Princeton Posse coach Mark Readman is forging a very different hockey career than he had originally planned.
But he seems okay with that.
“I am a firm believer that life will steer you in the direction it wants you to go,” he told Black Press, during an interview in a fairly aromatic team room.
Readman’s first hockey memory dates back to when he was four-years-old.
He decided the best way to contribute was to lay down in the crease, in front of the net, so that no one could score a goal.
None of the youngsters were able to lift a puck.
Readman, 28, was named the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League’s (KIJHL) Coach of The Year during the 2022-23 season.
He has coached the Posse to consecutive wins of the KIJHL’s Presidents Cup, as the top team of the regular season, and came one over-time goal away from earning the Teck Cup last April.
He was also recently named top coach for the KIJHL’s Bill Olhausen division for this season, with final honours to be announced soon.
Readman’s sports dreams were supported by both his parents, growing up in Dawson Creek, with his mother being particularly influential when it came to hockey and baseball.
His mom’s passing, from illness when he as a teenager, affected his entire family, however he tried to keep focus on the goals she helped him set.
Readman started his coaching career in Grade 8, helping out in learn-to-skate programs and novice and atom players while he was still in high school.
He played high-level juvenile hockey, collegiate hockey south of the border, as well as Junior A and Junior B in Canada.
However, it eventually became apparent something was wrong, as he found it increasingly hard to perform, and he experienced significant weight loss.
He was diagnosed with a degenerative spinal disc issue, as well as an auto-immune disease, which effectively ended his career as a player.
But he never left the game.
Readman volunteered for the hockey organization in his hometown, sometimes sleeping on a cot at the rink, while he worked successfully as a cars salesperson during the day.
When he arrived in Princeton, in 2021, he was challenged with elevating a team that had 17 years in the league and was struggling to advance.
That year was complicated by COVID, and the town’s devastating flood when he dispatched his players to muck out driveways, move furniture and basically help to clean up.
Readman places high value on character for his team.
“Person first, player second.”
He described recruiting events, where coaches from around the country watch hockey for nearly 19 hours a day, trying to assess the prospects’ potential.
Readman doesn’t spend all his time with eyes on the ice.
“I watch how a kid is carrying himself around the rink, the body language and communication with his parents. You want the kids that are most well-rounded…It doesn’t take much for me to put a black line through some kid’s name.”
He ensures players regularly participate for community events, for example turning out for the Terry Fox Run, supervising a school event, helping an elderly person move house, and assisting with food drives.
Readman estimates he spends 12 hours a day, seven days a week, on coaching responsibilities that include – but are not limited to – running practices, game preparation, analyzing videos and statistical reports, providing feedback to players and even doing the team’s laundry and sharpening skates.
While he has no superstitions for game days, he does admit to being very “routine-oriented,” for example by making the dressing room pristine, with everything in organized in its proper order, and even hanging the jerseys and organizing the tape in same way each afternoon.
“It’s like a mental toughness.”
He is respected, around the league, as a coach that keeps his cool in stressful situations. Athough, he did confess to once throwing a hockey stick, when no one was looking.
And while he likes to win, he accepts that is not always in the cards.
“You always will learn 10 times more from losing than from winning,” he said.
“If you leave everything you have out there, if you’ve done what has been asked of you, you can be content with the result.”
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