Richard Gallant was simply a man with a vision. So, he went out and found others like him to build his dream hockey organization.

 

When the Islanders Hockey Club makes its Eastern Junior Hockey League debut at the Junior Bruins Shootout on Saturday, Sept. 22, that squad will be one of 41 teams across the organization to play hockey in 2012-13.

 

Gallant is the owner of the Islanders and changed the name of the former New England (and Dual State) Huskies to create what he calls the ultimate “cradle to college” organization, serving northern massachusetts, southern New Hampshire and the world beyond.

 

The Islanders’ EJHL team is one of three junior teams the IHC will field this year, the other two playing in the Empire Junior League and in the Eastern States League. However, it is the EJHL squad that is the signature Islanders team, loaded as it is with several NCAA prospects and even NHL draft hopefuls. The head coach, Sean Tremblay, is one of junior hockey’s most successful coaches, both in terms of college placements, wins and EJHL and National championships during his 11 years with the New Hampshire Jr. Monarchs.

 

Assisting Tremblay is the former Huskies head coach Paul Jenkins, one of New England’s premier skating and skills coaches.

 

With top-notch facilities at the Lighthouse, aka the Skate 3 complex in Tyngsboro, Mass., and a new facility under construction at Merrimack College (in North Andover, Mass.), the Islanders have become experts in providing all the levels for hockey players.

 

“Richard’s vision was to really put his mark on development for hockey in not just New England, but to have a nationally-recognized program,” said Tremblay. “I felt like I had done that with the Monarchs, where I created arguably the best brand in junior hockey.

 

“I looked at this as an opportunity to take something from scratch and make my mark again,” he added. “When you sit around our facility and see everything he’s done to create that atmosphere for the players, you can see Richard really cares and wants the best for these players. All I have ever wanted is what is best for my players and Richard shares that same vision. He sold me on what we could accomplish together now and in the future.”

 

As recently as 2008, Gallant wasn’t even involved in ownership of hockey teams. It’s all happened fast, but the Wall Street veteran is used to change.

 

“At the time, I was coaching my youngest son with the Islanders in the Eastern Hockey Federation, and I was asked to coach juniors [for the Huskies],” said Gallant. “I developed a relationship with [former Huskies owner] Leo Gould. He was trying to have the Huskies juniors evolve. He realized that the next step for his organization in terms of scale, its home rink and infrastruscture was to find a new steward for the program.”

 

The infrastructure came in 2010-11, with the creation of brand new locker rooms for the then-Huskies’ EJHL and Empire teams. Additionally, their home rink was expanded in size to 200-feet-by- 85-feet.

 

“The rink owner and I worked together to allow the junior program to have a topof- the-line facility to play in. He has been a great supporter of our team and allowed us to work in the building,” Gallant added.

 

Thus, one part of Gallant’s hockey empire was in place with the purchase of the Huskies.

 

It was fate when, around the time Gallant was completing his sale on that side, former Middlesex Islanders owner Fran Murphy approached him about taking over that youth organization.

 

The final piece of what would become the Islanders Hockey Club infrastructure puzzle came with Gallant’s involvement in expanding the Volpe Athletic Complex at Merrimack College, which will eventually be the home of the IHC’s youth program.

 

“We’re doing about an 80,000 square foot expansion with a new sheet of ice, new team rooms, a weight room – all of this will draw Merrimack’s facilities up to the Division 1 caliber,” said Gallant. “By June 1, 2013, the new facility will be done at Merrimack.

 

“So, now you have one of the top three EJHL facilities, one of the best hockey sites in all of New England at Merrimack College,” Gallant added, “and our program will be wed to a Hockey East school.”

 

The Right People In The Right Places

 

Tremblay always talks about creating a “culture” for a hockey organization. Well, in Ryan Callahan, he has one heck of a cultural ambassador.

 

Callahan will play for Tremblay for a fourth straight season this year. After splitting the 2009-10 season between the Empire and Eastern Junior League Monarchs, he’s been with the Monarchs’ top squad the last two full seasons.

 

“I’ve been with Coach Tremblay for three years, and I’ve got nothing but positive things to say about him,” said Callahan, a 1992-born Londonderry, N. H., native. “He’ll be great for this organization.

 

“He’s a straight shooter and a great guy,” Callahan added.

 

Tremblay echoes the “straight shooter” comment, saying that he always lets his players know where they stand. Mind games are not part of his repertoire.

 

“I’m very hard to play for, but I’m also very fair. There’s not a lot of gray area,” said Tremblay. “If the players know that, they’re going to give you everything they have. I give them a lot of responsibility, but I also hold them accountable for that responsibility.”

 

This “culture” has spawned more than 100 Division 1 college careers and more than 45 Division 3 college careers, as well as nine NHL draft selections.

 

Former Monarch Brian Foster made his NHL debut on Feb. 4, 2012, playing for the Florida Panthers, with whom he signed a contract extension this summer.

 

Once Gallant had the makings of the Islanders Hockey Club on paper, he wanted to make sure to bring in the best minds he could find in the area.

 

“From doing a lot of diligence, I learned that Sean is, not only in New England, but around the country, thought of as one of the premier hockey coaches for developing young players to go to the next level,” Gallant said. “Being on the EJHL Executive Committee for a while, I had heard that Sean’s contract was coming up, so I talked with him about my vision, about what I wanted to do with the Islanders, and talked with him about his vision, and what he wanted to do for the next five years.

 

On March 2, the former New England Huskies announced they would become the Islanders Hockey Club and that Sean Tremblay was the new Director of Hockey.

 

“I wanted to listen to my partners in the EJHL and in the [youth] Eastern Hockey Federation, and what was clear was that the Islanders had a deeper brand in the marketplace,” said Gallant. “The Huskies have had different names over the years, but the Islanders have been the Islanders for 30 years. I took the best of the program,tweaked it, and we have Sean running our junior program, Stephanie Wood running the girls program and Leigh Dean running the boys youth program.”

 

Tremblay said that he left the Monarchs very amicably, and that he wishes new Monarchs EJHL head coach Ryan Frew (their former Empire coach) the best of luck. “I want to be fighting them for a championship every year,” he said.

 

“It’s certainly bittersweet, though I thoroughly enjoyed my time there,” said Tremblay. “No one can ever question the amount of success we had in 11 years with seven regular season titles and 10 championship teams. [Monarchs owner Rick Vega] and I look back on those years fondly, but it’s an old chapter in our lives and it’s good for everybody.”

 

With the Islanders, Tremblay is thrilled to have good “foot soldiers,” such as Empire League head coach Mike Tenney, Eastern States League head coach Matt Johnson and the coaches of the Islanders’ new Midget teams in the Eastern Prospects Elite Hockey League and the United States Elite Hockey League, Nate Bostic and Phil Rose.

 

“I look at these guys and they remind me of me at that age,” said Tremblay. “I still carry around in my wallet a card and note from [the late] Gary Dineen, who I used to look to a lot for guidance. I’m hoping I can pass that guidance on to these guys.”

 

He’ll also be working daily with a true partner in crime in former Huskies head coach Jenkins.

“Paul’s a great guy, we get along extremely well and we’re excited to be doing this together,” said Tremblay. “He was always a tough guy to coach against. He’s a great X’s and O’s guy and always has his guys ready to play.”

 

Getting Them Ready On The Ice

 

The preparations have been made, the players signed and all that’s left is to play some fast-paced hockey.

 

The EJHL name carries such a prestigious weight that players already committed to Division 1 colleges go there to make last improvements to their game for a year. That is the case with one Michael Doherty, who will be off to Yale University in 2013.

 

“I’ve had a good relationship with Sean Tremblay the past couple years. He has a history of developing guys for college and the NHL,” said Doherty. “I’m just trying to get bigger and stronger and quicker.

 

He was certainly happy to pull on the first EJHL Islanders sweater for this season.

 

“We’ve got a year here to get our name out and get kids to want to come and play here,” he added.

 

Players like Doherty and 1997-born Luke Kirwan are very carefully selected by Tremblay and the rest of the coaching staff.

 

“Most of them were recruited, but you always have that player or two that shows up for tryouts that really impressed you. There are so many teams out there, it’s impossible to see everybody, so you do have to hold that open tryout,” said Tremblay.

 

The Islanders Hockey Club welcomed more than 100 players to its tryout, from which it constructed its three junior teams. However, as he said, he had a good idea going in which players they had expected to make the top team.

 

“Most of the kids who do make the team are kids we’ve invested a lot of time in,” said Tremblay. “If you want that culture to exist, you need not only great players, but great human beings who can add something to our organization.”

 

He added an anecdote about the Islanders’ new Midget teams, coached by Bostic and Rose, that went on a road trip to a showcase and every player wore a suit and tie to their games, surrounded by other teams whose players wore “backwards baseball hats and jeans or shorts.”

 

“We have to be better, not just on the ice, but off the ice,” Tremblay said. “On Sept. 9, our whole team is walking in the Jimmy Fund Boston Marathon Walk for [young cancer patient and ‘Mrs. Justin Bieber’] Avalanna Routh. We’ll raise close to $5,000 for the Jimmy Fund. That has nothing to do with hockey, but everything to do with what we are trying to instill in our young men.”

 

In the end, however, Tremblay and the Islanders are expected to win championships. It helps to have some players along this year with whom Tremblay won a championship last year.

 

“Doc Vega understood there were players in Hooksett who truly wanted to play one more year for me before they move on to school,” said Tremblay. “I made a commitment to these players, and all these players have a great deal of gratitude to Doc for being able to move here with me.”

 

Those players include forwards Callahan, Connor MacPhee, Michael Jamieson and Connor Anthoine, and defensemen Derek Stahl, Ian Herrington and Ian Rodden. Additionally, Kyle Lajeunesse and Teddy McCarran came up from the Empire League Monarchs. Kirwan is one player that Tremblay can see making it to the highest level of hockey someday, if he continues on his path of physical growth and growth in his game.

 

“He called me up when he was at the USA Hockey Select 15 camp and said, ‘Coach, I’m seventh in scoring now, but by the end, I’ll be first,’” said Tremblay. “I told him, I’ve coached that camp, you don’t know who you’ll be playing with the next day.’ That next day he calls me up and says, ‘Coach, I had a hat trick.’”

 

“How mature is he, for a kid going into ninth grade, to call his future junior coach and tell him he’ll be leading a national camp in scoring? I have guys who’ve played three years for me who are afraid of me – so maybe he’s naïve in that sense, but I just love him and his attitude,” Tremblay added.

 

“I thought [the Islanders] would be the best place to go. I thought about how development is key and thought I’d get better here out of all places,” said Kirwan, who wants to work on his speed this year. The Islanders will try to find the next talent in their teams below the EJHL squad. The new U16 and U18 midget teams will help in that respect, according to Gallant.

 

“Listening to all the team owners, there was clearly a need for a U16 and U18 Midget component in New England,” he said. “How deep that will go, I don’t know. Right now, we’re looking for solutions for U14 – we’ll announce something by the end of the year for U14. We want to create one continuous path for hockey players, and a U14 team will help fill us straight out.”

 

From Mites through Midgets through Juniors, the Islanders Hockey Club has an option for players at all levels. One-stop shopping, hockey style.