Interview with Mount Co-Director and 16 Coach Devin Rask
I spoke with Mount St. Charles Hockey Academy Co-Director and U16 Coach Devin Rask about the new program, the early departure of star forward Zack Bolduc, high school hockey and a few other topics. Rask is a Saskatchewan native who played his junior hockey there before spending four years at Providence College where he was a prolific scorer as well as captain for his final two seasons. After playing a few years of pro hockey in Germany for the Hannover Indians, Rask worked in college hockey at Wesleyan as well as coaching at UConn and Providence before building the now well-known Selects Hockey Academy at South Kent. Last year Rask along with his staff including Matt Plante and Scott Gainey, moved over to build out the new AAA program at long-time Rhode Island high school hockey powerhouse Mount St. Charles. Rask’s Mount AAA U16s are currently ranked as 7th in the country per MyHockeyRankings.com in their first year of play.
With the loss of Zack Bolduc to the Q I figured we could start with your take on the NCAA versus the CHL as far as options for hockey players?
You know, NCAA, I feel probably a little bit more tied to. Stronger, more beneficial route… there’s around 30% of the guys going to the NHL from the NCAA. It lengthens your career and you have the opportunity to get a degree. That being said I also know that major junior is a good route. And for certain types of players, being from Canada, the leagues and players [are something] you idolize as a kid growing up, seeing them all around you. I think there’s a place for major junior for some guys, that’s my personal opinion. But I do think NCAA has a lot of benefits because you can decide when you go pro and gain a couple of extra years playing in the NCAA, you don’t have to declare pro at 20. Which is a huge difference in my mind because there’s not many kids ready at 20 to play pro hockey.
That’s kind of how I think about it, if you are a super high-end player, it’s an interesting option but for most kids the NCAA seems like the better option. But everybody’s different. As far as building up the program at Mount, having already [built a strong program] at South Kent (Selects Academy), what are your short-to-long term goals for the operation?
Our short term goals kind of match the long term ones, we wanted to come here and build on the tradition that Mount-St. Charles already has -- what Coach Belisle, the Belisle family built here with all the [alumni] that have come through. Our focus coming here, obviously we did what we did at South Kent, we wanted to bring that over here, building a culture and the program with elite hockey players where academics are important, developing elite athletes and getting them ready for the next level, Division 1 and the NHL, top junior leagues…
Our vision has always been that we don’t want those guys to just go to those leagues, we want them to be prepared to have success in those leagues, be the top players. We’re seeing some of those results now as Chase Priskie was up for the Hobey Baker last year, Alex Limoges was one of the leading scorers in the country, Joel Farabee was a first round draft pick. Our mindset coming here was early on we wanted to be competitive right out of the gate and we felt with the resources we had here, the support of the school and the president, that that was very achievable along with the tradition and the alumni support here. Again, we just wanted to build on what’s already been built here.
Is it the same kind of set-up as South Kent where the players all board at the school and attend Mount St. Charles?
Yep. They all live here, there’s a brand new dorm on campus, our guys live here, go to school, play the full-time hockey. We have a strength coach Mike Macchioni who was with the Boston Bruins, Bryan Berard who played 600+ games, NHL rookie of the year, Masterton Trophy, first overall pick… he works with our teams, does skills stuff on Wednesdays along with Toby O’Brien who is an NHL scout and exec. He does Overspeed hockey. We want guys who have ambitions to get to the NHL, we want to have a model set up that we can help them get there. It’s a great spot, we have a lot of support here.
Mount has gone from a Rhode Island high school program to now investing heavily in the youth hockey side with this hockey academy. Is there still a Mount St. Charles varsity team? Also, what do you like about AAA versus high school, prep hockey, anything you would change, anything you think is particularly advantageous...
Yes, there is still a high school team here. There’s also the midget level (hockey academy). Second part is a tough question to answer, I think high school hockey has it’s spot, unfortunately there are [now] so many options out there between different junior leagues and prep schools, midget programs, that a lot of kids have left their towns to go play somewhere else. It’s affected high school hockey not only in Rhode Island but other areas as well. It’s slowly progressed, you used to see high school hockey as where the top players stayed and played… they’ve moved on from those places. It’s nothing that anyone has done, it’s just how hockey has changed. You know throughout the country… Minnesota seems to be the one area where high school hockey, they stay and play for their town. But the game’s changed. Obviously at the end of the day for us it’s about playing competitive hockey and at the midget level the league we’re in with the Northeast Pack you know I look at the MyHockeyRankings and we’ve got five of the top programs in the country in one (five-team) league. Then you’ve got the Beast league which is the top league out here, so I look at it as competition. You know, where are you gonna get great competition, that’s our focus, high school hockey has its place for certain guys, but what I love about what we’re doing is you can play in your own age group, have success and also get pushed.
It’s not a race, it’s a marathon to get there, you have a lot of great hockey minds saying the same thing. You look at what we’ve done, where we were (at South Kent), Shane Pinto played at his own birth year all the way up, taken in the 2nd round last year, Zac Jones played in his birth year all the way up, drafted to the Rangers, Ethan Phillips for the most part played in his birth year all the way up, fourth round pick to Detroit, so we haven’t seen guys not develop when they’ve stayed in their own age group. What you have seen is when guys rush, some guys will have success and are ready for it but there are a fair more that aren’t ready and don’t get to the place they want to be. I’ve never seen anyone that hasn’t rushed the process not have success. They’ve gotten better, they’ve developed and are ready for those next levels.
Do you have any take on high school versus prep, prep’s taken a lot of players from Rhode Island over the years. I thought it would have been interesting if Mount had considered trying to join the prep league, obviously you chose the AAA model…
I think even traditional prep schools, there are still some good hockey, good players out there, but the way sports have changed, it’s just the way it is. A three-four month season is tough to compete with the way the athlete prepares today. I was listening to a podcast today, Nathan MacKinnon on “Spittin Chiclets”, he was talking about how he has a sports psychologist, a nutritionist, they test his blood to see what diet is best for him to be the best player he can be… athletes, when they get to that high school age they are different than it was back ten, twenty, thirty years ago. Back when I was playing, with lifting and nutrition, it was part of it, but it wasn’t as focused as it is today. So it’s like you have to, if you want to be successful…
There’s good hockey players at traditional prep schools, and good coaches, we’re just different in the sense that we can start right away in September and have the specialized training, the on-ice, nutrition piece.
Totally get that, I asked you that because you did the switch at South Kent where they did play in the prep league and had a lot of success with the AAA model. The fact that kids have other commitments in the fall and the spring, I’m not against kids playing other sports but it’s kind of conflicting that they have to do so much for their school… if the school isn’t totally on board with hockey in this day and age, as a fifteen, sixteen, seventeen year-old… I do think it’s a disadvantage compared with what you are doing.
I agree, and I agree in the sense that kids should play other sports too, you know. There’s a time for that. It shouldn’t just be 12 months a year of hockey. You can still do that by coming in and starting hockey season in September through April. We have the spring and summer months, I’m a big believer as well that you should play other sports.
Wanted to talk about some of the players on your U16 team. Are there any players who you think have started the season strong?
Yeah, you know I love, love this group I have. Top to bottom, very deep, great character kids, they compete, a lot of the stuff I was just talking about, they’re focused and want to get to those next levels. They demand and push each other, the team just voted Kenny Connors captain, Jayden Sison, Anthony Cliche, Guillaume Richard, those are four right there that have really come right out of the gate and been leaders, competed… pushed to be really big players at the program. Tade Carman has been really strong in net -- and Tommy Heaney has too -- so we’ve got two good goalies pushing each other. On any given night there’s other guys who step up and do well. Ryan O’Connell’s got 11 goals for us. He’s been playing, you know, minimal roles throughout the year, which for him and a couple other guys with Zack Bolduc moving on, that gives them an opportunity. Jake Howard’s done really well on the back-end, Tyler DesRochers has just been called up again for some games in the USHL.
I just watched those games, he looked pretty good out there.
Yeah, that’s what we want to do right? We want to prepare those guys so when they jump in they’re ready. That’s our job, develop them, make them better players. Yeah, we want to win but as you’re developing players and getting them ready, you’re going to have success on the ice. What we’re able to do here, I’m able to come into my office and clip video, meet with the players, show video… today Bryan Berard came down, helped with the powerplay, you know with these players we just get a lot of time to work. As I touched on earlier in our conversation that’s just how the game’s changed. It’s just different. Training camps used to be a place to get in shape, now you need to be training all summer.
Three guys I was noticing a lot, well four, obviously Bolduc, but Kenny Connors (UMass), Tyler DesRochers (Providence) and Guillaume Richard (Maine). Could you talk a bit about them, what they bring to the team?
Yeah, Connors, plays hard. He’s got a scoring touch, he can make plays as well, but what’s special about him at this age level is how he can play all three zones, he’s committed to it, committed to getting better. That’s where you see him having success a long way down the road.
We’ve had a lot of elite D come through where we were [at South Kent], (Chase) Priskie, (Zac) Jones, Andrew Peeke, and I know I’m missing some guys, I look at Richard, DesRochers and they’re both in that class. DesRochers is an elite, smooth-skating defenseman with a lot of upside. Brings offense from the back-end, smart in all three zones, doesn’t get beat one-on-one… Guillaume Richard, he’s special. He sees the ice so well, he’s so smooth, his agility and balance are unbelievable. He’s going to be a big time player one day. You also see Richard off the ice… nutrition, watching what he eats, preparing well. When we’re on the road, he’s in bed before we do curfew checks, he’s getting his rest. When we talk about that next-level athlete, yeah, I wasn’t doing that at sixteen.
I don’t think a lot of kids were doing that at sixteen…
Exactly and the game’s changed now. That’s a big part where he’s going to have success down the road.
Well you don’t get that talented accidentally, you can tell he’s gifted but also takes care of the little things, even on the ice.
Yeah. Him and (Zack) Bolduc are good friends, they’re preparing well, they’ve learned how to train and be ready. That’s what we’re trying to instill here in most of our group, Zack Bolduc was an awesome kid which a lot of people might not know but being around him he was awesome, good teammate, that was probably the toughest part in losing Zack. We wish nothing but the best for him but again it’s also an opportunity… we’ve got a really good team, it’s an opportunity for other guys to shine in different areas. They can pick up opportunities they might not have had with Zack here.
Yeah I was looking at Bolduc’s early scoring numbers in the Quebec league, it looks like he stepped right in. Can’t really blame him for going when you see that.
No, like we told him, we want what’s best and if he’s ready, it would have obviously been great to have him for the full year but we’re here to support the players and help them get ready for those next levels. It was good to see him score right away and it looks like he’s going to have some success, and we’ll have a lot of players that will in this locker room. Guillaume will be ready to step right in to the USHL next year, along with other guys. So it will be exciting to see.
Thanks for reading and to Devin for taking the time to do this interview.