The genesis of Jamie Keeley’s minor hockey coaching journey was about as
Canadian as it gets – just a parent wanting to enjoy the hockey experience
with their child.
“It was seeing my son on the ice and just having that want and desire to be
out there with him and experience what he was experiencing, helping him
learn,” she says.
That was almost six years ago.
Today, Keeley is the national
BFL CANADA Women in Coaching Award recipient in the Community category, and the creator of a thriving coach
development program with the
Knights Hockey Club in Calgary.
“I think it’s important for women to realize that they have so much to offer
and that what they have to offer is recognized and is appreciated,” Keeley
says of the BFL CANADA honour. “This award gives that; it brings light to
[the fact] that we can do this. We’re here now, and let’s keep blazing
trails and breaking ceilings and all of those amazing things.”
A ringette player growing up who dabbled in hockey when the boys’ team in
her northern Saskatchewan community needed bodies to fill out the lineup,
Keeley had never given much thought to coaching until her son got into the
game at the Timbits U7 level in the fall of 2018.
When she wasn’t selected to coach the following season in U9, her attention
turned back to her first athletic love and she joined the
Bow View Ringette Association, working as an assistant coach and head coach at U10 and U12.
“[It was about] learning and gaining the confidence that I needed to step
back into hockey and make a difference,” she says of her three years with
Bow View.
The word that continually comes up is process – Keeley spent those seasons
observing other coaches, ensuring she was surrounded by the right people,
building her coaching support system, filling her toolbox and learning how
to be a coach in the competitive space.
One of her biggest takeaways? No one does it alone.
“What I believe makes the most successful coach is to surround themselves
with people for the skills that they don’t currently have,” Keeley says.
“And so for me, I always make sure that I have a very, very rounded team of
people that can offset the skills that I don’t have, that I can learn from.”
When the 2022-23 hockey season rolled around, Keeley was ready to get back
behind the bench with her son at the U11 level.
But she didn’t come back to hockey empty-handed. In addition to the skills
she had learned with Bow View, Keeley came armed with a proposal for a coach
development program targeted at women.
“The program was not so much about giving women all the tools they needed to
be a coach,” she says. “It starts with having the confidence to put up their
hand and say, ‘Yeah, I have something to offer.’ It was really about just
helping the ladies to make that decision to put up their hand and to help
them have that confidence to step on the ice.
“One of the objectives was to make sure that we had strong female leadership
to keep girls in sport, because that’s important. What if we have strong
leadership from the same gender on the ice? Would that make a difference?
Would girls want to stay [involved in hockey] if they saw strong female
coaches on the ice?”
The association was quick to jump at the proposal, and Keeley was off and
running.
“Where we started was I held one on-ice session to begin with, and we had 12
ladies that put up their hand and came out,” she says. “And really what it
was about more than anything was just to see what this program was all
about.
“I had an hour-and-a-half ice time, and I think we spent 20 minutes on the
ice. What we spent more time doing was talking about if this was the right
fit for them, if they had the confidence to put their skates on and what
this was going to look like if they actually got selected to be on the ice
with their kid. It was amazing to hear females talk about challenges and
obstacles and barriers, and me as a part of launching this program, being
able to provide that space to have those open and honest conversations that
they wouldn’t have anywhere else.”
What was originally meant to be a local program for women in the Knights
program rapidly turned into something much bigger, much to Keeley’s delight.
Next was a training course, with the help of
Hockey Alberta – the province’s first women-only Coach 2 clinic.
“At first, I was just opening it to the [local] group that had shown
interest. Then we decided to open up to all of Alberta. And so on a very
snowy November day, we had 24 females sitting in a room from across Alberta.
We did the four-hour classroom, and then the next day we met for another
seven [hours].
“That’s where the network started. A lot of us still keep in contact, and we
send out emails to each other, and when there is an event happening for all
female coaches, we make sure that we share and attend.”
In that first season, nine women were behind the bench with the Knights
Hockey Club. During the 2023-24 season, that number grew to 14 – two as head
coaches and 12 as assistants.
Keeley hosted a start-of-season meeting in September to teach coaches how to
prepare a season plan and build practice plans, and had regular check-ins
with every coach involved in the program, working through any challenges
they were facing and ensuring they were getting what they needed from the
experience.
She also continues to work closely with
Hockey Calgary, participating in ongoing opportunities for women in coaching, including
on- and off-ice development sessions.
But her No. 1 role is still being a mom, and there are few things that give
her more joy than sharing hockey with her son. This season, Keeley led the
U13 Tier 4 team.
“I always ask if he wants me to coach,” she says of her son. “And that even
existed when I went and coached ringette because, of course, I wasn’t with
him. I was always a non-parent coach in ringette, and I would ask him every
season, ‘Are you okay if I do this?’
“When I coached the U12 AA team [in the spring of 2022], I was away quite a
bit. We were on the ice five times a week. That was the first time he ever
said to me, ‘Mom, I miss you. Can you come coach me?’
“We’re just in the midst of filling out our application for this upcoming
season, which is his second year of U13. And he said, ‘Mom, are you going to
coach again?’ I said, ‘Do you want me to?’ He said, ‘As long as you want
to.’ So yes, I’m going to apply to be a coach again.”
That’s a lucky son, and a lucky association that gets to benefit from what
Keeley has to offer.
But ask her, and she’ll tell you just the opposite – that she’s the lucky
one, benefitting from what the players can offer her.
“I have had some really amazing experiences both on and off the ice, just
learning from these players. The amount, if you sit back and you listen,
that you can learn is just unbelievable, and they always make you smile.”