Role models share stories of success

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Ted Nolan has a favourite story about the Buffalo Sabres's Alexi Zhitnik asking Nolan, his coach, if he'd ever seen the movie Dances With Wolves. Nolan, an Ojibway from Ontario, said he had.

Do you know any medicine men, asked Zhitnik? Other teams have gurus and Buddhas and such to help them, so maybe the Sabres could get some help from Aboriginal spirits, suggested the Russian player.

Nolan figured, why not? He invited a friend, Jake, to a practice, and Jake showed up in full buckskin regalia (instead of his regular T-shirt and jeans) to perform a solemn cleansing ceremony. He even blessed one player's stick.

The player scored that night.

So the player shows up at Nolan's hotel room before the next game to see if Nolan knew any of that "medicine man magic." Nolan figured, why not? He blessed the stick.

The player scored again.

The next time someone knocked on Nolan's door before a game it was a couple of players. The Sabres won that game. Then four players - they're a superstitious lot - came to Nolan. Then more. And more.

Nolan decided to hold a grand ceremony one night, and he polished up his best Ojibway incantations. Unfortunately, he knows very little Ojibway. So when he chanted over the pile of hockey sticks that night, he was telling them, "Come in. Sit down. Have some tea." He ended grandly with a loud, "Shamnabush!"

Feed the dog.

Nonetheless, the Sabres pounded the Boston Bruins 7-2 that night.

"The crazy thing about this is we won 17 of our next 18 games," said Nolan. "I don't know if it was the medicine, but one thing I do know is ,it's the belief."

Ted Nolan, a former NHL player and Coach of the Year with the Sabres in 1997, was in La Ronge in February for a role model fair at Senator Myles Venne school and the grand opening of the Jonas Roberts Memorial Community Centre arena.

His core message was one of belief and confidence. He came from a poor family of 12 kids on the 400-person Garden River First Nation in Ontario. He was never a gifted player as a youth. He didn't play AAA or even AA. But somebody saw his determination, and asked the 16-year-old to come play in Kenora. His first couple of weeks were full of fights and doubts and fears. One of his brothers came to a game and afterwards offered to take Nolan home. He desperately wanted to, but for a crucial few minutes, he resisted. It was a turning point.

"If I would have quit then, the next tough situation in my life, I would probably quit again," he recalled.

He played pro hockey for eight years with the likes of Steve Yzerman and Mario Lemieux, and then at age 25, retired to attend university, but the major junior Soo Greyhounds soon invited him to coach. They finished last that season. The next year, they finished last again.

But Nolan persevered, studying other coaches, and he came across some wisdom from Ray Shero, son of Philadelphia coach Fred Shero.

"You have to learn to win with what you've got, or you don't win at all."

The Greyhounds went on to win three OHL titles and a national championship.

Today, Nolan is a motivational speaker and a television host. Long ago, he left behind any self-pity over the obstacles he had to face. He remembers his son asking what kind of player he had been in the NHL. Well, he replied, he didn't have a great shot, he wasn't fast, and he wasn't a big physical player, either.

His son looked at him and asked, how did you ever make it?

Replied Nolan, "I made it because I believed I could."