Hockey Confidential (32 page)

What happened during Keefe's seven seasons in Pembroke was remarkable by any measure. With him as the owner, GM and head coach, Keefe's teams had a collective record of 265–76–20, making him the fastest coach to reach 200 wins in league history. The Lumber Kings won five consecutive Central Canada Hockey League titles, two Fred Page Cups (in 2007 and 2011) and a Royal Bank Cup national championship in 2011—also coming very close in 2007, when they lost to eventual champion Aurora in the semifinal. Keefe was also able to bring his friend Shawn Cation back into the fold. Cation, who had been estranged from Frost even longer than Keefe, was an assistant coach in Pembroke for a couple of seasons and continued to help Keefe out beyond that after moving to Ottawa for a job outside hockey.

Keefe took to Twitter and established the highly public profile of a happy family man who was a well-respected member of the commu­nity, running a model Junior A franchise and thriving business—not only developing hockey players to compete at higher levels (NCAA and OHL), but moulding teenagers into young men, a far cry from the image a Sheldon Keefe–David Frost word-association exercise would have yielded before 2006.

“He's a great coach,” said Lumber King grad Ben Dalpe, who played two seasons (2011–12 and 2012–13) there. “He's a players' coach, you can talk to him about anything at any time, his door is always open, but if you need a kick in the ass, you're going to get one. He's so smart, but he's also so competitive.

“When I went there to visit Pembroke with my dad, we were aware of the stories about his past, the Frost stuff, and we knew he'd been through a lot in his life. But he was running one of the best programs in junior hockey and I wanted to be part of that.”

Maybe that is the least surprising part of it all. The Professor always knew the game, processed and thought it on a different level from so many. And he knew that if he could, one by one, win over his players, fans and community leaders, he'd be known more for what he's doing and will do than for what he did such a long time ago.

“I'll bet you some of the players and families who left Pembroke after their time with our organization never even knew my story or anything about David Frost,” Keefe said. “They came because they heard good things about Pembroke, there were zero incidents during my time as head coach, and they wanted to be part of something good. Then they would leave and spread the word. One graduate telling someone else, from staff and volunteers and players and their families. One by one. That's what it's about for me: I want to be able to make my mark, have stability and be in control of my own life.”

Where there was once revulsion for Keefe, there were now the early signs of respect.

Keefe's success in Junior A, not only on the ice in terms of winning championships, but how his players and organization carried themselves off it, didn't go unnoticed.

After the Lumber Kings won the 2011 RBC national championship, Keefe was asked to be head coach of Team East in the 2011 Canadian Junior Hockey League's Top Prospects game. A year later, he applied to coach the Canada East team in the World Junior A Challenge, and while he didn't get the head-coaching position (it went to Greg Walters), he was asked to be Walters's assistant coach. Because the World Junior A Challenge is a sanctioned Hockey Canada international event, there was a high level of scrutiny. With it, though, came a figurative seal of approval from Hockey Canada. It was as if some counterculture kid who lost his way had been welcomed back into the establishment.

It was a step, a notable one—but it was just one.

Keefe suspected even then that not everyone might be so quick to forgive or forget his past, to give him the benefit of the doubt.

When Sheldon Keefe was a kid playing minor hockey, as
focused and driven as he was, he never ever thought of it as a means to an end, a journey to the NHL. He wasn't a big dreamer. There was never any grand or master plan—not in his mind. He just liked to play the game and do whatever was necessary to be good at it. It was much the same once he started coaching in Pembroke. He didn't go into coaching there thinking, “This will get me to the OHL or the NHL.”

“For one thing, I didn't know if I was any good [at coaching],” Keefe said. “For another, I'm well aware of my past, the hurdles I have to cross. I did eventually get confidence that I knew what I was doing [coaching] and I did think this is going to be a career for me [in Pembroke], but I didn't look at it and say, ‘I'm doing this to coach in the OHL or the NHL.' I never thought of or expected that. To be honest, I thought I was too toxic for that.”

That changed, though, in 2012. Putting together a winning program in Pembroke, surprising even himself by getting a little love from the hockey establishment—via the CJHL and Hockey Canada—and being able to mend a fence with Mike Futa allowed Keefe to at least consider the notion of moving up the coaching ranks. Futa, that 27-year-old rookie head coach who couldn't deal with Frost and his boys at St. Mike's, went on to become a respected OHL general manager in Owen Sound and then the well-regarded co-director of amateur scouting for the L.A. Kings. As Keefe got more and more successful in Pembroke, their paths would occasionally cross, with Futa looking for an opinion on a CCHL player who was eligible for the NHL draft. At some point, though, their talks got a lot deeper.

“My first thought was, ‘Am I being manipulated or snowed here?'” Futa said. “I'm working in the NHL now and I'm not going to get played by anyone. I told Sheldon I would listen to what he had to say and give him advice, but if [Frost] is still in the picture in any way, I can't and I won't put my neck on the line for him. Not this time. Sheldon told me, ‘Those guys [Frost and Danton] are out of my life.' Now, Sheldon had done nothing to earn my trust, but I wasn't the least bit surprised he was doing well as a coach and winning championships. He always was smart and he had a work ethic.”

Futa, however, sensed Keefe was in earnest, that Frost was no longer in the picture. Futa also told Keefe, regardless of whether he wanted to coach at the next level or not, he had to make amends. Specifically, Futa told Keefe he owed a handshake and an apology to OHL commissioner Dave Branch. Futa went so far as to try to broker it, but suffice it to say Branch didn't immediately embrace the opportunity. Keefe was going to have to earn his way into people's good books with actions over words.

“The moment when I really knew Sheldon was different, that he was for real, was when I met his wife [Jackie] and kids,” Futa said. “I was at a rink and I saw this woman and her children in the hallway, and [Jackie] came up and introduced herself and the kids to me. She knew who I was and she thanked me for helping out Sheldon. When I saw her and the children, when I saw how happy they were, that's when I realized Sheldon was for real. If he wasn't [for real], he'd be throwing away this [his family], and I just couldn't imagine him doing that. That's when I knew, that's when I felt really confident [about Keefe].”

Sheldon said he and Jackie met in Springfield, Massachusetts, late in Keefe's third pro season—or as Jackie quickly reminded him, April 16, 2003. Springfield was a shared farm team between Tampa and Phoenix. Some of the Phoenix-owned players in Springfield had their girlfriends from Arizona visit them that season. Jackie was a friend of one of those girlfriends, and she tagged along on a visit, meeting Sheldon.

They hit it off, but carried on a mostly long-distance relationship for a couple of years, Jackie back home in Scottsdale, Sheldon in Hershey the following season and Utah the year after that. They continued to see more and more of each other as time wore on. In the summer of 2006, when Keefe had retired and was going to make a full-time go of it in Pembroke, they got engaged, bought a house there and worked together to build the business.

“It was nice for me to have Jackie, because she helped to give me a sense of normalcy that had been missing in my life,” Keefe said. “I'd always lived with all the ‘noise' from the Frost situation, and from day one with Jackie, it was about establishing a life for ourselves.”

Not that it was easy for the woman he married in 2008.

“When the dust gets kicked up [about Frost], it's stressful for her,” Keefe said. “I can deal with it because I'm used to it, but it's much harder for her.”

Backed by his wife, armed with more support from hockey people like Futa, Keefe allowed himself to dream of moving up. There were OHL coaching vacancies in Mississauga and Owen Sound that summer of 2012. And Keefe did apply, without success, for the latter. He had also previously interviewed for a job in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League, but when the 2012–13 season began, he was still in Pembroke. And that was just fine by Keefe, especially with the World Junior A Challenge coming up in November.

If life was going well for Keefe in Pembroke—and it was—the same could not be said for Kyle Dubas in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. At the age of 25, hometown boy Dubas had been hired by the Greyhounds in April of 2011, amid much fanfare, as the second-youngest GM in OHL history.

In his first full season as GM, in November 2011, Dubas made a bold, blockbuster trade with Windsor, acquiring netminder Jack Campbell for two players and seven draft picks. The highly touted young American was in his final OHL season and was supposed to put a veteran-laden Greyhound team over the top. Instead, the bottom fell out. The Greyhounds not only finished ninth and out of the playoffs, but in giving up seven draft picks they also appeared to have gutted their future. It would get worse. On the eve of their 2012 training camp, three Greyhounds were charged with sexual assault (the charges were dropped after the 2012–13 season). Coach Mike Stapleton's team then stumbled out of the gate, going 13–14–2–0. Dubas fired Stapleton on December 3, 2012, replacing him with Keefe. But the young GM had been contemplating the move for weeks. He needed that much time to do his due diligence.

“I knew that if I screwed this up [firing Stapleton and hiring Keefe], I was not only likely to lose my job, but I might be out of hockey entirely,” Dubas said. “I was under pressure to get it right, to make sure I was making a good decision for our organization. I felt like I was really putting my neck on the line.”

Dubas saw Keefe at the World Junior A Challenge in early November. Quietly, knowing he would likely be making a coaching change, Dubas began calling around for references on Keefe. He was shocked at how positive so many of them were, especially from rival coaches and executives in the CCHL.

“I figured there would be jealousy and resentment from his peers because he was so successful,” Dubas said, “but I was shocked to find out how well respected Sheldon was. They were basically saying to me that they thought it was a travesty he's not coaching at a higher level.”

Dubas also went to former Pembroke players and parents, digging hard to find out if there was any dirt on Keefe. He couldn't find it.

“Even the kids who got cut by Keefe had good things to say about him,” Dubas said. “It was remarkable.”

Five days before the actual hiring, Dubas and Keefe met for six hours. A copious note taker, Dubas didn't write anything down. He just asked questions, listened and tried to judge for himself whether this man before him was worthy of being entrusted with an OHL franchise.

“What struck me more than anything else was how brutally honest Sheldon was about his past,” Dubas said. “I knew after meeting him he was the right man for the job.”

Still, Dubas knew there would be a backlash in the media and some parts of the hockey community. He had to sell his owners on the idea and prepare them for the possibility of negative publicity.

Toronto Sun
columnist Simmons, who wrote the book on Danton and Frost, tweeted about Keefe's hiring that day: “I hope for the sake of players and parents on Soo Greyhounds, they have done thorough due diligence before hiring @SheldonKeefe as coach.”

Keefe had his own message he put out on Twitter that day: “Those that base opinions solely on what they know from 7–18 years ago, your concerns are valid but give it a chance. U just might be surprised.”

For the junior hockey cognoscenti, those familiar with Keefe's track record as a coach in Pembroke, the move made all kinds of sense. But there was all that baggage. For most people, Sheldon Keefe's name couldn't be mentioned without conjuring up dark images of David Frost or Mike Danton. Many in hockey believed if Keefe was coming, Frost couldn't be far behind, pulling all his strings.

It mattered little to some that Keefe made an immediate impact with the Greyhounds, going 23–12–1–3 to turn things around and get them into the playoffs, where they lost in the first round. Or that he followed it up with a tremendous 44–17–2–5 record and a first-place finish in the West Division in his first full season (2013–14), earning rave reviews and accolades from his players, including high-profile future NHL stars like Edmonton first-round pick Darnell Nurse. His .678 winning percentage, admittedly on a limited 107-game sample size, was the best in franchise history. Or that he was named by Hockey Canada as one of three head coaches for Canadian entries in the prestigious 2014 World Under-17 tournament.

Some skeptics, though, remained, uh, extremely skeptical.

“You know he's still seeing Frost, don't you?” an OHL owner said during the 2013–14 season.

The owner was asked if he knew that for a fact.

“Well, that's what I've heard,” the owner said. “If you look closely, you'll see he still has ties to Frost.”

One of them, depending upon your definition of a “tie,” is Soo Greyhound goaltending consultant Jon Elkin, who was hired by the OHL team after Keefe was employed. That raised some eyebrows. Elkin, you may recall, was an acquaintance of Frost's back in Keefe's junior hockey days at St. Mike's. Frost had arranged for the Brampton Boys to briefly live at Elkin's Toronto apartment when they played for the Majors.