MAITLAND, Fla.---
“Hard, hard, hard, speed, go!” Drake Berehowsky yells at a Solar Bears practice at RDV Sportsplex in Maitland.
“It’s gotta be harder,” he tells one of his players.
After five years coaching the Solar Bears over two stints with the team he doesn’t hold back.
“I’ve got a group of kids that will do just about anything that I ask. They believe in each other, they believe in me, they believe in the system,” Berehowsky says.
The team is like his family, he can’t help but refer to his players as kids.
“I remember when I first started coaching players were a few years younger than I was,” Berehowsky says. “I’m older I think I’m a little bit wiser and everybody is a kid now.”
He believes you play like you parent.
“Head up, head up. Get your hips going guys.”
Rewind to 6:00am. It’s a few hours before Solar Bears practice now .
“Come on control it, don’t knock my pylons,” Berkehowsky barks.
Only this time he’s not speaking to Solar Bear players.
“Harder Daniel!”
“That’s it Diesel, control the puck diesel.”
Daniel and Diesel are two of Berehowsky’s six kids. All in all there’s Dylan (15), Duke (14), Dawson (11), Dalton (10), Daniel (13) and of course….Diesel (8)
“Hey Diesel, are you figure skating? So if you lose the puck you just leave it?” Berehowsky jokes to Diesel as he finishes a drill.
“Well he is being pushed with older boys which I like,” Berehowsky says about his youngest son. “And he’s got that kind of personality where you can push him and he’ll respond to that.”
“I like that he pushes us and makes us get better,” Diesel says.
Several days a week Drake takes his kids and anyone else that wants to get coached up to the RDV Sportsplex ice.
“You want to see the commitment and it’s amazing the kids that do come out how committed they are to it.”
It’s 45 minutes of tough love.
“It’s amazing anytime that I spend with my kids makes my day,” Berehowsky says
So if a family is a hockey team, the coach has to make sure he has time to be a dad.
“This is an amazing job but at the same time you have to enjoy your family and you have to have a good balance.”