Coach Smith enjoys "great" return to the OHL

BRAMPTON, Ont. – Nearly 20 years after he left junior hockey for the professional ranks, Battalion assistant coach Derrick Smith says his return to the OHL has been "great".
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Smith, who is guiding the Troops while Head Coach Stan Butler is coaching the Canadian Junior Team, joined the Battalion in August after former assistant Bobby Jones left to take a position with the St. Michael´s Majors. At the end of his playing career, Smith, who scored 174 points (82 goals, 92 assists) in 537 NHL games, had been a player-coach with the Kalamazoo K-Wings of the International Hockey League.
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"He was basically the captain and player coach for the last four years in Kalamazoo," said Stan Butler shortly after Smith came on board. "He played in the NHL as an 18-year-old and he came highly recommended by Mike Keenan, Andy Murray and Ken Hitchcock, and that´s good enough for me.
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"We´re both Wexford guys," added Coach Butler, "and while we didn´t know each other that well, we certainly knew of each other."
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When he was asked by Butler to join the Battalion organization, Smith said he was "ecstatic. I´ve been trying to get into the league for two years and he gave me a chance and I am very thankful for that and I´m hoping I can do my best here.
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"As a player-coach I helped out a lot in practice in Kalamazoo," continued Smith, who turned 35 in January, "and when I was injured or unable to play I would be behind the bench so I have had some experience doing that. But I´ve learned so much here. I used to think coaching was easy until I got into it. I´m just lucky to have a guy like Stan Butler teaching me because he´s such a great teacher."
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Smith, who played two years with the Peterborough Petes before being drafted in the third round (44th overall) of the 1983 NHL Entry Draft by the Philadelphia Flyers, noted that in his new job behind the bench, "there´s so much line matching and scouting and pre-game preparation to be done and there´s a lot of paperwork to be done too. There´s a lot I took for granted as a player that I didn´t realize you had to do as a coach."
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Smith´s coach in Peterborough was Dick Todd, who guided the Petes for more than a decade before heading to the NHL, and in the pros he played for such notable coaches as Mike Keenan and Ken Hitchcock.
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"I played for some good coaches," acknowledged Smith, "but you only see what they do in the dressing room and on the bench so you don´t see what they do behind the scenes. Working with Stan has opened my eyes to what goes on behind the scenes and it’s a lot more complicated than I thought it was."
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During his days in Peterborough, where he scored 101 points in 140 games, Smith played with several future NHLers, including Steve Yzerman, Kris King, Bob Errey and Randy Burridge, but when asked how the OHL has changed since he played, Smith laughed and said, "it was so long ago I don´t even remember. I don´t think it has changed a whole lot except the size of the players. Today the players are all a lot bigger and stronger than they were when I played. When I played I only weighed 180 – and I weigh 230 now – so I was a lot smaller then. Look at our defence, I think our smallest guy is 6´2".
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Since assuming control of the team on December 11, Smith has guided the Troops to a 1-2 record, with two one-goal losses in Peterborough and Guelph and a gutsy win last Sunday at home against Sudbury on his ledger. Smith was also behind the bench for the team´s first two games of the season, a win and a tie against the Mississauga IceDogs as Coach Butler was serving a suspension.
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Smith was at a loss when trying to explain how his coaching style differs from Stan Butler´s. "Obviously we are two different people with different coaching methods, but I don´t really know how to explain the difference. I try to keep everything really upbeat on the bench and while Stan does that too, we just have different methods of doing things."
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