Longtime Barracuda Head Coach Roy Sommer Inducted into AHL Hall of Fame

Former San Jose Barracuda, Worcester Sharks, Cleveland Barons, Kentucky Thoroughblades and San Diego Gulls Head Coach Roy Sommer was inducted into the AHL Hall of Fame on Feb. 5, honoring a career in the NHL’s top development league that spanned more than two decades. Sommer, who grew up in the East Bay, was inducted less than a year after retiring from AHL coaching. He is the winningest coach in AHL history with 828. He also leads the league with 1,813 games coached.

Sommer’s remarks during the Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Montgomery Theatre in Downtown San Jose were both moving and funny and we’ve highlighted some of the best comments below.

Sommer’s hat and bolo tie had special meaning

Sommer arrived on stage in a cowboy hat and bolo tie. Not your usual attire for a Hall of Fame induction ceremony, but anyone that knows Sommer knows he loves a good bolo tie. Both pieces of attire had special meaning to him. Sommer said his wife bought the hat for him for “special occasions,” while the bolo tie was a gift from his grandfather.

“People will see me wearing this bolo. I grew up 45 miles from here in Oakland, and this is my great-grandfather’s. He had it in probably the 1870s. And my grandfather was born in ’98, 1898 and he gave it to me. And the reason I’m wearing it today is just to bring him along on the journey. All those people that had a big part of it.”

Sommer on the topic of winning and losing

“I was up in Lethbridge; someone said they want to introduce themselves to you, someone from the WHL. Guy introduced himself. And he said, ‘Well, congratulations on the AHL Hall of Fame. And for the most wins and also for the most losses.’

“I kind of looked at him, and the guy next to me, when the guy left he goes, ‘Hey, you know what? Babe Ruth had the most strikeouts. And he also had the most homeruns.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, that one makes kind of a little sense.’ But you know what? Own the losses because if you don’t have losses, you don’t learn much. I think the old saying is, ‘Lose a game, learn the lesson.’ Well, I learned a lot of lessons. So there’s some losses involved in that too, but also a lot of enjoying wins.”

Sommer remembers Bryan Marchment, Warren Strelow, and his mom

Sommer went on to talk about his fellow inductees and mentioned that he used to work with the Oakland Seals as a kid and saw fellow inductee Gerry Ehman play for the Seals.

He then teared up remembering some of the people he had close connections to during his career.

“This next part might be a little tough, but I want to honor those who had an impact on my coaching career who are no longer with us. My mom, who was a divorced mom of three, that got me and my brothers to the rink every day. And she would have enjoyed this because she loved to party.

“Warren Strelow. I don’t know if you ever heard of him, but probably one of the best goalie coaches ever happened. Grumpy old fuck, I think.

“I’ll tell you a story about him. His last practice, I was out there with him and he was in his wheelchair, kind of a heavy fella and he was out there and I looked down and he was kind of pushing pucks to some guys that were shooting on the goalie and all of a sudden he started acting like really weird and I go, ‘Warren, you all right?’ He goes, ‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’ And he was having a heart attack. And I go, ‘Warren, I gotta get you off the ice.’ And he goes, ‘I gotta finish the drill.’ And I go, ‘Warren, I can get you off the ice.’ He goes, ‘I gotta finish the drill.’ You know what, he went off the ice, never returned. Died one, two months later. But big impact on me.”

Sommer credited John Muckler, his former coach in Wichita when he played with the Oilers organization, with putting the idea of coaching in his head. He also remembered former Sharks owner George Gund and said he missed Jim Wiley’s stories. Sommer got choked up thinking about his late night calls with Bryan Marchment and the hunting trip they never went on. He also mentioned his family friend Eric Lindquist.

Sommer also mentioned Rick Ley, who gave him his first coaching job.

Sommer on how he got into NHL and AHL coaching

Sommer credits former Sharks’ General Manager Dean Lombardi for giving him his first shot in the NHL.

“I was actually out here coaching roller hockey and the San Jose Sharks just hired Al Sims and they were looking for an assistant. We saw it on the TV. My wife goes, ‘Why don’t you interview for the assistant job with Sharks?’ and I’m going, ‘Yeah, I’m coaching roller hockey. And I’m coaching in the East Coach Hockey League. I’m not going to interview for an NHL gig.’ I ended up interviewing, and I must have been one of Dean’s…his crazy experiments. I think it might have been part of it and he ended up hiring me. I learned a lot from him.

“But he [Lombardi] said to me down there [in Kentucky], he goes, ‘If I see one tape, and those guys are rimming the puck, you’ll hear from me.’ He goes, ‘I want them to make plays. I wanted them to make mistakes down there, so when we get them up here, they won’t make mistakes.'”

Sommer complimented Tim Burke on his “hockey mind.” He mentioned Wayne Thomas and said Darryl Sutter encouraged him to apply for the AHL head coaching job in Kentucky. Sommer called Joe Will a good friend and thanked Doug Wilson.

“I wouldn’t be standing here right now if he didn’t give me a lot of chances at staying in the game. Funny story. I was in Worcester. And I got a call and I wasn’t having a great year. And whenever you talk to Doug on the phone, you’d get off and you go, ‘Hey, man, I feel really good.’ He was kind of like a groove guy or something. I don’t know. But I got up, I’m talking to him on the phone and I’m kind of going, ‘This is it. You’re gonna get fired.’ And he goes, ‘Roy, we want to offer you three more years.’ So, I told Melissa, ‘Get the wine out.’ I told him after that, I said, ‘I would have fired me, the year that we’re having right now.’ But he kind of stuck with me and he’s become a really good friend of mine.”

Sommer on getting arrested in a fight with a future assistant coach

Sommer says Lombardi was known to experiment with out of the box thinking. He thinks that’s one of the reasons he got the NHL assistant coaching job in the first place, even though he was a roller hockey coach with ECHL experience at the time. Sommer then recounted the time he was teamed with an assistant coach that he once got arrested with.

“I was coaching in the coast. And Nick [Fotiu] was coaching in Nashville. And we were beating them up pretty good. And he thought I was yelling at his players, and I wasn’t yelling at his players. He said a few things and I kind of looked at him. And he imitated me. And so after the game, I saw him down the hallway. He’s kind of leaning against the wall. And I said, ‘You kind of imitated me, so I can’t let…I won’t…’ so I walked by him. And he kind of poked me in the chest. He goes, ‘Don’t yell at my players.’ The next thing you know, we’re fighting in the hallway. And both teams came out in their underwear and they surrounded us. And it was like a schoolyard fight. And the cops came in and they maced us. They threw us in the paddy wagon and then they took us to jail. I got the job in Kentucky and Wayne goes, ‘Uh, Roy, Nick Fotiu’s going to be your assistant coach.'”

Sommer mentioned Dean Cunniff, Ryan Mougenel, Mike Chiasson and Jimmy Bonneau as some of the coaches he’s worked with over the years.

Sommer’s advice to the AHL All-Stars

Sommer then offered some advice to the hockey players playing at the AHL level and looking to take it to the NHL.

“Darryl Sutter used to tell me, he goes, ‘If you’re going to get advice, make it brief.’ Anyone that knows him, that kind of sums it up.

“To the players chosen as AHL All-Stars, you have a special talent, but like talent alone is not going to get you to the next level. If I could tell you anything, I’ve kind of been around a little bit, get a routine.

“Be inquisitive. Going back to Warren Strelow. We had practice with Warren to take the players out early. And we had a guy by the name of Joe Pavelski that got sent from camp to me. He would go out early when Warren was shooting on the goaltenders. Warren would be in his wheelchair, and Pavelski would be on one knee. And Warren would be like doing his thing with the goalies and telling Pavelski, where does the puck [go]…like on different angles and change your angle when you’re coming down. Look away, doing all this stuff. And Pavelski would just kind of look at them and it was a thing later on. The guy’s a pretty good hockey player right now I think; knows how to put the puck in the net, and I think a lot of it has to do with Warren in those early years, but he was inquisitive.

“And then the other thing is, you guys out there, you have older players on your team. The American Hockey League does a pretty good job of putting in older players that are good influences. Watch those guys. Watch their routines when they come in. See what they do.

“Make those around you better. You know, I think that’s an important role that you guys have. If you’re here right now, you’re probably a top one, two guy; you’re probably a top one, two defenseman. Those guys that you play with make them better.

“Compete. I know Gordie’s [Clark] a scout, but when they go into a game, and they’re walking out the door, and they’re making their notes, you want to be in that sentence or that notebook that said, ‘Man, this guy fricking competes. And he gets on pucks. He plays on the inside.’ You want them talking to you like that.

“The last thing I gotta say is your parents. Make sure you thank them. They sacrificed. I’m sure there’s family, there’s kids or somebody in your family that had to take a backseat to you playing hockey. Maybe it was an uncle, maybe it was someone else that brought you to the rink. But you guys are here right now because of them. So make sure you guys pick up the phone. Not once a year, not once a month, but you call them every chance you get because they’re not going to be around forever, and you thank them for getting where you are today.

“Be humble.”

Sommer’s advice to the AHL coaches

Sommer also offered up advice to the AHL coaches in the room.

“This is the best development league in the world. And I know you guys love to win. And I know you’re super competitive. But I think your main job, and I think it was said before, is to get these guys to the next level. And it’s hard because I know there’s games when it’s 3-2 and you want to win. And I know there’s owners in here, and they want to win because it brings people in. But sometimes you got to take a backseat and let the kid that’s coming up, go out that last minute and try to win the game for you. Or when the game is 3-2 and you’re down. I know you want to put the older guys out there sometimes. But maybe that’s the time to give another guy a chance that should be on the powerplay and help him win a game. Because, you know what, that’s how they develop.

“Don’t be quick to judge. I think we have a habit of doing that. I know I did it when I first started. But I think the longer I was in it, I let things mature over the year. You see a guy and you hear all these things about him. It’s kind of that outside noise; you have to weigh the truth for your ears. You’re the ones that have to make the decision for these guys. That’s where you gotta hold on and make your own decisions. I was in your shoes, too, and I used to do it.

“It’s a pretty traditional game and sometimes you got to think outside the box a little bit. Mix things up. Wear a bolo one day. I started doing this like 32 years ago. I put this on just to put it on. Because every time I had a tie [on], we went on like a five or six game run. Then we lost, and then a couple of games later, the guys go, ‘Hey, Roy, you wearing that bolo again?’ So, change things up a little bit.

“I’ve been asked…how could you last so long with one organization? And I really don’t have an answer. But I can take a guess at it. I think I was flexible. Kind of open-minded. I think you have to be at the level we’re at. I went through six different head coaches, and they all had different ideas on how to play and how we wanted the team to play down wherever I was: Kentucky, Cleveland, Worcester,and San Jose. So sometimes you got to bend a little bit. And again, when the guys go up, you want to make sure they’re playing the same way. So, you didn’t always agree with it, but that’s where you have to kind of make your kind of your own judgment…The biggest thing is keep your players first.

Sommer pays tribute to his family and friends

At the end of the ceremony, Sommer thanked his friends who came to the event to support him. He also thanked his wife, Melissa, who has traveled with him to nine different states, 17 different cities and 19 different homes to make his career a possibility.

“I’m just telling you right now, I don’t know what I’d do without her. She’s a special lady. She got her master’s degree while she was with me. Went to school, three different schools, and she’s a special ed teacher. When I took the job in Wenatchee, it just kind of came up. I said, ‘You know what? I’m kind of tired.’ But she goes, ‘You know what? I come home, or I leave the house when it’s dark. And I come home when it’s dark. Just go.'”

Sommer also mentioned the hunting dog they got recently, saying it might be the best thing to come out of his one year coaching in San Diego with the Gulls. And then he paid tribute to his kids.

“Kira, my daughter, hockey’s asked a lot of her. She flew out here to support me again. She puts me in my place when I say stupid stuff. I do that a lot, as you guys can tell. Then, the biggest thing for helping out your mom when I wasn’t around. She’s the rock in my life.

“Castan, who’s coaching out at Holy Cross right now. I think he’s gonna do great things. He knows the X’s and O’s a lot better than I do. And he’s got his master’s degree, which he picked up. I can’t say enough about him. He’s a good man. I loved watching him grow. I’m a grandpa now. His wife, Mariah, couldn’t be here. I want to give a shout out to her. And Cas, thanks for everything you’ve done for me.

Then, Sommer teared up when he mentioned his youngest son, Marley.

“This last one’s gonna be hard. He’s my best friend. He was in the pictures. Doesn’t say much, but he has a big presence. I want to thank all the players that have, throughout the year, that have taken him in and made him part of their lives.

“I probably had a million miles on a bus and he’s been on 700,000 of them. I want to thank the Sharks organization, when he was here, that used to buck up and fly him with the team and let him be part of things, and, if you guys don’t mind, I’d like him to come up.”

Marley told his dad that the real winner of the All-Star skills festivities on Sunday night was the All-Stars. Marley also took the mic and regaled the crowd with the National Anthem before he and Sommer sat with the rest of the All-Star Hall of Fame inductees.