Photo credit: Steve Dunsmore

By Regan Bartel

Rockets struggles go far beyond coaching

Boo birds don’t often chirp at Kelowna Rockets home games

Feb 22, 2024 | 7:00 AM

You could hear the boos. The crowd of over 56 hundred fans didn’t roar out in unison Monday afternoon, but even the small contingent of naysayers voicing their disapproval was noticeable.

The puck had not even dropped between the Kelowna Rockets and Tri-City Americans on a Monday afternoon when fare-weathered supporters shouted out in dismay as head coach Kris Mallette’s mug was shown on the video screen high above the ice surface at Prospera Place during the pre-game introductions.

In a season where losses have overshadowed victories, the head coach is the easy target for hockey fans who pay full value for their ticket and are given free access to cheer, or in this case, jeer whomever they want.

I remember years ago, general manager Bruce Hamilton, during a losing season, getting the same treatment from season-ticket holders situated in their seats below as he was sitting high above the ice surface with then-director of player personnel Lorne Frey beside him near our broadcast location.

In hockey, the head coach is often to blame, especially for the uneducated who really can’t see the forest through the trees and only vaguely look at the small picture, not the big one, and come to a quick conclusion.

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Am I here to defend Kris Mallette as a coach? Safe to say I am, but no broadcaster has any pull or sway in changing the opinion of a fanbase that hasn’t seen championship results since 2015.

Mallette’s first ‘full season’ on the job shouldn’t be forgotten, yet many have short memories. Taking over from polarizing Adam Foote just over four years ago, almost to the day, the then interim head coach had the carpet pulled from underneath him, when he and his players felt the wrath of the COVID-19 pandemic that erased the 2020 Memorial Cup.

Picking up the pieces, and dealing with the Mickey Mouse bubble season, where the WHL played a 22-game schedule from late-March until early May, the Rockets were shut down twice with positive test results, thus playing only 16 times.

Realistically, Mallette’s first season on the job as bench boss was in 2021-2022. To start that year, no Matthew Wedman, Conner McDonald, Kaedan Korczak, Dillon Hamaliuk, or Kyle Topping existed. All five were long gone yet were expected to be massive contributors to the team’s success at the 2020 Memorial Cup. Despite that high-end, older talent exiting the dressing room, Mallette still guided the squad to a 42-win finish with three rookies with the last names Cristall, Price, and Szturc.

At that point, the cracks in the Kelowna Rockets plastic bucket, the ones you typically see kids use at the beach along Okanagan Lake in the summer, were not apparent. The fractures became more visible in the 2022-2023 season when the team, wanting to stop the bleeding, acquired Carsen Golder, Trae Johnson, Ty Hurley, and Ethan Mittelsteadt via-trade. Leading scorer Colton Dach was dealt to the T-Birds.

The plastic pail, while leaking water, earned the team 27 victories and a first-round playoff exit against heavily favoured Seattle, which went on to win the league championship.

More trades were necessitated this past summer with a lack of high-end draft picks, so Tij Iginla was brought in, which can only be considered the best trade the organization has made since Leon Draisaitl and Josh Morrissey were scooped up from the Prince Albert Raiders. The deal, while brilliant, wasn’t enough to fill huge holes, with seven more new faces making up this season’s roster.

Since last May, Brett Calhoon, Luke Schelter, Iginla, Michael Cicek, Hiroki Gojsic, Carter Kowalyk, Jake Pilon, and Kayden Sadra-Kang have all been acquired from other teams. It wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to conclude that it has made Kris Mallette’s job extremely difficult, unmatched by any of his predecessors.

Continuity is king. Building from within brings bounty. We have seen it with the Kelowna Rockets in the past. Draft wisely in the first round, hit the nail on the head on second-round picks, get lucky in the third round – hello Tyson Baillie – and you witness the abundance of red championship banners that currently hang proudly from the rafters of Prospera Place.

In a time when the word ‘culture’ was often used repeatedly by the Kelowna Rockets during a run of three straight appearances in the Memorial Cup in 2003, 2004 and again in 2005, the pattern of making little in the way of deals by poaching players from others was indeed the winning formula.

The results speak for themselves with league titles in 2003, 2005, 2009 and 2015.

NHL great Mark Messier said, “You can have all the strategy. You can have all talks. You can have all the leadership, but if you don’t create culture, none of it matters.”

A team’s culture is built when players are drafted, not obtained via trade. While the organization had little choice, it makes the coach’s job significantly more difficult when outside influences, especially in abundance, can often spoil the core of the group. A few can’t break down the foundation, but the walls topple when significant moves are made.

Every head coach the Kelowna Rockets have deployed behind the bench since Marc Habscheid changed that coveted culture, from a losing one to a winning formula has had that luxury. I’d argue Kris Mallette hasn’t.

While seated at the poker table, the 45-year-old isn’t necessarily playing from a position of strength with the cards he has been dealt.