr. Humphreys talked to [general manager] Wayne Daniels and I got an interview and it kind of just came together. I know Bob McKenzie fairly well, he obviously knew John [as brothers-in-law]. We've been acquaintances ever since."

That '96-97 Generals team was laden with players who had toiled for Butler, including future NHL star Marc Savard. Somewhat like the current Battalion, Oshawa got stronger as it cleared each playoff obstacle. All three of their series went six games, as it won the final over a 67's crew that had finished first overall by 15 points.

"We had Marc Savard healthy all year and we actually had to trade overage player Nathan Perrott to Sault Ste. Marie because we were so deep," Goodwin recalled. "John Tripp [who played for Germany in the 2010 Olympics] had a breakout season where he became one of the most physically dominating players I've ever seen at the junior level. We got Dave Arsenault from the Quebec League to play goal. We had everything, really good players like Ryan Lindsay, Jan Snopek, Marty Wilford. We had [future NHLer] Bryan Allen as our 16-year-old defenceman, he came along tremendously that year."

That club's run ended with an overtime loss to the Lethbridge Hurricanes in the Memorial Cup semifinal in Hull, Quebec. Hull has since been absorbed into the amalgamated city of Gatineau, so you know we're talking about quite some time ago in OHL terms.

"It's become a really high-performance league and when the kids come in now they're pretty versed on what they need to do," Goodwin said. "They get a good idea of what's expected from all the U-16 and U-15 programs."

Some elements of junior hockey, though are timeless. The desire to win and see young players improve. It's a theme of this series behind the benches.

"I don't think your mentality changes. The only thing that changes on anybody is their looks," Stewart said with a broad smile and a laugh.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.