O'Grady plans to be a players' coach for Predators

The Port Hope Predators settled in on 32-year-old Brendan O'Grady of the Central Ontario Wolves' AAA program as their new head coach Tuesday, giving the club a much younger look behind the bench, along with assistants Roberto Orofiamma and Steve Trumbell.

"I think between myself and (assistant general manager) Joe (Berney) and our ownership, we have a lot of age and experience in upper management," Predators general manager Tim Clayden said by phone. "We have to ensure our team has some good fun in hockey. You gotta have guys smiling and having fun at the rink.

"(The new coaches) don't have a lot of experience at the Junior 'A' level, but they're young and enthusiastic. They'll bring a refreshing approach. That's such an important aspect of any team being successful."

O'Grady will take over the position vacated by Brian Drumm, who moved into the less time-demanding position of director of player advancement and development at the end of this 2007-08 season to accommodate changes at his work at Auto Warehousing Company Canada in Oshawa.

"Energy - I think I bring a lot of passion and emotion to the game," O'Grady told the Evening Guide by phone from his job at Scotiabank in Lindsay, noting that the younger coaching staff should be able to relate to the players better. "I wear my emotions on my sleeve a lot. I'll be a 'players' coach' that way.

"When the players know you'll go the wall with them, they'll go to the wall for you. That'll be our motto this year: no one will outwork us."

O'Grady has coached at many AAA levels from Minor Atom to Minor Midget with the Wolves and has worked as an assistant coach on and off with the Predators for five years.

This past season, O'Grady would make trips once a week to work with the Predators' goalies, which includes a former Wolves player of his, Spencer Finney. Spencer is the son of Predators co-owner Rod Finney, a good friend of O'Grady's.

"It's not a secret, I don't think, to anyone in Port Hope that Mr. Finney and Brendan O'Grady are friends and they have a relationship through the Central Ontario Wolves," Clayden said, noting that Finney never insisted O'Grady be chosen as new head coach.

"Their relationship did play a bit of a role - sure it did. But Brendan's familiarity with the organization as a goalie and assistant coach and being a part of our run four years ago - it's all part and parcel."

Clayden received 14 applications for the head coach job, including some from Europe, the U.S. and Western Canada - a "pleasant surprise," considering the Predators have gone through coaches at a rate of about two a season for the past eight years. Clayden said there was a bit of concern hiring someone without head coaching experience in the Ontario Provincial Junior 'A' Hockey League, but not much.

"We are and we're not. He doesn't have much experience in Junior 'A' but he's been around the game forever," Clayden said of O'Grady, a former OPJHL player himself who runs twice-weekly hockey schools throughout the summer in Lindsay. "I think that, internally, we have a lot of good support people. There's a lot of people involved that the coaching staff can look to and lean on."

Clayden noted that Port Hope can be one of the toughest places to coach because the team has ranked amongst the league's best in winning percentage over the course of the past few years, but that O'Grady is coming in "with his eyes wide open" to the high expectations that come with the job.

"I'm nervous, but I'm confident in my abilities and I've always been a winner," O'Grady said.

"I put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed. I take things personally if they aren't going well - how can I make myself better to make our guys better?"

O'Grady plans on cutting down on his involvement with the Wolves, besides catching as many of his own kids' games as possible. O'Grady works full-time as small business account manager at Scotiabank in Lindsay - where he has a "flexible and understanding" boss - and has four children between age 9 and 14.

"My wife keeps telling me there's eight days in my week's schedule," O'Grady laughed.

O'Grady will be in a similar position as his assistant coaches, making an hour-long trip to and from the arena in Port Hope for practices.

He noted his assistants are offensive-minded coaches, a carry-over from their playing careers.

Clayden is particularly excited with what Orofiamma will bring to the organization, since the Rochester Institute of Technology high-scoring forward from 2001 to 2005 has plenty of connections within the NCAA.

"We were also looking towards moving players on to NCAA schools - to expand those kinds of services we can provide players because it makes it a lot easier in the summer for us to recruit," said Clayden, who received rave reviews of Orofiamma's work with the Vaughan Vipers. "With Roberto as an associate coach and with Brandon's experience in-house, we felt it wasn't necessary to go outside the organization."

O'Grady's first order of business will be to have a look at the prospects on display for this weekend's rookie camp.

Sixty skaters from as far away as Quebec, the U.S. and Western Canada, as well as a dozen from Port Hope, will hope to earn an invite to the team's main camp later in the summer.

"It was a long spring without us playing hockey," Clayden said, "and I think everyone's looking forward to the next season, starting this Friday."