News - Columnists - Kate Magandy

Sunday, Nov. 30, 2008

Another Boudreau skates onto Coast

Bruce Boudreau was more than just a hockey coach who won a league championship while he was behind the bench in Biloxi.

The man known as "Gabby" became a friend and a member of the community who has not been forgotten in the years since he left to advance his career.

We know he skates through town occasionally during the offseason to get in a few rounds of golf with friends, and his influence is still felt at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. When Boudreau arrived on the Coast, he came to bring the game he loved to a place where ice and snow are an anomaly, not signals that hockey season is on the way.

But this week another Boudreau came into town with hockey on his mind.

Ben, Bruce's eldest son, skated into the Coliseum with the South Carolina Stingrays for his first foray into East Coast Hockey League play. The center - like his dad - was on the wing, but he said playing in the arena where his father is so well known made his debut a little easier.

"The biggest thing is that it's always tough for a new guy to get situated in a new place because they don't know anybody," Ben Boudreau said. "But I was fortunate that I went to camp in Hershey (Pa.), where I knew some guys and then came in here. I actually had some people outside the doors waiting to shake my hand.

"For a guy in a first-time situation, it was a most comfortable transition. It was very easy."

Not that Boudreau expects an easy ride in the ECHL. Watching his father work his way up the coaching ranks - and even play when he was very young - reminds him nothing comes easily.

And Boudreau is coming in after a few years off the ice. He went to school to major in television and film at Loyalist College in Ontario, where there is no hockey.

"It was blast doing that stuff and I was nominated for an award for a video I directed for a band called 'Hello Beautiful,'

" he said.

And as much as he loved working in television and film, hockey called him back. Boudreau said he'd like to keep playing or maybe even follow his father into coaching - but he's realistic about a future in pro sports.

"I'd love it, but not everything works out the way you want," he said. "The degree is a just-in-case kind of thing."

Boudreau said it's one thing to have a father who's there for you, but it's a tremendous asset for him to be a coach.

"And it's a cool thing, too, to be within the organization (the Stingrays are affiliated with his father's Washington Capitals team), because I know he's not just looking at me. Maybe it's just in my head, but I'd love to be seen as similar to him. I think I've got the confidence and we're similar size-wise.

"He was a really smart hockey player and I think of myself as a smart hockey player."

But for now, he's enjoying the playing time and being a Stingray. With his position being center, like that of his father, it's natural that you look for other similarities.

Ben sees them. His father's last games were with the Fort Wayne Komets, and that was the opponent in Ben's second pro game when he was with the Flint Generals in the IHL.

"I started against Fort Wayne in front of 11,000 people," he said. "I was 6, 7, 8 years old the last time my dad played there.

"And then my first three games in the ECHL, I play where my dad won the league title and made a lot of friends. That's a lot of experience for a player in his first quarter of a season."