[Article] Canucks: How assistant coach Yogi Svejkovsky and Quinn Hughes became family friends

[RWJC]

Canucks: How assistant coach Yogi Svejkovsky and Quinn Hughes became family friends

 

Quinn Hughes knew about Yogi Svejkovsky long before they started working together with the Vancouver Canucks.

 

A decade ago, Yogi set it up so that his son Lukas could go and stay with Hughes and his family in Toronto for a spring hockey tournament.

 

The Canucks promoted Svejkovsky, 47, to assistant coach on Wednesday. He had been a skills coach for the previous three seasons. His increased duties are expected to include helping run the power play, a unit led by point man Hughes, 24, the Canucks’ team captain and No. 1 defenceman.

Svejkovsky’s son Lukas, 22, is a Pittsburgh Penguins’ forward prospect. When Lukas was 12, Svejkovsky set it up so that his son could go and stay with Hughes and his family in Toronto for a weeklong spring hockey tournament. 

 

Svejkovsky had been Lukas’ only coach to that point and he thought a new experience might aid in his development. A mutual friend provided the initial connection with Jim Hughes, the dad of Quinn and the current New Jersey Devils’ duo of Jack and Luke Hughes.

 

The families stayed in touch after that, and Svejkovsky says he’s routinely bounced ideas about raising young players off of Jim. Jack, who’s the same age as Lukas, came and stayed with the Svejkovsky family for a tournament in the Lower Mainland a couple of years later, too. Lukas is a former standout with the Delta Hockey Academy.

 

Svejkovsky and Quinn Hughes didn’t have any major communication back then, Yogi admits. When he was hired by the Canucks, though, and then coach Travis Green went to tell Hughes about a new skills coach, it was Hughes who gave Green an “Oh, yeah … I know Yogi.” 

 

“It’s a small world. It’s how it works,” Svejkovsky laughed Thursday afternoon.

 

Truth be told, just about everybody in hockey might actually know Svejkovsky. He has made it that way with his work ethic. 

 

He was a standout player, a first-round pick, No. 17 overall, by the Washington Capitals in 1996 coming off his 58 goals and 101 points with the Tri-City Americans the WHL season prior. He went four selections before Marco Sturm, seven ahead of Daniel Briere.

 

Concussions cut his career short. He was finished playing at 23 years of age.

 

He still had strong ties with Tri-City. They offered him an assistant coach role. He called his dad Jaroslav, a former goalie who went on to coach Yogi growing up in the Czech Republic, to tell him about it.

 

He says his dad gave him a verbal “punch in the nose,” telling him that “just because you can play don’t think that you can coach.” 

 

Jaroslav suggested he needed to learn how to work with beginners and pros and everything in between. He needed to learn the craft. 

Svejkovsky took it to heart. He coached everywhere he could. He could everyone he could. He worked with all sorts of levels. He eventually signed on to be a skills coach for the Vancouver Giants of the WHL in the 2006-07 season. Giants owner Ron Toigo and general manager Scott Bonner had been with Tri-City and tried to get him there, so there was something fitting with it all. 

 

Even with his position with the Giants, Svejkovsky kept all his other jobs. 

He thinks he’s coached at every minor hockey rink in the Lower Mainland. His wife April says she counted one year and had him at 1,200 practices.

It’s an outrageous number. But you routinely heard about Svejkovsky working with minor hockey players before school, and then a Giants practice in the afternoon, and then some sort of hockey academy in the evening.

 

He was on the ice so much it was easy to wonder if he was burning through multiple pairs of skates in a season.

“I probably should have had more. I went through one pair of skates a year,” Svejkovsky said. “I don’t want to say I was cheap. I was too busy to worry about it. 

 

“The equipment part was not a big thing. The sticks weren’t a big thing. I’ve still got my sticks from the Giants.

“It was more about the tracksuits and how many I needed for the day. That was the big thing. A lot of times I would have Giants and then my youth program and then I would have Delta or St. George’s or Seafair. I couldn’t mix up my tracksuits. I’m proud to say that I didn’t ever show up in the wrong tracksuit.”

 

He has no clue about how many players he’s worked with over the years. When word got out about his promotion with Vancouver, the texts and emails started coming in, and Svejkovsky says he promised himself that he would respond to all of them. It took him five hours, he said.

 

“Maybe I’m just a slower typer,” Svejkovsky deadpanned, before getting serious for a second.

“When you go through it, you go like ‘Oh, wow … people remember you, people are cheering for you.’ I appreciated it.”

 

He was running a conditioning skate coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns that featured several Canucks, and says players suggested that he should give a pro job a try.

The Canucks’ job, which started out as a skills coach with the AHL Abbotsford team in 2021-22 and grew to include work with the big club, was a perfect fit for the father of four. Svejkovsky and his family have been based in the Vancouver area since he took the Giants’ gig 18 years ago, and he didn’t want to change things for them. As well, he says he feels a connection to the market, and that he “understands how hungry the fans are.”

 

He just happens to have some built-in history, too, with the team. Like he has with Hughes. Like he has with president Jim Rutherford and general manger Patrik Allvin, who were with the Penguins when they drafted Lukas in the fourth round in 2020. Allvin led off with how he thought Lukas had a strong training camp when he was introduced to Svejkovsky.

 

“When I met those guys, I thought, ‘Just be yourself.’ They drafted my own son and I’ve worked with him for a lot, a lot of years, and they like him,” Svejkovsky said. 

 

SEwen@postmedia.com

https://theprovince.com/sports/hockey/nhl/vancouver-canucks/yogi-svejkovsky-canucks-assistant-coach

[Down By the River]

Didn't know this, but Yogi played with Tocc and Gonchar in Washington:

 

https://www.eliteprospects.com/team/78/washington-capitals/1996-1997?tab=stats

 

Also kind of terrifying to think that that team had Tocchet, Dale Hunter, Chris Simon, and Craig Berube (among others). Seven guys with 100+ PIMs. The game certainly has changed. 

[DownUndaCanuck]

Lots of positives so far, management have done a good job of bringing good chemistry hockey people together and I think this will be a similar move. Special teams is a lot of tactics and constant adjusting though so will be interesting to see how the new squad go, but chemistry certainly is key.

 

I was never a fan of Yeo so kind of glad he's gone despite the good work our PK did last year but that PP was a mess, especially considering how good it was in the early part of the season.

[Canuck You]

I hope one day Quinn convinces his brother's to join him in this beautiful city.