This week’s episode features Dan Church.
Dan was named the head coach of the Lions women’s hockey program in 2004 and is the longest-serving active head coach at York.
In addition to his work with the Lions, Church is a coach mentor for the Ontario Women’s Hockey Association (OWHA). He also has extensive national and international experience with Canadian women’s teams at a number of different age levels. Most recently, he has been the head coach of the senior national women’s team at the world championships, leading the squad to a gold medal in 2012 with a 5-4 overtime victory over the United States, as well as a silver medal in 2013.
He was also the head coach of the senior women’s national team for the 12 Nations Tournament in Vierumaki, Finland, in August 2011 and the 4 Nations Cup in Sweden. In April 2011 he was an assistant coach with the Canadian senior women’s team that won the silver medal at the world championships in Switzerland.
In 2010, he served as head coach of the Canadian national women’s U18 team that won the gold medal at the world championships, Canada’s first women’s world title in that age group.
In 2009, he served as the head coach of the Canadian team at the 24th FISU Winter Universiade in Harbin, China and led the squad to the gold medal in the inaugural event. He also oversaw a selection camp for the team in the summer of 2008 at York University.
Church was also head coach of the Canadian national U22 women’s team. That squad went 7-0 with Church at the helm, sweeping a series against the United States before winning the European Air Canada Cup in Germany. In August of 2006 he served as an assistant coach at Hockey Canada’s U22 national team evaluation camp. That team went on to win a gold medal at the Air Canada Cup in Germany in January 2007.
Church is an NCCP fully certified Level 4 Master Coach and a Chartered Professional Coach (ChPC) with Coaches of Canada. Before coming to York, he served as an assistant with the University of Toronto women’s hockey program for seven years. During that time, the Varsity Blues won four OUA titles and captured the CIS national championship in 2001.
Dan has been around the game for a long time, and has a wealth of valuable knowledge and insight that he shares in this conversation.
Some of the topics we cover:
The transition from assistant coaching to head coaching
The challenge of self-doubt and judgment as a head coach
The evolution of personal coaching philosophy
Enjoy!
**Audio quality is slightly decreased on our end of this conversation, due to some technical difficulties. We apologize for the inconvenience and the issue will be fixed for the next episode!
