Schneider prepares for next chapter

As a coach, Ken Schneider never forgot the humanity of the young players on his teams.

The Regina Pats assistant coach, who told the Western Hockey League club at Christmas he was retiring after the season, appreciated the relationships with his fellow coaches and other team staff, but it’s the players who had a special place in his heart.

“That’s something I’ve appreciated my entire life in hockey as a coach, building those positive relationships with players and being there and being available to them,” said Schneider, who turns 65 next month.

“Probably in the last couple in particular, I would have been considered the grandfather to the group, and often kids came and would chat.

“They have all sorts of different issues. I think sometimes the public forgets that it’s more than just hockey and scoring goals and the glamour of the media etc. It’s about being homesick, it’s about breaking up with your girlfriend, it’s about not doing well in school.

“There are a variety of things that can go on behind the scenes and just to be there for those kids and be able to talk to them and appreciate that I was there once.

“It was a long, long time ago but you don’t forget those experiences like your billets and how important they are in the players lives. Those are the things I’ll remember the most.”

Schneider grew up on a family farm just north of Weyburn, Sask., near the tiny community of Colfax. After playing with the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League’s Weyburn Red Wings, he suited up for 120 games with the Brandon Wheat Kings from the 1979-80 season to the 1981-82 season.

Later, he joined the Brandon University Bobcats for two seasons in the early 1980s, and never left Brandon until he moved to Regina.

TIME TO MOVE ON

Schneider said a couple of things were significant factors in his decision to retire from the Pats, starting with all that time on the bus.

“I know there are guys my age and older who are still doing it but I started to find it was getting a lot more difficult,” Schneider said. “Probably the biggest factor was where I’m at in my life with my family.”

Happily, whatever they do will be a lot closer to home.

Since his wife Lizann also retires from her job in mid-June, they are putting their house up for sale in Regina in early May, with the intention of moving back to Westman.

“We want to get closer to grandchildren and to be quite honest, my wife is a Brandonite and wants to be closer to some of her friends and I feel the same way,” Schneider said. “I want to be closer to some of my lifelong friends I made over 40-some years. We love the community and want to be back in the area.”

Schneider’s daughter Hope, his son-in-law and one-year-old granddaughter are being relocated from Yellowknife to Portage la Prairie, and his son Dustin, daughter-in-law and 11-year-old grandson live in Oak Bluff, so the tug back to Manitoba makes a lot of sense. (His son Mark still lives near Regina.)

“I’m missing that aspect of their lives,” Schneider said. “My wife and I talked about it at length. It certainly wasn’t Lizann pushing me to retire, it was my decision.”

“We’re into a new chapter of our lives where the two of us are going to be gainfully unemployed,” he added with a laugh. “I’m not sure how that’s going to go over. I don’t see either of us not doing something of some kind, but maybe at a slower pace.”

Away from the rink, Schneider worked in government helping people find employment for 23 years, followed by 14 years as MNP’s human resources manager before he retired in 2021.

During that time, his hockey career transitioned from the ice to behind the bench.

After he coached the Île-des-Chênes North Stars to an Allan Cup championship in 2003, he later guided the under-18 AAA Brandon Wheat Kings to a regular season record of 124-45-7 from 2010 to 2014.

During the 2018-19 campaign, he filled in mid-season and led the squad to a provincial title.

He was set to join the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s Virden Oil Capitals as an assistant coach under his friend Tyson Ramsey in the fall of 2021 when he received a call from another old friend, former Pats general manager John Paddock, with a job offer in Regina.

Schneider already had ties to the WHL team after serving as a scout for the Pats for three seasons between 2015 and 2019, and his son Mark played his overage season there.

“John is a good friend of mine and I really appreciated that he was willing to run the risk to take a guy on who hadn’t spent his whole life as a professional in the game but had spent a lot of time around the rink,” Schneider said of Paddock, who retired in 2023.

NEW EXPERIENCE

When Schneider first arrived for the 2021-22 season, the team was in the Connor Bedard era. The outstanding young forward, who now skates with the Chicago Blackhawks, drew incredible attention after the 2023 world juniors playing with another high-end talent in Tanner Howe.

“Those were two years, even though we didn’t make the playoffs in the first year, that were pretty endearing,” Schneider said. “I watched some incredible players in a lot of aspects, not just their hockey ability but their commitment, dedication and their willingness to go the extra mile. That was a really intense and fun two years.”

But it wasn’t without its challenges.

Regina head coach Dave Struch was fired early in the 2022-23 season, and longtime assistant coach Brad Herauf was named acting coach for the rest of the season. In the summer of 2023, Herauf had the interim tag lifted.

He was happy to have Schneider by his side.

“Ken Schneider is our moral compass in our group,” Herauf said after Regina’s regular season finale in Brandon against the Wheat Kings on March 21. “What he has done for me as a coach, as a friend, as a mentor, has been unbelievable. He’s truly one of the great gentlemen of the game.

“He will say all the time ‘I’m just an old fart, I don’t know what I’m talking about’ but the wisdom that he brought to our coaching staff and the wisdom he brought to our players, they respect him so much.

“Anyone who has been around Ken Schneider, he’s built to coach, it doesn’t matter if it’s baseball or soccer or hockey. He’s just meant to have the whistle and be a leader, and any parent whose kid had the opportunity to be coached by Ken has been a privilege.”

Herauf noted that while Schneider was a product of another era of coaching — he talks about a coach once throwing a puck at him — he continued to evolve and is a lifelong learner who builds tremendous relationships with people.

He’s repeatedly seen former players seeking Schneider out after games, and that showed the impact he had on them.

“Kenny is one of the fieriest, competitive, emotional people, but that emotion is all in love,” Herauf said. “When you can do things with love, you’re always going to be in a good spot.”

Schneider speaks highly of the people he worked with, but unfortunately they won’t be behind the Regina bench next season. The team announced on April 14 that Herauf and associate head coach Ryan Smith won’t have their contracts extended.

“It’s always difficult to see your friends, people you were working shoulder to shoulder with over the last couple of years — and for Brad and I the last five years — that was hard,” Schneider said. “It’s a difficult business and for someone like myself who made the majority of my living doing something other than getting paid to coach hockey, it put it into reality.

“It’s never guaranteed. I thought they did pretty darn good job.”

Schneider noted the Pats dressed 47 different players in 2024-25, something that was difficult to navigate. This year they made some progress, and he thought Herauf and Smith had a tremendous impact on their young group.

The Pats, who from the outside seemed to make steady progress all season, finished in seventh place in the Eastern Conference last season with a record of 25-34-7-2.

They went into the playoffs on a five-game slide but still managed to beat the powerhouse Medicine Hat Tigers once before falling in five games. The Tigers then swept the Calgary Hitmen, who had earlier swept the Wheat Kings.

“When you’re in the middle of it, sometimes you start to wonder a little bit because you might take two or three steps forward and then one or two back,” Schneider said of his team’s improvement. “We went through some difficult periods when we would lose five, six, seven games in a row and those are tough, but overall, we certainly made progress.

“This year was a little better in the sense that there were more teams at the bottom of our conference that were at our calibre, and that allowed us the opportunity to battle for a playoff spot.”

SAYING GOODBYE

Next year, it will be somebody else’s problem.

Schneider has declared at different times that his coaching days were over, but each time something came up and he returned. This time, although he’s officially retired from a coaching job, he’s not willing to say never again.

“Most people would just shake their head and laugh and go ‘He won’t get too far away,’” Schneider said. “I love the game, I love the people, so it is hard. At some level I suspect I’ll be involved.

“My oldest son has reached out to me already about helping him next fall. He’s going to be the head coach of the U13 Central Plains Capitals out of Portage and wondering if Dad might have some interest.

“Who knows? You might see me at a rink next winter. If I’m not coaching, I’ll certainly be watching my grandson.”

pbergson@brandonsun.com