Pat Peake talks about taking over coaching duties for Firebirds

By @MichaelCaples –

FLINT – Heading into their Thursday night game with the Erie Otters, there were question marks surrounding the Flint Firebirds.

The two most prominent? Whether the team would show up for the game, and who would be behind the bench to lead them.

The game started on schedule tonight, and just before the national anthems began, Pat Peake and Joe Stefan stepped behind the Firebirds’ players to officially begin coaching the team.

Stefan has had coaching added to his responsibilities as assistant GM of the Firebirds’ squad; he had worked as an associate head coach for the Plymouth Whalers from 2007-14 before taking a front-office position when the team moved to Flint.

Peake, who played for the organization when they were known as the Detroit Ambassadors and the Detroit Jr. Red Wings, was brought in by OHL commissioner David Branch in an emergency coaching role today.

“Commissioner Branch called me this afternoon, said we need your support back here – obviously the franchise I used to play with,” Peake said before the game. “He and I have been in touch with each other over the years, and he was pretty close with my father. He said we have a little situation, would you be willing to help us out on behalf of the Ontario Hockey League, the great league it is. I said sure.”

The Firebirds are in this coaching predicament after owner Rolf Nilsen fired coaches John Gruden and Dave Karpa for the second time this season yesterday. Since the firings, the OHL has suspended Nielsen and Sergei Kharin, who had originally been tabbed as the interim head coach.

Peake said it was a tough spot for the players to be put in once again, after they already experienced a strange coaching firing once this season (Gruden and Karpa were fired but then reinstated a day later in November).

“That’s a terrible thing. You know, we just had a meeting, we were over at the hotel, they had a meeting at 5 o’clock, and for a kid to get focused like that, it’s tough,” Peake said. “It’s got to be the hardest thing in the world for these kids. Nobody deserves that. They just want to play hockey. They’re young kids, they love the game, they have a passion for the game. We have to make it fun and we have to get them in the right direction.”

Peake said that the players were going through a variety of emotions before the game.

“A little confused, a little kind of ‘what’s going on?’ or ‘here we go again’ so to speak, if you will, and I think a little frustrated,” he said. “At the end of the day, you get them here, you get them in the room, and hopefully we can get their mind set on hockey and have some fun.”

Will Peake stick around for more than just a one-game emergency role?

“That’s the million-dollar question,” he said. “I don’t know at this point. Everything is kind of up in the air right now.”