keefe family

TORONTO, Ont. – Sheldon Keefe was back into his routine.

The 44-year-old head coach left his house in Oakville, an area that sits west of Toronto. He drove down the QEW, Queen Elizabeth Way, fighting through traffic, on his way to Scotiabank Arena. He entered the building through the usual door and walked down the same hallway that he had for the previous five years.

But this time, instead of continuing all the way to the Toronto Maple Leafs dressing room, Keefe stopped just short, and entered the visitors’ locker room.

“It feels similar. It was basically the same walk that I took every day coming in here,” he said. “I just stopped short a little bit this time.”

Keefe, now the head coach of the New Jersey Devils, spent the previous nine years coaching in Toronto, both in the National Hockey League with the Maple Leafs (2019-24) and in the American Hockey League with the Marlies (2015-19). Thursday marked the first time he has returned to Toronto to play the Leafs since his departure from the team in May.

“We were fortunate to spend nine years here,” Keefe said Thursday morning. “There’s the Leafs time and the Marlies time is equally special to me. I’m fortunate to raise my family there.”

New Jersey may be his new team, but Toronto is still home. His wife, Jackie, and their two sons, 12 and 14 years old, remain in Toronto during the current season.

keefe family

“My boys have great friendships, are competitive hockey and lacrosse players. We didn’t want to disrupt that,” Keefe said. “My wife is also very comfortable, great friendships and support systems around her. We had a pretty good sense that the next move the family would likely stay behind.”

Keefe’s family has visited him in New Jersey at times during the season, and he’s made a point to return to Toronto at every opportunity.

“It was nice to get home last night and have dinner with the wife and kids,” he said. “I’ve spent many off days back in Toronto as well and reconnecting with them. They’ve visited a bunch.”

Keefe has juggled being head coach, father and husband during this season. But the separation has provided two things to Keefe. First is the ability to concentrate on his task at hand as head coach of the New Jersey Devils.

“I miss a lot, but it allows me to invest in this team and in my job here,” he said. “I have terrific support from everybody to help me do that. When time is allowed, the flexibility is there to make sure I get some facetime with (my family).”

And second, when Keefe does get his facetime with the family, he makes the most of it.

“When I do see my family, I value that time so much more. I’m all in,” he said. “(When I was) in Toronto, you’re in your routine. And the biggest challenge was to give your family everything when your mind is racing a mile a minute and never seems to slow down.”

Now, Keefe has found a way to balance between the two. On a recent visit to see his family, Keefe attended his son’s hockey tournament in Michigan before making a long drive back to Toronto to catch a flight back to New Jersey.

“I want to make sure I’m present in their lives,” Keefe said. “That’s the biggest challenge and something I’ve tried to be better at as I’ve gotten older and more experienced in the league and gained the perspective that my kids are getting older fast, and I have to value and cherish each moment.”

keefe bench 2

Balancing work and life aren’t the only things Keefe learned while coaching in the high stakes pressure cooker of Toronto.

“My growth as a coach is perhaps expediated in a lot of ways because you experience so many things (in Toronto),” he said. “It takes a little bit longer in other places. I know the league a lot better.

“I have a very clear sense of who I am as a coach, what I can offer to the group and how to succeed in the league. For all those reasons, I’m grateful for the opportunity that I had here.”
And now the Devils are reaping the benefits of having a battle-tested Keefe on their bench. And despite the difference in market and media attention, that doesn’t mean Keefe doesn’t feel pressure to win.

“There’s pressure. There are expectations,” Keefe said. “There’s personal pressure. There’s internal pressure. I started out coaching seven years at the Junior-A level.

“That was tremendous pressure for me. I’m a competitor. I want to win. But at that level, if I didn’t win, we didn’t make any money. It was hard to support a family at that level.”

Keefe feels the same internal drive to succeed no matter where he’s coached, whether it was Pembroke or Sault Ste. Marie or Toronto or New Jersey.

“I feel the same (in Jersey),” he said. “I have internal pressure and expectations of myself. I try to operate with a standard with our organization, with our players. We expect to make the playoffs. We expect to be a contender every single year. That’s hard to do. I take every day very seriously here.

“This is a very passionate fanbase that expects a lot from their team, from their players and from their coach. I don’t take that lightly for a second.”

keefe on bench