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Hockey Canada CEO talks keeping Canada's game healthy

With more than 500 games of NHL head coaching experience on his resumé, Tom Renney might not have seemed like an obvious candidate to replace long-time Hockey Canada CEO Bob Nicholson, when the latter undertook the challenging task of helping to rebu
With more than 500 games of NHL head coaching experience on his resumé, Tom Renney might not have seemed like an obvious candidate to replace long-time Hockey Canada CEO Bob Nicholson, when the latter undertook the challenging task of helping to rebuild the Edmonton Oilers one year ago.

For Renney, however, the move made perfectly good sense.

"You get to a certain point in your life where you have a certain amount of runway left," said the 60-year-old native of Cranbrook, B.C. "I'm probably more philanthropic than ever before, and with that, when Bob was leaving, it became very appealing to me to have a look at this and see if I might be able to get the opportunity."

Renney still holds the junior hockey record for highest career winning percentage as a coach, winning at more than a .720 clip with the Kamloops Blazers back from 1990-1992.

Though Hockey Canada often becomes a lightning rod for criticism in a country where the sport cuts such a large piece of cloth in the social fabric of the land, Renney insists that it is easy to forego the positive.

"I want to make sure that people around this country, and around the world, understand that we have an awful lot to be proud of with the game of hockey," he said.

Not that challenges are non-existent, he added.

"There's the obvious priorities, in making sure that kids actually register in hockey and get the chance to play," Renney said.

And for those who do play, especially at a competitive level, there's the need to gain perspective, something too easily lost when hundreds of youngsters now lace up 12 months a year.

"I think that taking a break and doing something else is vital," said Renney. "I think that multi-sport participation is huge. It can't just be hockey that delivers us an outstanding person at the end of the day. We're almost too specialized."

And as the high school hockey ranks in Ontario grapple with the notion of removing body checking from their game, Renney knows the debate will continue as to the proper age to introduce that skill, with most provinces falling in line with the notion that the bantam age provides the most appropriate level.

"My mindset is that we probably focus too much on competitive hockey, win-at-all-cost hockey, at too young an age, at the expense of skill development, which also involves checking and checking skills," said Renney.

"The current introduction of checking at the bantam age makes sense to me, provided that we have taught the skills of checking prior to that, both how to take a man out, within the rules of the game, and how to accept that play defensively."

Tom Renney was in Sudbury last week, along with Hockey Canada chair Joe Drago, for a fundraising dinner on behalf of the House of Kin Sudbury Sports Hall of Fame.

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