It’s his first year as head coach of Frontier, but Brian Dehlinger is no stranger to high school hockey, especially in the Hamburg area. He spent 15 years as head coach with Hamburg’s club team, another seven as assistant when Hamburg joined the Fed, and joined Frontier as an assistant coach last season.
“And then by the grace of God, I got the head coaching job here at Frontier,” Dehlinger said. “So I’m very comfortable with high school hockey. It’s probably my favorite age group, and altogether it’s been 24 years already.”
Dehlinger wasn’t simply handed the head coaching job with the Falcons.
“I had to go through the interview process, and then the AD, Rich Gray, called me and offered a position, which was fantastic,” he said. “I like to be the head guy, but at the same time, working for Bobby [former Frontier head coach Bob Klimowicz] and working for Coach [John] McFall for Hamburg for all those years, I learned all sorts of new things from two great coaches, so it helped me get prepared for this situation.”
Familiarity with the organization and players will aid a smooth transition as Dehlinger and new assistant coach Dave Buczek take over at the helm and implement their systems.
“He’s been working with me in the travel organization for over 10 years, so that transition will be easy and nice and smooth also,” Dehlinger said of Buczek. “The nice thing is that Bobby ran a fantastic program, so I get players that I know they know how to play the game. It’ll be a little bit of an adjustment for them to learn Coach Dave’s and my systems, and once we get that, I want to always be trending upwards as the season goes, so we never really plateau until the playoffs hopefully.”
On the first night of tryouts last Monday (Nov. 7), Dehlinger still had some things to figure out with his new team. A few judgements made in the first few practices would determine what type of systems Dehlinger would use.
“What I’ll have to do is I’ll have to judge our speed and our ability offensively, and if we have some speed and we have some offensive ability, we’re gonna be more of an attacking team,” he explained. “And if we lack that, we’re gonna play a little bit more of a defensive system, and we’re gonna try to stay in the games as long as we can and hopefully score a power play goal and keep the games close and tight and try to win that way.”
The Falcons lost some key players to graduation last year, most notably defenseman Ryan Piniewski and goaltender Ryan Kaska. But two of this year’s top returners are defensemen Devin Doyle and Jon Baker, both in their third year of varsity hockey, and Dehlinger expects both to provide strong leadership as well as defense.
“Our captain last year, Ryan [Piniewski], that was a huge loss,” Dehlinger said. “Our goaltending, obviously, is a big loss. Those guys, with their experience and leadership, you can’t make that up. Those are huge losses. But it’s an opportunity. New guys come in, new guys start taking a leadership role, and sometimes that’s good and unfortunately sometimes that’s bad, so we’ll see how it is.”
Baker brings vocal leadership to the team; Doyle’s style is a bit different.
“I’m kind of the guy that’ll get everybody pumped up before the game, so that’s me, yelling on the ice, yelling at everybody,” Baker said.
“Jon’s definitely vocal, but I tend to lead more by example,” said Doyle.
Both players hope to bring a little more offense to their game this season. Baker’s goal is very specific.
“It’s kind of a long shot, but my personal goal is to score 13 goals this year and help offensively that much,” Baker said.
Thirteen goals would set a school record for goals in one season, and the career record at Frontier is 15. Baker hopes to break both records.
“My goal is to score my first varsity goal ever,” Doyle said with a laugh.
But regardless of how many goals those two defensemen score, they expect the team as a whole to be strong offensively this season, especially as the Falcons add a few players who previously played with the Buffalo Regals and Jr. Sabres organizations.
Dehlinger expects a strong team all around, and his ultimate goal for the season is a lofty one for any team.
“My goal for the season is to always win the championship,” he said. “I never go into a season without that goal. Now I’m a realist, but to me, if you don’t put the highest goal in front of you, then what’s there really to achieve? So our goal is to continue that upward trend so that when we get to the playoffs, we’re playing our best hockey that we can possibly be playing, walking into the playoffs, and then compete with the big dogs — the Will Norths, the St. Joe’s — and that’s where I ultimately want this program to be.”
Baker and Doyle hope to improve on last year’s record — the Falcons finished with a record of 2-12-2-1 in league play, including a loss to Niagara Wheatfield in the first round of playoffs.
Dehlinger isn’t one for moral victories. An overtime loss to Kenmore East, last year’s state champion, could be looked at as an accomplishment by some, but all that mattered to Dehlinger was that it wasn’t a win.
“Anytime you lose, it’s discouraging,” he said. “Moral victories are nice, but it’s not what’s gonna make our team successful. If we are good fundamentally and we do all the little things correctly and Coach Dave and I are very specific on that in our practices and then in games, we try to make adjustments and learn from our mistakes, then we’ll be successful this year.”
More than anything, Dehlinger reiterated how grateful he is for the position he’s in now.
“The only thing that I want you to make sure you put in there is that the program that I’ve been handed, I couldn’t have asked for a better situation,” he said. “I think Bobby did a fantastic job. I get handed a program that’s disciplined, well run, so hopefully I can continue that tradition.”
Frontier begins its season Dec. 1 against Williamsville East. The game is scheduled for 7 pm at Northtown Center.