The new general manager of the Port Moody Panthers is daring to utter a new word in the Junior B hockey team’s dressing room: winning.
Peter Zerbinos inherits a team that hasn’t made the Pacific Junior Hockey League playoffs since 2011-12 and last spring endured the tumult of a change of ownership and management.
Zerbinos, who spent the past eight years as the director of hockey operations for the Delta Ice Hawks, is part of that change. And he’s been working hard since March to ensure the difference is more than just a new signature at the bottom of cheques.
“The bar of expectation has been raised quite a bit for this coming season,” Zerbinos said as he attended to a myriad of details in preparation for the start of the Panthers’ training camp this week.
To help his charges reach that bar, Zerbinos and new head coach Dave McLellan signed seven new local players from midget hockey programs with a pedigree for winning.
Zerbinos hopes their hunger to continue winning rubs off on their new teammates.
“Once you’re continuously losing, you need to change that,” he said. “The new recruits are used to winning.”
Not that the Panthers’ history of five straight fifth-place finishes in their division holds much purchase for Zerbinos. He’s wiped the slate clean. That means everybody is going to have to compete for their place on the team and then maintain a high standard to keep it.
“We have no attachments to anybody from last year,” Zerbinos said. “You’ve got to show what you’ve got.”
Of course rare is the hockey executive who says, “meh, we’ll just see what happens.” Tough talk can be tricky at the Junior B level of hockey where young players hoping to catch an eye and an offer to take a next step up the rung share bench space with veterans who’ve aged out of the minor system but still want to stoke their competitive fires.
“It’s a matter of getting to know the players’ needs because we’re all in this together,” Zerbinos said.
Rebuilding the Panthers off the ice is going to take some work as well, Zerbinos said. In a community surrounded by plenty of hockey options and other recreational opportunities that means getting the players out to community events like the upcoming car-free day on St. Johns Street where members of the Panthers will be playing street hockey or visiting local schools to play a little floor hockey in the gym and talk to young kids about leadership.
“We have a lot of very mature young players who understand leadership,” Zerbinos said.
Volunteers also play a huge role in cementing the team into the community. To that end Zerbinos is hoping to expand his pool of 10 dedicated helpers who take on every duty from selling tickets to laundering uniforms.
“I can’t describe how important their role is for our hockey team,” Zerbinos said.
Mix all those elements together, and Zerbinos is confident he’s concocted a recipe for success. Finally.
“There’s a lot of good pieces,” Zerbinos said. “We’re setting some pretty lofty goals.”
