Nothing surprises Ravens women’s hockey head coach Pierre Alain on the ice anymore—he said he’s seen it all.
As a boy, he said he sat in the stands of the long-demolished Montreal Forum on New Year’s Eve 1975, falling in love with his hometown Montreal Canadiens as they battled the mysterious Soviet Red Army in a game that would go down in hockey history.
As a playmaking forward, he spent a season at a Division III school in New York State before returning home and playing for Lachute in the Quebec senior league.
Finally, a 1984 move into coaching: a prestigious Boys Midget AAA job in the early-90s, five CÉGEP women’s league championships with his alma mater Saint-Jerome, multiple positions with Hockey Canada, and now, his current post at Carleton.
“I’ve been around hockey for a long time,” Alain said. “I remember for Christmas, my brother and I used to get trains—we were shooting them [with a hockey stick] and we just played hockey with everything we had.”
For the Alain family, like many in Quebec in the 60s and 70s, hockey was synonymous with the Habs, and both were similar to religion.
“The outdoor rink was across the street,” Alain said with a smile. A Montreal native, his family would gather around the radio, and later television, every game night to follow Les Canadiens. “I remember my mom would open the window and yell, ‘it’s 1 a.m., get off the rink and come home.’ It truly was a family affair.”
After returning home from a shortened college career in the United States, Alain suited up for Lachute on the old Quebec senior circuit. By then, his young family and a good job away from the rink had soured him on the idea of playing for gas money.
“I played a season and then quit because I was not that crazy,” Alain said with a laugh “I was a teacher with a young family—one night I was in the penalty box, and I asked myself, ‘Why am I here? You’re working tomorrow morning!’”
His first coaching gig came with CÉGEP Montmorency in 1984, when he began coaching with longtime La Presse reporter Pierre Ladouceur. Alain quickly progressed through the coaching ranks while holding down a job as a sports psychology teacher.
The list of names to have been coached and/or taught by Alain are impressive: long-time NHLer Francis Bouillon, Canadian women’s national team star Marie-Philip Poulin, and current Blue Jays catcher Russell Martin, just to name a few.
Experience is what Alain brings to the table in his second season directing Carleton through a challenging rebuild. This would not be his first experience building a program from scratch, as he crafted Saint-Jerome’s team into a CÉGEP powerhouse in four years. Creating experience in the form of mentors and connections in high places in the women’s hockey world, and sheer experience in the number of years he has spent behind the bench of a wide array of teams are assets to his coaching ability.
“You need to know what’s ahead. I’ve been there, I’ve built programs from scratch,” Alain said, a former head coach with Canada’s Under-22 team. “I’m 53 and I’ve been coaching in this game for 30 years.”
Though he knew what he was inheriting when he accepted the Carleton job, a floundering program with no recruiting footprint to speak of, Alain jumped at the opportunity.
“I got the call a year and a half ago [June 2014]. I was still working at the high school and human resources called me and said, ‘congrats you got the job,’” Alain said.
Alain left his job as a high school teacher after 25 years to pursue his coaching career full-time.Which brings us to Friday night, on a bench in Montreal.
Though the rookie-laden Ravens got pummelled 7-1 on Jan 18 by the top-ranked Montreal Carabins. Alain’s rebuild is actually working. The team has matched its win total from 2014-15 in the first half of 2015-16, three of the team’s top five scorers are first-years, and the Ravens trail Concordia by a single point for the final playoff spot in the conference.
“It’s not easy because you know that it’s going to be rough at first, especially in this division,” Alain said, whose record behind the Ravens bench sits at an unsavoury 6-25. “But I told my players, ‘look at Montreal, look at McGill—this is where we’re going, step-by-step.’ ”
Despite some lopsided score lines, the fruits of his labour are beginning to show. With three more meetings against Concordia, the Ravens control their own playoff destiny. The team will have the option to return every single player on its roster in 2016-17.
Most importantly, the combination of contributing young talent and a coach who knows with a lifetime of experience and success has set the Ravens on an upward trajectory.
“We are going to make nationals and eventually, we will win nationals,” Alain said.
