Nepean Raiders coach Jerrett DeFazio wins 2022 Hockey Coach of the Year
Posted Mar 23, 2022 09:25:00 PM.
He shoots, he scored.
Nepean Raiders coach Jerrett DeFazio’s career has been 34 years in the making — and it’s been paying off.
DeFazio, who coaches the U18 AAA team in the Eastern Ontario Hockey league (HEO), is 2022’s coach of the year.
“I was really humbled by it,” he said on The Sam Laprade Show on Wednesday, March 23. “To be nominated, first of all, and then win, it’s quite an honour.”
DeFazio started his career as a hockey player in 1988, which eventually led him to play on the Ottawa 67’s under the coaching eye of Brian Kilrea.
When DeFazio was part of the 67's, he recalled being one of the few players on the team who was actually from Ottawa.
In his rookie year, he even scored 35 goals. Even to this day, DeFazio holds the record for the most goals scored by a rookie.
To this day, DeFazio holds Kilrea’s teachings dear and uses them in his own coaching techniques with his players.
“Not only was he a terrific hockey coach, he was a bench strategist. I think he really knew the pulse of his team in game day moment of who was going and who wasn’t. I think he could read the other side really well, of who was going and who was not. I think his strengths were really in those moments.”
DeFazio is in his third year with the Raiders, but the last two have not been easy, he says, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“You see the look in the younger’s eyes and you see the disappointment, the sadness, but you also see the joy when they come to the rink and they’re around their friends. It’s been a very difficult, but probably my most challenging, but also probably my most rewarding last few years of just helping youngsters through it, and helping me through it.”
The Raiders will be playing the finals against the Navan Grads on Wednesday evening. The Raiders finished first and the Grads finished second, with the Raiders up two games to none in three out of five.
“It’s game three tonight and we’ll see how that goes.”
