Long career missing just one thing

By Dave Pollard, Guelphstorm.com exclusive

Russ Hammond has seen plenty of coaches come and go with the Guelph Storm.
But he’s never been responsible for one of them losing their job with the Ontario Hockey League team.

“Not even Bill LaForge,” a laughing Hammond said, referring to the Storm’s coach at the end of their first, inauspicious season in the Royal City when they won a mere four games.

Actually, LaForge’s reign with the Storm pre-dated Hammond, the Storm’s equipment manager since the 1996-97 season, by a few years. But Hammond, known to fans and players alike as Rusty (his nickname), has been a fixture with the Storm ever since.

It’s been quite the run for one of the OHL’s longest-serving team employees, a stretch that covers somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1,100 games and more hours in arena dressing rooms than even he cares to admit. He reached the magical 1,000-game plateau early in the 2007-08 season.

“I keep asking myself now that I’m getting older why I keep doing it,” Hammond said with a chuckle. “But as anybody who works in sport will tell you, it’s not like a job when you’re getting paid to do something most people would kill to do. It’s been a pretty good career except I haven’t won the Memorial Cup. We (the support staff) are not out there playing the games but we want to win a Cup, believe me. That would cap off one hell of a career in sport in the city of Guelph. I truly want to win a Memorial Cup. I thought by now I’d have one with the Guelph Storm but sometimes those things don’t work out. I’m confident if I give it a few more years it might happen. I was pretty close (before).”

Hammond and the Storm have been close to winning junior hockey’s holy grail on four occasions — Memorial Cup appearances came in 2004 (Kelowna), 2002 (Guelph), 1998 (Spokane, Wash.) and 1996 (Peterborough) — but have never won it in their 20-year history here. The closest the Storm came was an overtime loss to the Portland Winter Hawks in ’98.

Despite that, Hammond has two OHL championship rings that he’s extremely proud of. But nobody, not even Hammond, will define his time with the Storm by the number of championships the team has won.

What Hammond means to the Storm goes much deeper than wins and losses, which are completely out of his control anyway.

“He has a passion for the game, a passion for the Guelph Storm,” head coach and general manager Jason Brooks said. “He, like all of us, wants to win a championship. That’s his goal, to see us do that. He does everything with a pride and determination. If our kids worked as hard as he does, we’d be laughing. But that’s just him and his professionalism.
“hat’s why it’s great for me to work with a guy like that. That professionalism rubs off on everyone.”

Consider this: Hammond, who isn’t as young as he once was (he won’t talk about his age, though), still gets to the Sleeman Centre at 7:30 every morning during the hockey season. Every day. And he usually doesn’t walk through the door at home until 7:30 p.m.
That’s a pretty full day for anyone. Try doing that for 15 years.

“You can’t look at the hours in this business,” said Hammond, who is quick to credit the young volunteers who help him at practices and games. “If you’re worried about that, you shouldn’t be in this business. But I enjoy my time off, too.”

The long journey began for Hammond when he was a teenage hockey player trying to make the local junior C team, the Beef Kings. When one door closed, another opened.

“Rusty wasn’t quite good enough to make it,” Hammond said. “I went to Lou (Embro) and said I’d be their equipment guy. All my friends were on the team and I wanted to hang out with them. (Working with the team) I could do that.”

After graduating high school, Hammond travelled to Tulsa, Okla. for a short stint with the minor pro team there. He met Bill Flett, still a friend, while working in Tulsa.

Around the same time, the expansion Los Angeles Kings held their first ever training camp in Guelph. Hammond’s father, who was part of the ownership group of the Guelph Regals senior A team, knew Kings owner Jack Kent Cooke. Young Russ helped out with the Kings during their camp, hooking up with the likes of Flett and Hockey Hall of Famer Brian Kilrea.

In the 1970’s, Hammond started working with the Guelph junior B team, a relationship that would lead him to the Storm years later.

“The person I can thank most is (former Storm general manager) Mike Kelly for bringing me on,” Hammond said, adding that his job in the family business (Hammond Mechanical) allowed him to take time off to work with hockey teams. “My dad and brother thought I was nuts. Back then the money was slim to none and slim had left town.”

Still, Hammond stuck with it and has become one of the most respected equipment managers in junior hockey.

In 2002, he was part of the training staff with the Canadian under-18 team that won the gold medal at the World Championships in the Czech Republic. Two years later, he worked with the Canadian team that took the silver medal in the World Junior Championships in Helsinki, a team that included the likes of Marc-Andre Fleury, Dion Phaneuf, Brent Seabrooke, Mike Richards, Ryan Getzlaf, Jeff Carter and a 16-year-old Sidney Crosby.

“(OHL commissioner) Dave Branch had a lot to do with me going the first time with Team Canada,” he said. “It’s because of the OHL that I’ve been able to do these things. I worked hard at it and Hockey Canada recognized it. It’s one of the proudest things in my whole career. I’m very proud of it.”

Hammond has also been part of OHL All-Star games, Prospect Games — if Don Cherry is involved, Hammond will be nearby — and the first Canada-Russia junior series.

He can also include countless friendships with former Storm players as a defining part of his career. He remains in contact with many of them, including a number who have long been retired from hockey, and has watched as they grow from cocky teenagers to responsible parents.

But, Hammond says, the game is changing and he doesn’t expect to be around for too much longer.

“I’ve had to change, I’ve had to be more laid back,” he said. “They all still lace their skates the same way, that hasn’t changed. The kids have changed. Over the last 15 years, they’ve changed quite a bit. Back then kids didn’t have agents, not like they do now. You have to step back and say ‘It is what it is.’ But I’ve made a ton of friends and that’s a testament to the kids. I have memories that are just great.”