Steve O'Rourke has ditched his role as associate coach of the Prince George Cougars, to take on a new role as a head coach.
But that's only for a couple of weeks.
The 44-year-old Summerland native is coaching Team B.C. this week in Red Deer at the Canada Winter Games , following up on a group of under-16 players he first started working with at the WHL Cup tournament in Calgary in October 2017.
This is O'Rourke's second Canada Winter Games experience. In 1991, when he was 15, he played as a defenceman for Team Saskatchewan in the Canada Games tournament in Charlottetown, P.E.I., while enrolled at a hockey academy in Notre Dame.
"This is such a unique experience, the Canada Winter Games, it's such a massive event, it's a mini Olympics and I was fortunate to be in it as a player," said O'Rourke. "For the majority of us who play hockey, we'll never be in the Olympics and this is like that. To go through the accreditations, to be there with other athletes from the other sports, and to go somewhere and be part of an athlete village and all the experiences you have, it's an amazing thing."
Having the Games in Red Deer is like a homecoming for O'Rourke, whose daughter Sophie was born there while he was an associate coach with the WHL Red Deer Rebels.
B.C. lost its first game 4-2 Sunday to Manitoba. Tyler Brennan of Winnipeg, the Cougars' 21st overall pick in the 2018 WHL bantam draft, stopped 37 of 39 B.C. shots. The boys from B.C. rebounded Sunday with a 4-3 win over Saskatchewan. Ontario and Alberta, the finalists in 2015, are the favourites again this time to make it to Saturday's final.
"We have to play a good structured game right from start to finish and the big thing is just buying in," said O'Rourke. "Our last group (in the WHL Cup), we kind of peaked at the right time and we were fortunate enough to beat Alberta in the gold-medal game.
"It's the same philosophy we'll put together, everyone will have a role and everyone will play a lot of minutes throughout it. No one's going to be a star player for us and everyone will be contributing right through the lineup."
Brian Pellerin of the Tri-City Americans and former Cougar assistant Jason Becker of the Penticton Vees are O'Rourke's assistant coaches. Brent Arsenault, a former assistant for the Cougars and Spruce Kings who now lives in Kamloops, is the team manager.
In 2015, at the Canada Winter Games in Prince George, O'Rourke's son Ethan, now a member of the Swift Current Broncos, played as a centre for Team B.C. Following that tournament, the manager of the team, Cariboo Cougars GM Trevor Sprague, asked O'Rourke if he'd like to get involved as a coach in the under-16 provincial program and O'Rourke signed a two-year commitment.
The B.C. team in Red Deer is made up of eight players who are with B.C. Hockey Major Midget League teams and 12 from hockey academies. Fischer O'Brien of Prince George was part of the summer camp and his Cariboo Cougars teammate Matthew Magrath was invited to the Team BC tryouts two summers ago, but there are no local players from north central Interior playing on the team.
Logan Stankhoven of Kamloops, a Kamloops Blazers pick, is playing for B.C., as is Kelowna Rockets prospect Trevor Wong. Fin Williams, a forward from North Vancouver, was picked as the flag bearer for Team B.C. for the Canada Games opening ceremonies.
"It's a huge step for these guys to make that final 20," said O'Rourke. "I know last year Alberta had 11 (WHL draft) first-rounders on their team."
Winger Craig Armstrong of Airdrie, Alta., drafted ninth overall last year by the Cougars, is playing this week for Team Alberta, while Cougars' defence prospect Hudson Thornton is part of Team Manitoba.
"We want to win but I want those kids to have a great experience and that's why they all have a role on the team, we're not going to ride one line," said O'Rourke. "For me, we're all part of the win or all part of the loss. The parents put a lot of money into all these steps and these kids deserve to play.
"We test these kids and interview them and push our agenda all the time about being a good person. We do individual talks with these guys and tell them where they're at and what they need to improve on.
"We had one guy, I won't mention names, who was a fringe guy for us and we challenged him to be a better guy, a better person and the kid's been unbelievable. He was a great player at (the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge) and he's got a (college) scholarship. The point is to get to them before they get to a junior level and they're not coachable or don't play the right way."
O'Rourke's Saskatchewan team finished fifth in 1991. He went on to play defence in the WHL with Tri-City and Moose Jaw and was picked in the seventh round by the New York Islanders, later playing at the University of Lethbridge and as a pro in the ECHL, UHL and England.
"Fifth place was pretty decent for us as a small province, and we actually ended up in a line brawl in the final game against P.E.I - a bunch of Saskatchewan thugs," laughed O'Rourke. "It was a great event and I think they've improved it and it's become bigger and bigger."
The Canada Games men's hockey tournament ends Saturday and O'Rourke will be back with the Cougars when they host the Spokane Chiefs, Feb. 25 at CN Centre.
