Who's the best coach you've ever had? If you’re into sports, you’ve probably heard this question. I've satisfied that question in my mind: the answer of course is Mr. Stein.

Mr. Brett Stein was my Juvenile Men’s War Canoe coach in 1995 and 1996. We won a silver medal in 1995 and a gold medal in 1996. Winning is definitely a big reason I associate Mr. Stein as my best coach ever but that’s a far too simplistic reason to identify him as such 12 years later.

I met Mr. Stein in the weight training room where 10 strangers (who would soon become close friends) and I were assembled as a training group. My first exchange with him went something like:

Stein (imposing): 'Are you going to be in my war canoe next year?'

Me (sheepish): 'yes'

Stein: 'okay – then you can stay.'

I can honestly say that within my first two weeks of being in this training group, I came to hate him; but less than 24 months later I admired him as the best coach ever, and a mentor.

In a single word PREPARATION is the reason I associate Stein as the best coach I ever had. Never before, and not since, have I been coached by someone who knew (or at least played a really good game at knowing) everything that was going to happen before it did.

Going back to the weight room, I remember walking home with a thick ‘booklet’ of workouts we would complete over the course of the semester. I’m talking a heavy book – seemingly a hundred pages deep each with a series of different styles and varieties of weight training workouts. The entire year was mapped out in that booklet; the pages told me which specific workout we’d be doing on any given day. We all dreaded that book; but despite our fear of it, the book said something to each of us: Do This and You Will Win. And Win we did!

For those two years on his team, Mr. Stein was always the first at practice and the last to leave, he knew the phone numbers of every athlete, and he wasn’t afraid to use them (especially when an athlete missed a practice unannounced), and he had a very clear map that he wanted us all to follow. By map I mean a clearly setout plan for each and every day of the process that in his estimation would result in our best possible performance at the right time. It is interesting to note that the only race we won in 1996 was the Canadian Championships.

Years later, and a silver and gold medal in between, I earned the position as coach for the RBC Dragon Boat team in Toronto. Not surprisingly my first call for help was to Mr. Stein. He helped provide a well-organized season plan, and offered some of his anecdotes from his years as head coach of the same RBC crew.

 A few years later RBC won the Bankers Cup at the Toronto International Festival with me as their coach. It was the first time they had won the cup since they were coached by Mr. Stein.

More on coaches I have modeled my coaching ‘style’ after in upcoming blogs.

Brett Stein and I now play ‘competitive’ hockey every Friday after work. We are the two goalies so we are pitted against each other in every game. We keep track of wins and losses with a marker on the dressing room wall.

I fell in love with the sport of dragon boat racing in 1996 – even though I never got into a boat until 1997. Having followed the Canadian team play in the World Junior Hockey Championships recently, gave me a shot of adrenaline, it reignited the sporting enthusiasm within, it served as the tonic, the ideal elixir, the perfect aphrodisiac for a Canadian dragon boat coach.

That’s right, I said dragon boat coach! What stands out most to me about the World Junior Hockey Championships, is the overwhelming sense of camaraderie, togetherness and accomplishment Canadians derive from rooting for a team of young athletes. Canadians really do savour this opportunity to unite in common purpose through athletic achievement.

As a Canadian and a dragon boat coach, the final game highlighted both the preeminent reason we enjoy the great sport of dragon boat racing, and where my eternal passion for this sport began. In the summer of 1996, I was 18 years-old, the same age as sniper John Tavares, the on-ice leader of our heroic Canadian junior team. A mediocre flatwater kayaker on the local club circuit (think Adam Vankoeverden … but a whole lot slower) I had an overwhelming single-mindedness – to accomplish only one thing – win Canadian Championships … in Juvenile Men’s War Canoe.

My entire training regimen that year was designed to accomplish my goal, and never in my entire athletic career had I been more committed. I think it was at that time that I began to realize, it was the journey, the process; that meant more than the result. The personal growth, the discipline of mind and body, and beginning to understand the complexities of sport were the things I truly gained from the experience. The National Championship and my pursuit for the elusive gold medal certainly became an important ingredient for the impression branded in me in the summer of 1996: it sparked a serious emotional connection to this sport and left an indelible passion in me for team watersport; enter dragon boat racing. It’s these experiences that I had as an 18-year-old that I was reminded of in last Monday’s Canadian win.

Of course, all of this brings me to the obvious connection to dragon boat racing: the importance of camaraderie, togetherness and collective accomplishment. It is these attributes that we gain from dragon boat racing that in my eyes make it the perfect sport to coach.

The journey can be made so valuable because the sport is so intrinsically tied to the importance of camaraderie, togetherness and collective accomplishment – three things that the World Junior Hockey Championships inspire in Canadians every year. So that’s how my love and passion for dragon boat racing began: the mentality of a hockey player put into a competitive war canoe crew competing on a National level. 

More on my coaches, my teammates and my introduction to dragon boat in upcoming blogs.