Competing With Carbs

By: John Sparenberg

jsheynow@gmail.com

It's noontime on Friday downtown in Rhode Island's capital city of Providence. Most folks in the area who have put in a morning's worth of hard word are scurrying about and probably thinking about what they are going to have for lunch, what they can do to avoid working overtime, and what they are going to be doing to relax over the upcoming weekend.

However, that is definitely not the case (except for the lunch part) for the Hershey Bears' players who are mulling around their dressing room in the Dunkin' Donuts Center after the unofficial end of their workout. Many of them are busy catching up on social media on their electronic devices or texting friends or loved ones. Some are getting their sticks ready game, but all are in various stages of dress after working up a slight sweat in the short morning skate prior to that evening's encounter with the Providence Bruins. This game will kick off a stretch of three games in less than 44 hours, all to be contested away from the comfy confines of their home arena, the Giant Center.

There's feisty forward Liam O'Brien lingering about minus his jersey and shoulder pads on one end of the style spectrum, and on the other end, there's goaltender Vitek Vanecek, nattily attired in stylish threads and matching shoes, accessorized by a sharp-looking overcoat, looking like he could step right out onto the downtown streets around and blend right in with any other office worker.  But he wastes no time giving away the fact that he's a superstitious hockey player by giving the shush sign to the team broadcaster Zack Fisch when Fisch informs him that he will be playing in his 100th AHL game in a few hours as he takes the crease for his club.

Fast forward about a half hour after the morning workout has ended. Emerging from the "Dunk" ice surface and rounding the corner is a well-conditioned Bear attired in the teams practice sweats, a right curved stick in hand, and dripping with sweat after obviously putting in some overtime work. I greet him and shake hands and prepare to start my interview, and we get started with the inquisition.  However, we don't talk about this player’s scoring prowess, if he is playing injured, or something along those lines. Instead we talk about the teams amazing turnaround from a dismal start to the season, his career path through the low minors, a winding road that eventually brought him to Chocolatetown, and his compete level. But this man is not a player-he’s Hershey Bears head coach Spencer Carbery, a former player who was never drafted by an NHL club, but carved out four solid seasons of pro hockey, including the last two spent with the Bears' then and current ECHL affiliate, the South Carolina Stingrays, before dipping his toes in the coaching pool.

After retirement, Carbery immediately became an assistant with the Stingrays and joined their head coach, former Bear Cail MacLean, behind the bench for a season before succeeding him in the head man role when he accepted an AHL coaching offer.

"Coaching in the ECHL, you have a lot of different stuff that you are dealing with that comes with running the entire hockey operations,” said Carbery, who is only 29, when asked about the differences between being the head coach in the ECHL and AHL. "At this level, there are a lot more resources, and there is a significant difference in ability and skill among the players,” he said, carefully choosing his words. “In this league, there is a lot more learning. They are young players, or prospects, that have a bright future ahead of them, or maybe have come from being the best player in major junior or the best college player in the nation, and now coming to the American Hockey League where it’s a difficult league and it’s a definite learning process. Guys think that they can just come in score right away, and it’s just not the case. For me personally, I love the development component of it; it’s so critical, and it happens every single day in the AHL. It also happens in the ECHL, but I think it's more in the AHL than the ECHL, and I think it's because of the age of some of the players. We don't get any 18-19 year old kids in the ECHL, we don't get that kid fresh out of junior on an NHL contract who was drafted 10th overall." 

Carbery cruises into position at
practice in Providence.

In Hershey, Carbery took over for Troy Mann who guided the club to a playoff berth in each of his first three seasons as coach, but failed to do so in his fourth and what turned out to be his last season in that role. In accepting the bench boss job in Hershey, Carbery did so knowing that he was taking over a team that was in transition.

Departures from the previous season included four of the their top five point producers with Chris Bourque, Wayne Simpson, Tyler Graovac, and Dustin Gazley moving on to other organizations or overseas. Travis Boyd graduated to full-time NHL status with the Washington Capitals, leaving Riley Barber as the only member of that fine fivesome returning to Chocolatetown.

Additionally, captain Garrett Mitchell and grinder Zach Sill also headed overseas, and goaltender Pheonix Copley graduated to an NHL job with the Caps as their backup to former Bear Braden Holtby, thus creating a bigger challenge for Carbery and his staff.

"We knew it was going to be a work in progress with the new staff. All of the coaches were not in the organization or with the team the previous year and hadn't seen many of the players. On top of that, we had a ton of new players and a tremendous turnover in personnel even for our veteran type guys,” said Carbery.

He continued, "For a few of them, it was their first time in the organization, first time in Hershey, getting used to each other, getting used to the coaches. So it took some time for us to get on the same page with our expectations and how we were going to play, practice, and prepare."

However, even with the realization that there would be some early bumps in the road, Carbery and company couldn't have envisioned all of the potholes encountered, including a five game losing streak to start the season, and the club unable to post better than a .500 record until game forty-three.

 "We obviously had a tough start to the year, but we never thought that even though we weren’t winning games, that we weren’t right there. Just a couple of tweaks, a bounce here or a read there, and those losses could have turned into wins. I think that’s what happened; we were right there, and we got a little bit of momentum, and we put a few wins together, and all of a sudden that belief in our room it just snowballed,”said Carbery, whose team went on a 17-game run in which they did not suffer a regulation loss around the midpoint of the season, and now find themselves well positioned for a return to the post-season.

Former Stingrays Carbery and Wellar.

Patrick Wellar, one of Carbery's assistants, and also a  former teammate in South Carolina where they  captured the Kelly Cup in 2009, said he considers  himself fortunate to be working with his friend, and that he could see the coaching qualities in Carbery when they were teammates, calling his boss a "spark plug player who did whatever it took to make himself an asset to his team.”

"Our relationship has been really good; we were great friends as teammates and we had a mutual respect for each other. I’m still green in the coaching game, but he’s been great to work with and I've learned a lot from him,” said Wellar, who may have had the best seat in the house when the Rays clinched their 2009 championship in the last minute of the third period, but it's highly unlikely that he was seated, as he was in the penalty box due to an infraction he had committed. "He's been very patient with this young group, and I don’t think you could have a better guy for this group with the patience that he’s shown and helping these guys stay focused."    

Getting back to the sweat thing, the reason that Carbery was perspiring when he and I started chatting was that he had just finished a mock game that he typically plays with his assistants and a few of the players after practices. Fisch had warned me when I had asked him about interviewing Carbery, saying, "He’s not like a lot of other coaches that leave the ice after practice; he stays out there for a while and skates with them.” I took that statement rather lightly, thinking he would just be leisurely skating around the ice conversing with a player or two. Much to my surprise, I witnessed a fast paced, and at times, intense session involving the players, the coach, as well as Wellar, and the other assistant coach, longtime NHL player Mike Eastwood.  

Carbery sees these scrimmages as another way to blur the line between management and the players, but he also has ulterior motives to stay out and engage with his charges whenever possible.

Carbery and Eastwood converge on one of their charges.

"We have a fun time and you get to know the guys a little more.  You get to have some competition, and it just helps overall in connecting with our guys. I think in a subtle way it shows our younger players how to compete and work hard, and it helps to show them that even though they might have the most talent or be the fastest guy, when you want to win and compete, you can overcome that. The other thing I like to show is that even though I’m now 38 years old and retired and have lost a couple of steps, not just one, that I can still compete,” Carbery chuckled.

Eastwood, who played for multiple Stanley Cup Champion coaches during his 13-year pro career, as well as John Paddock, who coached the Bears to the Bears to the 1988 Calder Cup, says that some of his coaches did engage in post-practice sessions like Carbery does, although it's highly unlikely they did so with the same intensity level.

"That’s something that Spence does, and he competes like hell,” said Eastwood, breaking into a smile that made it very apparent that he knows that his boss uses these occasions as a way to both satisfy and on some level relive the intense, competitive spirit he had during his playing days. Eastwood continued, “But you know what, it’s a lot of fun and I think the players enjoy it, and all of the coaches enjoy it as well. Guys that aren’t playing get to put in some extra work and they get to have a little fun while they do it. But make no mistake about it-- he competes his butt off, and that translates to the players. They see that and feed off that, and it resonates with them. They understand that Spence knows how hard you have to work and the dedication that you need to put into your game to make it better.”

A prime example of a player who works hard and has worked hard for everything he's achieved thus far in his pro career is Bears defenseman Tyler Lewington. Lewington, a 7th round pick of the Caps in 2013 NHL Entry Draft, who started his professional career in the ECHL with the Stingrays playing for Carbery in the 2015-16 season, has scratched and clawed his way to becoming an AHL regular with the Bears.  He also earned his first NHL recall this past December, making a solid account of himself and also netting a goal during the two-game stint in Washington, and also earned a subsequent recall late in March, but did not see any action before being sent back to Hershey.

"I was so proud, coming from Charleston, South Carolina and then to play in the National Hockey League. I talked to Tyler when he was going up, and I said to Lewy how crazy is it for you and me to think that when you came to me as a wet behind the ears from Medicine Hat to Charleston SC, and now for it to come full circle,”  said Carbery, reminiscing with a smile.

"It's not always a smooth path to get to play in the NHL. There are a lot of times where you start to doubt and ask yourself if your chance is ever going to come after year after year. You talk about how much he has put in and how hard he has worked and bided his time. He even confided in me that at times he even doubted himself and wondered if he would ever get that chance. This just goes to show you it’s not always the path that you envision, and it doesn’t always happen overnight, but if you stick with it and do the right things and put the time and effort in, good things will happen for you."  

That and a healthy dose of sweat.