Hockey central in coaches' Christmas memories

CALGARY, AB -- Before the obsession with Xs and Os, line matching and motivational tools took hold, coaches were ordinary folk, once upon a time.
Kids, even.
"My dad,'' Martin Gelinas is reminiscing, "was a barber. So by no means could he afford a lot of expensive stuff. But I always wanted a table hockey game.
"So bad.
"And one Christmas, when I was eight or nine, I got one. I couldn't believe it. I remember being so happy. He found a way.
"We played all day.
"I can't remember how many teams came with the table. But I do know I got Montreal and you got Toronto. And that's all that mattered."

For the Calgary Flames' coaching staff, whether home way back then be northern Saskatchewan or Quebec, far east in the Maritimes or out west-coast way, the emphasis, naturally, was on hockey.
Not many Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots or G.I. Joes or Etch-A-Sketches in this batch of Santa asks. Nope. Strictly the game they grew to love in youth and made their profession in life.
For goaltending guru Jordan Sigalet zoning in one particular gift is easy.
"My first painted mask. As a kid, when you get something like that, you start sleeping with it, wearing it to bed. Whenever you think about why you fell in love with the game in the first place, you think back on those moments, those things.
"Skating on ponds, getting a gift like that for Christmas.
"There was - is - lightning on that mask. A random paint job. One of those pre-painted ones you buy in a store, at Canadian Tire or somewhere. I was 10 and living just outside Vancouver."
Twenty-five Christmases later, Sigalet still has that mask at home.
"I keep all my masks. But that was the first one. So it's special.
"Growing up, you'd always get your equipment from your local association. So to actually get your first set, your own set, just the feel, the smell of new equipment … nothing like it.
"The coolest thing."

Head coach Glen Gulutzan's formative holidays were spend in Hudson Bay, up in east-central Saskatchwan, close-on to the Manitoba border.
"One Christmas, I'll never forget, my dad told me to look behind our house. And there was a hockey net, for me, and for our family, the first time ever my dad had bought a Ski-Doo.
"I was eight or nine years old then. I couldn't wait to go out and play hockey with that net and then go for a Ski-Doo ride.
"What also sticks with me is that we had three or four houses of cousins nearby. So we'd load up the van and start on Christmas Eve, going house to house for about a half-hour each. You'd get to play with your cousins, a lot of them were my age, and we'd swap gifts.
"That was probably the thing I enjoyed most.
"And then being a Ukrainian, we had Ukrainian Christmas on the 6th and 7th, I always had that to looked forward to, too."

With five boys in the family, growing up in the Kinkora, PEI, a farming community of a couple of hundred inhabitants 40 kilometres outside Charlottetown, Dave Cameron had almost a ready-made shinny game every year.
"Christmas,'' he recalls, "was always the time you got your missing piece of gear. Whether it meant new gloves, a sweater, pants, whatever. So I can't remember one piece specifically that stands out.
"As long as it had to do with hockey, it was the best.
"When I started playing, we were more on the ponds. Because your minor hockey consisted of practice on Friday night and game on Saturday.
"So you were on the ponds every day, including Christmas day."
Paul Jerrard can pinpoint his most memorable holiday gift.
"I remember receiving a new pair of Cooper hockey gloves. That's all I wanted, in the whole world. I must've been 10 years old.
"At our house, a lot of the Christmas gifts were more out of necessity that anything else. I needed those gloves but I also wanted them.
"They were a nice set of gloves. Kinda the 'in' thing at the time.
"One of the things I'd always do with new equipment, I'd keep it by my bed in my bedroom, always looking over at it.
"You didn't want to let things that precious out of your sight.
"But that's what's great about being a kid at Christmas, right?"