Hawkins fulfilling a lifelong desire as Braves coach-GM

By Darcy Cheek The Recorder and Times



Jason Hawkins has known for a long time what role he wanted to play in the world of hockey.
The 36-year-old head coach and general manager of the Brockville Braves, in the midst of his first season with that dual role, knew as a young teenager there was more to just going out and playing the game.
There was structure, systems and philosophies, and he wanted to learn it all and pass it on to players in his charge.
He said he can remember at that young age, his peewee rep coach, Bob Foster, having a playbook and how interested he was with it.
"As a player, I got really intrigued with it," said Hawkins inside his Brockville Braves office at the Memorial Centre on Tuesday. "I just wanted to learn the game more."
While he continued to play minor hockey, and was eventually signed with the Braves Jr. A hockey club, he never stopped trying to understand how to make the game and the players who play it better.
"In high school, my notebooks were full of little hockey diagrams and Xs and Os. I look back and think it was kind of an odd childhood."
After a junior hockey career with the Braves, Kingston Voyageurs, Cobourg Cougars and Trenton Sting, and an exhibition season with the Memphis RiverKings of the Central Hockey League, Hawkins got his first coaching opportunity from his brother, Barry, then with the Rideau St. Lawrence Kings major bantam AA team.
Ten years later, in 2007, with stops on the bench of junior B hockey clubs, including Brockville, and the Lanark Thunder Jr. A team, the 'Hawk' accepted an invitation from Todd Gill to be a Braves assistant coach.
"I really wanted to give back to the players the ability to understand the game," he said of his coaching experience so far. "I don't think there is a day that goes by without thinking of how to make a team, or a hockey player, better. I don't want to ever stop learning."
One only has to learn what kind of player Hawkins was in order to understand how he expects his charges to comport themselves in a Braves uniform.

A self-admitted small defenceman, Hawkins never went to the rink without the intention of giving the game everything he had.
"I think any team I played for, the players respected me and the 'team' came first," he said. "I never took the game for granted."
Hawkins said he would like his players to adopt the same kind of work ethic he puts into the team and, apart from his general manager's duties of putting the team together, work hard every day, one day at a time.
"I want the players to come to the rink thinking it's going to be a great day," he said, adding that looking too far ahead can be counterproductive.
Hawkins can't help describing a sport he has learned to adjust with over the years, noting he was for a time fixated on one particular style of play he thinks cost the Brockville Tikis a playoff.
"I was really sold on a conservative style and just waiting for opportunities," he said, adding the Tikis finished first in the regular season and were eliminated by Athens in the opening round.
The change, he admitted, came with his arrival to the Braves and Gill's approach to the game.
"Todd was completely opposite. It was all about the forecheck and puck pursuit – just constant pressure. I really bought into it."
Hawkins didn't entirely abandon his defensive ways, but rather added it to Gill's preferred style.
"Now I feel I have the best of both worlds," he said. "I think you need to know both ways to play."
One of the key to success, he says, is to take control of the game "between the dots", describing an area of the rink from the goaltender's crease to each "dot" on the ice from one end of the rink to the other.
"Junior hockey is a huge game of chess," he said. "It's controlling the dots in the middle of the ice, the rink inside the rink. The team that's better inside the dots is going to be successful."
Hawkins said his systems are easily structured so they are easy for players to adapt to.
He really doesn't want to overburden a player with so much "structured" information that the player forgets to use the skills that brought him to the Junior A level.
"Here, I really believe you have to let players play, and let them go," he said, adding players can't be robots. "I want them to be able to read and react off each other."
Stepping into the role of head coach will be a little different for Hawkins, and some of the returning players, this season.
While he insists on having an "open door" policy with his players, he won't have the time to be a confidant. His three assistants – James Mayo, Adam Gibson and Matt Ward – will be the "go to" staff, the same as Hawkins was the past four years.
"I'm here to make each and every player better, and this organization better," he said, adding he is thrilled with his coaching staff.
"If you are going to take a squad and have good success, you have to have good advisors," he said. "The more eyes that are on the game, the better."
Hawkins knows coaching 20 different hockey players at this level is going to be a challenge, but that's exactly what drives his coaching engine.
"I thrive on the stress of it," he said.
The combined duties of head coach and general manager are a big responsibility that Hawkins knows comes with a lot of commitment, something his wife, Jennifer Watson, shares with him.
"It's a huge sacrifice," he said of the time away from Jennifer, his son Cooper, 4, and daughter Harker, 2. "I'm very fortunate to have a spouse that believes in my dream and supports it.
"The time management is tough, but we really don't know any other way."
Honest, up front and confident he can make good hockey players better hockey players, and in turn mould a good hockey team, Hawkins believes his life to this point was predetermined long ago.
"I just knew right away, I knew it was a calling for me," he said.
Hawkins said he was grateful and flattered the Gills – Todd and his wife Krista, the Braves business manager – gave him the opportunity to become a head coach.
With his love of the game, and his desire to get the best out of players to make a team better, there is little doubt it would have happened at some point anyway.
"I want to be a coach for the rest of my life," he said.