You could say that Avon Old Farms coach John Gardner has been around the game for a while.
Gardner, 67, has been coaching at Avon Old Farms since the 1975-76 season, when he took over a developing team and turned it into a perennial contender in New England prep hockey.
After starting in March 1975, he took on coaching the baseball team, having been a former college player. During his early days at Avon, he also coached the football team, having playing experience there as well. But his greatest success has come as a coach and builder of the hockey program. A former goaltender with Weslyan, as a coach Gardner has won eight New England Division 1 championships and nine Founders League championships, all since 1989. His 700th win as a prep coach came in January 2015, and he's now at 785.
Gardner has produced good players, too. He's coached future Conn Smythe (and Stanley Cup) winners Brian Leetch and Jonathan Quick, plus other Stanley Cup winners such as Nick Bonino and Ben Smith.
This year's Winged Beavers are off to a flying 11-1 start and are considered one of the top teams in New England. We recently sat down with Gardner to tap into that vast knowledge level of his.
1. What is the most important character trait that you look for in a player?
Character trait? Usually you don’t get that right away because usually you look at his ability and see how he skates, and see how he plays. I like to look a kid in the eye and talk to him, and what I’m looking for is somebody who’s honest, enthusiastic and really wants to come to Avon. I’m pretty good at this, I’ve had a lot of experience, and I can sort of tell what kids … I usually know right away what kids I don’t want to recruit, if you know what I’m saying, when I talk to them.
And also, I don’t want to say this the wrong way, but you look at the mom and the dad, you try to figure out — the apple doesn’t always fall that far from the tree, so you try to do your homework in that respect because you don’t want to have problems on your team. With that said, there’s always problems.
 2. What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned after all these years at Avon Old Farms?
Hah! Never, ever give somebody something that isn’t there. One year I had this kid who will go unnamed, and he was a really good hockey player, and I recruited him. He was a UMass recruit and he came, and he goes, "Coach, can I have number 67?" And I said, "We don’t have 67." I had 1 through 35 or whatever. "Oh, 67 is my number." You know what, I’m willing to try something anytime.
So, (the player gets) 67, he was a selfish s.o.b., by the end of the year I wasn’t playing him, I didn’t want him to come on the ice. He wound up going eventually to UMass and after a year they were done with him as well. I made a mistake by giving him 67 instead of saying, "Nope, these are our numbers."
And the second-worst mistake I made was trying to make our coaching staff diverse. We had this female hockey coach, she had coached in college, and she and her husband were hired to work here and she wanted to coach up at the varsity with me and so I said, "Yeah, of course she can do that," and put her on the varsity staff. Worst thing I ever did.
Why? Because she was a horrible coach, she was somebody who would pop in 10 minutes before practice and go, "I want some input for practice." I said, "Email me or let me know what you want." I do the practice plan every day but I don’t do it 10 minutes before we go out on the ice, it’s done in the morning. Having her on the team, she was just bad, she was bad for morale.
After a while I actually left her one time. We’re playing Deerfield and I said, "We’re leaving at 1 o’clock, bus leaves at 1 o’clock for the game." Everyone goes to the bus, we’re all loaded up, it’s 1:01, and I said, "Go." The kids say, "Coach, so-and-so coach isn’t here." I said, "Doesn’t matter." And they were like, "Yes!" She was late and then she was very upset that I left her and I said, "Hey, get to the bus on time." She lasted one year.
3. What advice would you give a player who is considering options for their career? Why pick prep school over something else?
I tell them, "You’re going to get a great education, you’re going to be playing in a top-flight facility, you’re going to play against great competition and we’re going to make you a better hockey player if you work at it. And we’re going to give you all the opportunities in the world to succeed. I think I can tell you that the coaching staff we have here is outstanding, you’re not going to find a better coaching staff anywhere and we care about you."
And the other thing I sell is the all-boys school thing. You can focus on hockey, you don’t have the daily distraction of girls, which for teenage boys, it’s a tough thing for them to handle. It’s tough to go to a co-ed boarding school and have a girlfriend. It’s like being married: it’s hard (stuff). I couldn’t imagine doing it.
 4. I usually ask here about your aspiration in hockey, but seeing as you’ve been here for a while, I’ll change that and ask: Why are you still here? You've had other opportunities.
I like what I do. It’s a great lifestyle. You built a program here and you're proud of what it is. I want the kids that represent Avon to be good kids and I want to teach them life lessons. I really enjoy it. I mean, it’s fun, this is the highlight of my day, coming over here (to the rink) and interacting with these kids. I have really good kids this year, I have really great leadership, so it’s a lot of fun coming over here.
It’s part of their education; it’s not just hockey, you teach them life lessons. I like to think we do a pretty good job of that, teaching them responsibility, develop a good work ethic, those are all important. There are a lot of lessons to be learned. I think we do a good job of that. I enjoy doing that. There are parts of the job you don’t enjoy. For the most part, it’s fun.
 5. Who’s the team to beat in prep hockey this year? (You can’t say Avon Old Farms.)
Team to beat is the team that’s won the last two frickin’ years: KUA. I mean, it’s been KUA and Salisbury down to the final game. And I think both of those schools are very good again this year. Even though Salisbury lost a lot of kids, they replaced them. Their schools have made a huge commitment to hockey, and I don’t want to say this the wrong way, but sometimes they’re fishing from a different pond than everyone else is. That's all I'll say.
Paul Grant is an editor and writer for HockeyJournal.com and Seamans Media. He previously oversaw hockey content at ESPN.com and Sporting News. You can connect with him at pgrant@hockeyjournal.com.
