(Taken from the Notre Dame Hounds chapter of ‘the Heart and Soul of the SJHL’ book, by Jamie Neugebauer. Book compiled by Rod Pedersen)
Barry MacKenzie’s impact on hockey stretches far beyond the bald prairies of southern Saskatchewan, and his exploits on the ice and the bench are well documented.
A disciple of Father David Bauer, the legendary Priest and Hockey Hall of Famer to whom the notion of unified Team Canada competing at international hockey events can be credited, MacKenzie played in two Olympic Games and three International Ice Hockey Federation World Championships.
As a not-flashy-yet-rock-solid defenceman, the Toronto native saw action in six National Hockey League games in the 1968-69 campaign with the Minnesota North Stars. However, he did not see a long professional career in his future and retired from playing the game after another brief stint with the Canadian National Team in 1969.
His loss of a playing career would be Notre Dame’s gain.
After working as a player-coach in Japanese hockey between 1975 and 1978, he returned to Canada. He showed up at the door of Notre Dame President Martin Kenney and his old friend and ex-teammate under Bauer, Terry O’Malley.
Mackenzie’s arrival in Wilcox coincided with the school’s long, hard look in the mirror, both financially and institutionally, spurred by the passing of Pere Murray.
As ND alumnus Jack Gorman writes in his authoritative account of the history of Pere Murray’s impact on the school, “Mortality limits the productivity of great men, but the creations of great men will succeed them into the distant generations…
“Athol Murray, by any measurement standard, was larger than life. His existence was legendary. But his principal legacy, the Athol Murray College of Notre Dame, has taken on a life of its own and continues to grow and thrive from the indestructible base established by its founder.
“When Athol died, on December 15th, 1975, Notre Dame came precariously close to dying with him. The idea was there, the philosophical underpinnings were there, a time-worn and tattered physical plant was there, and several men and women, strong and true, determined to make it survive, were there.” (Pere Murray and the Hounds, Gorman, 159)
Mackenzie was just such a man.
He worked at the school and transformed the High School hockey program into a powerhouse in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, culminating in that loaded 1987 club mentioned in the previous section.
Brind’Amour, not a man given to superlatives, is not restrained in his description of his old coach.
“He is the best coach that has never coached in the NHL,” he says.
“If you look at the players and people that have come through him at a developmental time in their lives, so many have gone on to be great hockey players. It isn’t just the skills and talent he’s teaching you; he was all about teaching you how to fight through tough times and be tough mentally and physically.
“He was simply the best coach I’ve ever been around, and honestly, it would be tough to say who No. 2 is,” Brind ‘ Amour continues.
“He hasn’t gotten anywhere near the amount of credit he deserves regarding developing young hockey players, getting them to the next level, and I just don’t know how someone could be better at it. You talk to anyone fortunate enough to have him coach them, and they’d say the same thing – I was just fortunate that I had him for three years.”
The 1988-89 season had big shoes to fill, and led by MacKenzie, and future NHL veterans Kent Manderville and Dave Karpa, the club took 44 wins from 64 games. However, the repeat Saskatchewan and Canadian championship was not to be, as the team, stripped of so many stars from the previous campaign, fell in Round 2 in a six-game battle with the Nipawin Hawks.
MacKenzie coached the Notre Dame Junior ‘A’s in the SJHL until the 1993-94 season, developing at ND future professionals and NHL draft picks such as Brian Loney (Vancouver Canucks), Steve McKenna (Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota Wild, Pittsburgh Penguins, New York Rangers), and Derek Bekar (St. Louis Blues, Los Angeles Kings, New York Islanders. He coached current University of Massachusetts at Lowell bench boss Norm Bazin on the 89-90 Hounds Junior ‘A’.
That last campaign under the Torontonian, who had decided to step back and focus on his roles as school President and Principal, was backstopped by a brilliant Finnish goaltender named Markus Korhonen, who went on to play 15 seasons in the top leagues in Europe (Finland, Sweden, and Russia), and featured an upset of the Estevan Bruins in the first round. It ended in a five-game battle with a powerhouse Weyburn Red Wings squad, the eventual SJHL champions.
Yet MacKenzie’s legacy, and how he saw the game and life, will never be forgotten by those who play and work for Notre Dame’s Junior ‘A’ club.
“We wanted to be disciplined,” MacKenzie says.
“So, I think that as much as anything, I always taught my teams about being a very focussed group that played with discipline, with confidence in the things you want to carry on in life after sport. Hockey is a great teacher of how to live your life if you do it right.”
Barry worked at Notre Dame until 2000, when he accepted a player development position with the NHL’s Minnesota Wild.
