GLENDALE, ARIZ. – The last time Brent Sutter was on a road trip with a National Hockey League team, he watched games from behind the bench instead of the stands.
He didn’t cheer; he coached.
Sutter, one of the most accomplished members of Canada’s first family of hockey, has spent his lifetime in the game. He wouldn’t trade back any of it, either. But his five seasons coaching in the NHL with the New Jersey Devils and Calgary Flames, and the six years since then that he has been back running the junior hockey team he owns in Red Deer, Alta., deprived Sutter of the simple pleasure of seeing his son play.
For the first time since Brandon Sutter was a teenager and played for his dad on the Red Deer Rebels, Brent is sitting in the stands watching his son not as his coach but as his father. A decade into Brandon’s NHL career, Brent Sutter finally made a dads’ trip with the Vancouver Canucks.
"It’s awesome to be able to do this," Brent said before watching Brandon and the Canucks play the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday night. "Brandon, over his career, has had five or six of these and I’ve never been able to go on one because of coaching.
"I’m ecstatic that I can just be a dad on this trip. It’s different, but I’m thrilled I can do this and just be like all the other dads here and be with our kids."
The Canucks, despite losing three key sons to injuries, were able to beat the Vegas Golden Knights 3-2 in a shootout on Wednesday. The victory was made more special by a jubilant parade of fathers into the dressing room after the game.
"I think all the dads are having a lot of fun," Brandon said. "He taught me a lot of stuff away from the rink, and that’s probably more important than what happens at the rink.
"You look back at how you got here, how you got to this level, and everyone always talks about who coached them. But there’s so much more to it than just the hockey side. When I was a kid, my mom and dad made us do work on the farm and do things away from hockey that were important. That has helped me work on the ice."
The Sutters still farm in and around Viking, Alta.
Brent, who logged 1,111 games in the NHL and scored 829 points, is in his 14th season as owner, general manager and coach of the Western Hockey League Rebels. His time in junior was interrupted only by that five-year detour to the NHL, where Sutter’s teams averaged 43 wins per season and never finished with fewer than 90 points.
He hasn’t coached in the NHL since the Flames fired him in 2012 after missing the playoffs a third straight year.
The Rebels are 8-4-1 this season and split two games this week without Sutter.
"I told the players when I left that as you get older, these are the opportunities you have to take advantage of," Sutter, 56, said of choosing to join Canuck dads in Vegas and Phoenix. "I’m not getting any younger and life is short. The players all got it. They understood."
[snippet id=4265743]
Sutter said it’s "funny" watching NHL games as a father, but feels a connection to the Canucks. It’s not only that Brandon is one of the team’s leaders, but that Brent’s playing career with the New York Islanders overlapped with Canucks coach Travis Green’s career. Assistant general manager John Weisbrod held the same position in Calgary when Sutter coached the Flames, and Canucks assistant coach Newell Brown was on the staff in Chicago when Sutter finished as a player with the Blackhawks.
"Those experiences as a coach at the National Hockey League level helped with my transition back to junior," Sutter said. "It’s not just the hockey side of it, but the life part of it – helping (junior players) grow and mature. You’re a big part of that. That’s an important time of their life and you’ve got to be there for them and help them through it.
"I get to be a dad again today, and then I go back to the grind of junior hockey on Friday. Sure, you miss the NHL. You miss being at the highest level and working in that environment. But it’s very rewarding working with junior players, too."
And seeing your son play in the NHL.
[relatedlinks]
