Steve has been a volunteer coach in the Macdonald area for 25 years, working with boys and girls from ages 5 to 20 (squirts to junior). Some years Steve coached or helped coach as many as three teams, including two teams that his sons’ played on as well as the Sanford High School Girls team. Steve has coached the Sanford girls’ team for the last four seasons and during two of those years also helped with the boys’ team at Sanford Collegiate. In addition he helped coach at U of M with Wayne Fleming during the 80’s. He has been a Mentor coach for Hockey Manitoba for the last 8 years and has also been involved with the POE program in both the boys and girls programs.

Steve indicates he’s proud of always ensuring equal ice time for his players during his coaching career. He remembers a player telling him he was the best coach that he ever had; not because of skill development or that practices were fun, but simply because he let him play. The message was pretty plain and clear to Steve – no matter what, the kids just want to play!

He is also very proud of the skating camp that he has run in Starbuck over the past 8 years. It originally began to help raise money for the rink while providing skating instruction for young players.Now, the camp has grown to approximately 120 players from the surrounding area, and with volunteer instructors, all funds raised go to the local rink (over $40,000 raised in 8 years).

Steve is very grateful for the tremendous help on and off the ice over the years from the numerous local volunteers, and the Macdonald hockey programs have benefited greatly from their support. Some of these people are: Gary Rowland, Reg Piche, Tim Morison, Mark Penner, Lindsay Burns, Alison Fossay and Jordan Montgomery. The biggest help during the skating camp is Steve’s wife, Kathy, who has been there to help take phone messages, complete registration and organize the kids before they go on to the ice. She has also been extremely supportive during all of Steve’s coaching duties. Even though his children were not on many of the teams he coached, she would attend all the games she could, always providing support.

Hockey Manitoba congratulates Steve Montgomery as the April 2009 Volunteer of the Month.