Award-winning ice hockey coach Charles Chamberlain ensures that all his players are given the skills and opportunities to play their best.
When Charles Chamberlain received a City of Ottawa envelope in the mail last spring, he thought it was best to ignore it – expecting it to be something he didn’t want to read as he rushed off to the rink for hockey practice.
That night, on the phone with his wife Mary, she asked him if he’d opened the envelope. Chamberlain said that he hadn’t had time to read the letter.
So Mary read the letter over the phone. It informed him that he was nominated for the Brian Kilrea Excellence in Coaching award.
Chamberlain was shocked.
After working all day as an accountant, Chamberlain devotes many of his free evenings volunteering at hockey rinks across Ottawa.
He coaches three teams simultaneously and is also the discipline director for the Metro Ottawa Girls Hockey League.
Thanks to his avid involvement, as well as his players’ nomination, Chamberlain left the award ceremony with recognition of his coaching excellence.
“When I discovered what I’d won I felt really honoured that the girls I’ve been coaching went through this process to get me nominated,” says Chamberlain.
While being a great coach on the ice is tough, Chamberlain says it is even tougher for male coaches to get the respect and trust of young girls. Many girls feel intimidated and are less likely to approach a male coach.
But just observing one of Chamberlain’s practices, it is clear that he opposes the trend. The girls respect him and are comfortable with his coaching tactics.
Shelley Coolidge, coach of Carleton University’s Women’s varsity hockey team, links this intimidation to a lack of female role models in the hockey world.
“All boys have to do is look on TV to see their favourite player, they always have someone to look up to. Girls don’t have that as much.”
But when a special male coach comes along who the girls can connect to, it goes a long way to helping them become better players and encouraging them to stay in hockey.
“We need people like Charles to carry the torch in promoting women in hockey . . . By encouraging fairness and equality, Charles has helped do this,” says Coolidge.
Unlike most volunteers in hockey, Chamberlain does not coach his own children.
His son Ian, 18, and his daughter Amy, 22, are both at Algonquin College and have graduated from minor hockey.
Chamberlain coached Ian until he was 15 years old and Amy for her entire career before she aged out. Despite Amy moving forward, Chamberlain remains the head coach of her two former teams: Colonel By High School and the Gloucester intermediate house league.
As if these teams weren’t enough, Chamberlain also coaches the competitive Intermediate ‘A’ team in Ottawa.
His Ottawa ‘A’ team, which he assistant coaches, is a competitive team, where the girls try out.
Chamberlain is also the head coach of an intermediate house league team in Gloucester – where no one is cut.
At Colonel By High School, Chamberlain faces his toughest task. Many of his players have never picked up a hockey stick and his goalie is strapping on borrowed pads and skates for the first time.
Luckily, Chamberlain has great help on the ice. His assistant coach Karen Martin works with the goalie, giving him more time to work with the whole team.
To coach teams with such a difference in skill level, it takes a special instructor. Chamberlain's assistant coach with the Gloucester House League team, Denis Vaillancourt, says Chamberlain is the perfect man for the job.
“Charlie is a great strategist. When it comes to hockey, strategy is a big part of it. Although I’ve never played chess against him, I would be wary of doing it… his ability to stay calm and look forward to the next shift and the next period keeps the girls calm.”
Denis’s daughter, Noelle Vaillancourt, who played six seasons for Chamberlain, adds that his practices are well thought out.
“He always has different skills for us to try, and different ways of doing them. He also never lost his temper with us,” she says.
Despite his calm demeanour, Chamberlain admits he sometimes finds it tricky to plan practices for his house league and high school teams.
“It’s very hard to line up drills that I can use that would work for both groups,” says Chamberlain. “Sometimes I have to split the stronger players off to work on something and bring the weaker ones in to practice a skill.”
While many coaches preach winning at any cost, Chamberlain emphasizes fairness for his players – even if it doesn’t yield a win.
Chamberlain takes a diplomatic approach to distributing playing time, and his fairness really sticks out to his players, says Noelle.
However Noelle nearly missed playing for Chamberlain. She considered quitting hockey because her first coach refused to play the weaker players – something she believes is shocking in house league hockey.
Chamberlain says he tries to give all the players as much time as he can, which can be difficult. “Last season I had two weaker players and I don’t think we ever sat them. I think they deserve a spot on the ice. It's house league hockey and they deserve to be there.”
It’s that kind of fairness that lends itself to his job as the discipline director of the Metro Ottawa Girls Hockey League. For this, Chamberlain applies the rules set by the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association to situations where a player suspension might be needed.
Even though Chamberlain is a fair coach, he has some rules. He asks the girls to be ready for him to enter the dressing room five minutes before and after the games.
Noelle says Chamberlain is always respectful of the girls’ space and despite only being in the room for a short time, she says he always felt like part of the team.
Similar to his players, Chamberlains coaching peers also describe him as personable. He connects with parents and has earned trust and respect in the community.
“I have never met a parent that doesn’t want their kid coached by Charlie… trust goes a long way between adults. Parents know and trust Charles Chamberlain; they know he is going to look out for the kids,” says Denis.
More important than any award for Chamberlain is the praise he receives from his peers. “No one deserves acknowledgement more than Charles,” says Colonel By assistant Karen Martin.
According to Noelle, Chamberlain is such a great coach that there are girls who will come from as far as Kanata to play for him.
“Charles Chamberlain is the true volunteer. He doesn’t look for reward; his reward is the success of kids,” adds Denis Vaillancourt.
Maybe it’s not a surprise that Chamberlain was shocked when he won his award last spring.