By Joanie Veitch |
When the St. Louis Blues defeated the Boston Bruins to win the Stanley Cup last June, it was the culmination of a lifetime dream for Jeff McKercher, an Ontario-based scout for the Blues and former defenceman with the Saint Mary’s Huskies.
“I did everything I could to make the NHL as a player. I fell short of that but to get back into the league as a scout and to win the Stanley Cup, well, I’ve basically been chasing that dream since I started playing hockey at three and a half years old. It was incredible.”
Growing up in Moose Creek, a small community of about 400 people less than an hour’s drive from Ottawa, McKercher played for both the Barrie Colts and the Peterborough Petes with the Ontario Hockey League and was a strong enough player to make it to the seventh round of the 1997 NHL draft. After two years of professional hockey, he enrolled at Saint Mary’s University, arriving in Halifax in January 2000.
Now 40 and a police officer with York Region, north of Toronto, McKercher reflects on how he went from NHL dreams to studying at Saint Mary’s and playing with the Huskies from 2000 through to his graduation with a Bachelor of Arts in Criminology in 2004.
“When I was playing with the OHL it was always known that after your OHL career had run its course, going out east to play university hockey in the Maritimes was the best option,” he says. “I remember being on these long bus rides and just thinking about everything. By that point I knew I wasn’t going to play in the NHL so I had to start planning for a life after hockey. I loved being on the road and being with a team, and knew I wasn’t someone who could sit behind a desk from nine to five; it just wasn’t me. I started thinking about becoming a police officer. When I think about it now, policing is almost like playing on a hockey team— playing as an individual doesn’t really work out; everybody has to work together to be able to get home safe.”
McKercher loved his time in Halifax, living off campus in a self-described “hockey house” with eight other Huskies players. He was named assistant captain in his final year at Saint Mary’s and to this day credits Trevor Stienburg with being the best coach he ever had. McKercher keeps in regular contact with the Huskies coach and many of his former teammates.
“We had a strong team under coach Stienburg. In 2002, the team went on to win the AUS [Atlantic University Sport] championship,” McKercher recalls.
In that championship game, Alex Halat scored the winning goal in Game Five against the Dalhousie Tigers. “It was the last game and we were in double overtime—Halat was just one of those guys, an unsung hero on the team. He was a fourth line guy and Trevor Stienburg joked afterwards that he wasn’t even supposed to be on the ice but there he was, and he ended up scoring the winning goal… it was such a great group of guys.”
The team worked hard and played hard, McKercher said, adding that developing good time management skills was crucial. “We would practice a couple of hours a day, and we’d usually hit the gym as well. It could be challenging to find the time for my studies, but I always managed.”
Keeping his grades up and doing well in school was a big motivator for McKercher. While at Saint Mary’s, he twice received the Academic All-Canadian Award, a recognition given by the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association for combined excellence in university athletics and academics.
“Once I got that, I knew I wanted to achieve my best every semester. It was almost like a challenge and I just got it done somehow. I guess too, when you’re on the road a lot, on the team bus, there were always hours to spare during the travel time.”
Managing his time wisely is a skill that has served McKercher well. Juggling night shifts as a police officer, coaching his two children’s hockey teams, (daughter Kayla is 9, and son Austin, 7) and scouting for the St. Louis Blues, there’s not a lot of down time in his life these days.
“I’m definitely the busiest I’ve ever been in my life, and I’ve always been pretty busy,” he laughs.
McKercher began working as a police officer with York Region in November 2004. It was while he was in police college that McKercher made the connection that began his sideline in hockey scouting. Becoming good friends during training with a guy whose father managed the Oshawa Generals, McKercher’s scouting work for that team eventually lead to a scouting job for the Peterborough Petes.
As time went on, his work with the Petes brought him to the attention of Doug Gilmour, a former professional hockey player and then-manager of the Kingston Frontenacs, who asked him to scout for that team.
“Doug Gilmour was my favourite hockey player of all time— there was no way I was going to say no to him.”
After scouting for the Frontenacs for several years, McKercher got a call one day from a Missouri phone number. “I figured it would be a telemarketer, but the voice on the other line told me my name had
been pushed forward to scout for the St. Louis Blues as the Ontario guy and asked me if I was interested.”
Now, going into his third year with the Blues and still riding the high of his team’s Stanley Cup win, McKercher balances work with coaching and driving the kids around to various games from their home in Newmarket, just as his parents did for him.
His advice to his kids as a dad and a coach is the same: “Go out and have fun. You’re not going to have your best game every time you go out, but work hard and don’t let your teammates down. Give it your best.”
