When the LJ Contracting Cougars begin their quest to win the Hart Home Hardware midget Tier 2 hockey tournament today on Kin 1 ice they're going to hear in the backs of their minds the booming voice of hockey dad Rob Hinsche.
He's going to be telling them to play hard, stick up for their teammates, and play like a team of respectful champions that will bring pride to their city.
Hinsche can't be there to see the Cougars play in this weekend's six-team tournament. The 51-year-old father of two is in palliative care at Rotary Hospice House, dying of brain cancer.
Until Oct. 24, when his 18-year-old son Jack drove him to hospital with a sinus headache, the former BC Rail locomotive engineer appeared to be perfectly healthy. But tests revealed a pear-sized tumour and a few days later surgeons in Kelowna removed part of it. But the remaining cancer cells proved too aggressive, leaving Hinsche with a terminal condition.
"He's about six-foot-four and in unbelievable shape - he's the last guy in world you'd ever think to be sick," said Mark Barlow, whose son Drydon played for Hinsche's Cougars last season.
"The kids on the teams have been calling him Papa Hinsche for years. He's loud and kind of gruff to the kids but the boys just love him. The boys could tell him anything."
He's always been close with his sons, Jack and Alex, and he taught them how to skate on their 30-foot by 60-foot backyard rink in Prince George. Whether it was hockey, baseball, hunting, fishing or trips to the Williams Lake Stampede, they were inseparable.
Jack played hockey as a defenceman until he was 14 but Alex was more serious about the game and he's still playing as a goalie at 17. He and Mathew Ens share the goaltending duties for the midget Tier 2 Cougars. Alex has written on the back of his goalie stick, "Play for Dad."
Randy Potskin was head coach of the Tier 2 Cougars last year, with Hinsche and Chad Ghostkeeper as his assistant coaches and when they needed someone to go into the dressing room between periods to boot around a garbage can as a wakeup call to the players, Hinsche was that guy. When the Cougars needed someone to watch the hotel hallways for kids leaving their rooms and breaking curfew, Hinsche took on that duty.
A couple years ago at a tournament in Phoenix, Alex got run over in his crease and was hurt by a Dallas player and the play went unpenalized. Hinsche jumped onto the ice to help his son to his feet and got into it with the officials, which led to a bench-clearing brawl which lives on in YouTube infamy.
Hinsche was the team's trainer and bus driver and was on the bench as an assistant coach last Christmas when the Cougars became the first Prince George team to ever win the Richmond International midget Tier 2 tournament title.
"He was an intense guy on the bench and he was very passionate about looking out for the kids - if there was a cheap call he'd be the first one screaming," said Potskin. "I remember when we won the final in Richmond and we scored in overtime in the final, Hinsche grabbed me and gave me the biggest bear hug. It knocked the wind right out of me, he was so excited."
Hinsche's stubborn streak is well known by anybody who knows him, but that's overshadowed by his nurturing, caring attitude and his generosity with his time and money. He's the kind of guy who's first to volunteer to take on tasks like fixing a player's broken skate blade, driving kids to tournaments or buying them lunch when they're a few bucks short on a roadtrip. His family and close friends always come first but he won't hesitate to help a stranger. That unselfishness and the pride he takes in everything he does has made him everybody's favourite hockey dad.
"He has a passion for the game and a passion for the boys and he wears his heart on his sleeve - he just absolutely loves them both," said former Cougars manager Dean Kazakoff, whose son Myles plays defence for the Cougars.
"The coaches and the kids just want to honour the fact that he mattered to everybody and that he was a big part of these kids and their development over all these years. They all want to do well this weekend for Rob to make him proud of them but they also really want to be there for Alex the entire weekend. They're kind of cocooning Alex to make sure things are good for him."
Hinsche was moved to hospice care 11 days ago, which has helped make it easier for the family to accommodate daily visits from his players and his long line of friends in the community. He worked 26 years with BC Rail, until it was sold. He was then hired as an installer by his current employer, Shaw Cable. He and his common-law wife Cathy Simon have been together since 2008.
Hinsche grew up in Williams Lake and played junior hockey as a forward with the Mustangs in 1982-83 when they were part of the Peace-Cariboo Junior Hockey League. One of his teammates that season was Craig Berube, who went on to play 19 seasons in the NHL as an enforcer and that inspired Hinsche to play a similar tough-guy style which he brought to the adult rec hockey leagues in Vancouver and Prince George.
"He's coached me and my little brother Alex since we were three or four," said Jack. "We know him as a coach but it was never really apparently clear how much he meant to other people until this all came around. You see how much everybody steps up and the support we've gotten is just crazy."
Jack said the timing of the tournament, coming while his father is in his last days, has helped Rob accept his own fate. Rather than pick a most valuable player at the end of the tournament on Sunday, the Cougars have taken it upon themselves to create the Rob Hinsche most inspirational player award, which will be presented after each game of the tournament.
"I think what they've done with the MVP award and the amount of support he's getting from the hockey team is really reflective of him as a coach," added Jack. "He's just overjoyed with what they've done. When the Kazakoffs came in and let us know what they were doing with the award, it's one of the very few occasions I've seen my dad cry.
"The sport means a lot to him, it was a tool for him growing up, so for someone to name an award after him and for the players to say they're playing for him, it just floored him."
The Cougars open the tournament today at 9:15 a.m. at Kin 1 against Prince Rupert and play again at 4:30 p.m. against Terrace. They also have scheduled games Saturday at 8:45 a.m. against Smithers, face Williams Lake Saturday at 4:15 p.m. and play their final round-robin game Sunday at 11:15 a.m. against Quesnel. The top two teams in the standings advance to the final Sunday at 3 p.m. at Kin 1.
The other Cougar players are Carl Ewert, Parker Dowhy, Kyle Boshier, Dean Whitcomb, Tyler Marsh, Tanner Riplinger, Bobby Legare, Matthias Urbanski, Tyson Ghostkeeper, Rob Raju, Tyler MacSemniuk, Logan Morris, Garrett Hilton, Brandon Sande, Nolan Parr and Bailey McFaul.
The team also includes head coach Wes Scott, assistant coach Clark Scott, safety attendant Jim Ewert and manager Lyle Sande.
