Game On Magazine 2017 Nov Game On low res | Page 78

THE COACHES
The
Champion
who was late
to the game
KEVIN
MONKMAN
B Y S C O T T TAY L O R
Photos by James Carey Lauder
F
or the longest time,
Kevin Monkman
never gave any
thought to becoming
a hockey coach.
He grew up in Vogar,
Man., a hamlet about 158
kilometres northwest of
Winnipeg within the rural
municipality of Siglunes at the
north end of Lake Manitoba.
It isn’t nowhere, but you can
actually see nowhere from
the historic Vogar cemetery.
Like most kids from tiny
towns in the northern part
of the Interlake, Monkman
played minor hockey in
Ashern, went on to play
7 8 | G AM E ON | N OVEM BER 2017
midget with the Parkland
Rangers and then played
junior with the Dauphin
Kings and Portage Terriers.
He was an assistant coach
in 2001 and 2002 with the
old Southeast Blades (now
the Steinbach Pistons) of
the Manitoba Junior Hockey
League, but after a couple
of seasons, he started a
family and eventually went
to work at Manitoba Hydro.
He was thinking about a
lot of things, but coaching
wasn’t one of them.
“Yeah, I started playing
hockey when I was four-
years-old in Vogar,” he said.
“Just started on an outdoor
rink and then played my first
minor hockey in Ashern. Then
I played at Peguis for a good
part of my teenaged years and
then I moved to Dauphin to
play Triple A with Parkland
Rangers. From there I went to
play junior with the Dauphin
Kings and Portage Terriers.
“We won a championship
in 1992-93 in Dauphin.
That was a good experience
and I learned a lot, but
after that, I went to work,
started a family and was
out of hockey for a while.”
After being out of the
game for almost 10 years,
he got back into the game
with Bruce Schmidt and Dan
Bourbonnais as an assistant
coach with the Blades, but
by then, Family came first.
“From there I took a
hiatus from hockey,” he said.
“I didn’t get back into the
game until 2012 when I ran
into (Provincial Aboriginal
Women’s coach and the head
coach of the MWJHL’s Prairie
Blaze) Dale Bear at the Red
River Ex. I coached Dale with
the Southeast Blades and
we started to talk and he
asked me if I’d be interested
in coaching the Manitoba
Provincial men’s aboriginal