GAME ON The Sideline: Coach Chronley

Friday, March 04, 2011

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Q & A with Kevin Chronley, LaSalle Academy Assistant Girls Hockey Coach

Background: This is my first year with LaSalle. I’m the Asst. Coach to Dick Ernst, an ironic H.S. coach in RI Hockey/Tennis of 50 years, who was involved with me starting my career in playing/coaching roughly 35 years ago. I was the past Head Coach at Toll Gate Girls Hockey. I started the Warwick program from start in 2004.

What’s been exciting about this season?

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This year is exciting because I am joining a team that is the current State Champions, plus teaming with a head coach that started my career in playing & coaching ice hockey. My nickname is “Rook”, for rookie, from those long ago days when I started on the ponds playing with the Ernst Hockey Family.

It is exciting to bring my skills & capabilities to a proven team & coach. The evidence that this opportunity to add & support LaSalle is in the over-achievements of the team’s performance, and the fun we are having.

Where is your team going?

We are going into the Playoffs, with an expectation that we can & will exceed expectations. This ambition is not arrogance, or over-promise; the challenge is significant, the talent competitive. The ambition is based on a dedication to a strategy and management of the players we have, and due to the improvements the team has had in executing our LaSalle style of Hockey.

LaSalle Hockey starts with strong defense, we have the best goalie, solid defenseman that control & “quarterback” or play-making, and a very structured offense that is geared to create and execute plays that will create successful scoring chances. The importance of this is magnified when you recognize that LaSalle has a very small roster, versus the historical powerhouses in the RI High School league that can boast great depth and individual talent.


What’s been your greatest success as a coach?

Of the many, the one that stands out is the creation of the Warwick High School Girl’s Ice Hockey program. This improbable accomplishment was an administrative gauntlet that resulted in a unique, 1-of-a-kind, privately funded, public High School program. And By-the-way, hockey requires major financial funding! The success as a coach was from taking primarily a group of girls that had little more than a delusion and passion for becoming ice hockey players and through dedicated effort meshed into a formidable team in short order.

As a side story, under the pretense of decades of NOT coaching my own child, and witnessing many good reason NOT to take on the challenge to coach my own child, the creation of the Toll Gate Lady Titan’s resulted in my own daughter, Brittany playing and being coached by me. The experience was a highlight of a wonderful experience I have had, and continue to have as a parent.


What’s been your biggest failure?

There is not a single failure that comes to mind, but rather the reality that failure(s) are constant. When I look back, my coaching style and approach have evolved in so many ways. The reality is that the taste & realities of failing at the task and objectives implicit in coaching are the motivating driver to constantly driving to new and improved methods and techniques to be successful at coaching.


What is your coaching experience?

Roughly 30+ years. Started back in my college days with Edgewood Hockey in Cranston, RI; A premier youth hockey program. Here is where I learned the foundation of what evolved into my coaching career. It started on the suggestion of the rink manager to enhance & fast track my own ice hockey skills development, and it turned into a lifelong passion.

I coached/played ever since in NY, Ohio and Indiana/Illinois (Always with boys) before returning to RI, and starting the grass roots effort in Warwick to create a girls program that evolved into the Toll Gate (Warwick Co-Op of all 3 Warwick High Schools) Girls High School team.


Who have been the best players you’ve coached?

When I started with Edgewood, a few of the players developed into NHL players, including David Emma, who played for Boston College and was honored as the Hobey Baker Award recipient as College Hockey’s Best.

But in contrast, the best players are the over-achievers’, that bring a composite of energy & dedication to maximize their own skills, blend themselves into the team, to make those around them better, are leaders, and exhibit the sportsmanship, characteristics, and citizenship to label them as great people that play hockey…there is a list of these players, one I see regularly, I am proud to say was my daughter Brittany.

How do you motivate your players?

I believe that motivation comes from within the person, and is driven by fears & incentives. The attempt to understand the individual and present a tangible pathway for individuals to make the most of themselves. In concert with the individual is the complexity of meshing the individual into the team dynamics. Setting the stage to create “Team Chemistry” includes integrating the various constituents, so that 1+1=3.

I associate Hockey to Life; it has all the elements of life, including being brutal, challenging, political, emotional; as well as glorious, fun & rewarding…..There is a fine line between these elements. There is the internal control each person has choice over to accentuate the positive, however the external forces are a constant dynamic & threat we all have to address. “The game starts & is played in your own head”

 

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