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| Paul Stewart coaching the New York Titans. |
One year ago, Paul Stewart was
an assistant coach with the Brookin Redmen as they finished first in
the Major Series Lacrosse regular season and was the heir apparent to
veteran Head Coach and GM Wayne Colley. With Colley having
retired from his job and having been saying for several years that he
was going to be retiring from coaching soon, as well, it appeared
that Stewart's time to be a head man was coming soon. Well, it turned
out that it was, but not in Brooklin.
During the off-season, before the MSL
draft in January, Stewart received a text from Colley saying that the
team was going in a different direction and his services as a coach
would no longer be required. Stewart, as you could have guessed, was
not very pleased either with being let go or with being informed via
text message.
So, now how does he feel as his
Brampton Excelsiors head into town with the chance to eliminate the
Redmen from playoff contention Wednesday night? “If
you had told me then that it would come down to their last game of
the season and I had the opportunity to eliminate them from the
playoffs I would have thought that was a storybook but right now it
is water under the bridge and my main focus is securing third-place
and nothing else,” Stewart asserts.
Brooklin
has to win Wednesday or they won't be in the postseason. While
Brampton has already clinched a berth in the playoffs, the game isn't
meaningless to them; a win would ensure them of third place.
So
there's a lot on the line for Brampton and Stewart. While he's
excited about the game, one of the main reasons doesn't have anything
to do with what will be happening on the floor. “It will be fun for
me because it will be the first time this year that all three of my
kids will be able to come to the game and I am hoping we put together
a great game for them,” he says.
Stewart
will admit that he wasn't pleased when he first received Colley's
text. “Obviously when I was initially let go I was pretty angry and
disappointed but a lot has changed since then,” he says. It didn't
take long for Brampton to scoop Stewart up as their head coach and
they have to be pleased with the results. The team wasn't generally
considered to be a contender for the playoffs this year with their
young roster and lack of star power.
The
Excelsiors have ridden their strong group of defensive leaders and a
team-wide commitment to hard work and a team approach, though, to the
verge of third place including a big win over the second-place
Peterborough Lakers and a couple of tight losses to the first-place
Six Nations Chiefs.
Stewart
doesn't want to lord his new team's spot ahead of his old team in the
standings over them. The Redmen have had trouble fielding a full
roster this year and definitely haven't been the same club they were
last year—they're missing their two leading scorers from last
summer and several of their top defenders. But they've rallied of
late, taking advantage of great goaltending from Mike Poulin to win
their last two games, including a huge upset of the Chiefs.
The
Redmen would like nothing better than to pull out another win
Wednesday to give themselves a chance at the playoffs, regardless of
who is coaching which team. As Stewart says, “There
have been a lot of changes but I know they will give us their best
effort and leave it all on the floor trying to give themselves at
least a chance to get in. If I allowed myself to focus on anything
other than preparing for a team with their backs against the wall
that is led by Shawn Williams
then I probably should not be a head coach in this league.”
We'll
see what happens on the main pad of the Iroquois Park Sports Centre
starting at 8pm Wednesday.
