Kenney gets work done behind scenes

By: 
J. Patrick Eaken

Lake hockey coaches Craig Horvath and Ron Kenney credit their team administration, which is mostly Kenney’s 30-year-old daughter Courtney, who used to step onto the ice and play herself. 

Without the Kenney family, who live in Genoa, the Lake club team may have never gotten 26 games in, finishing 18-6-2.

 “The amount of phone time Courtney did to even salvage a season was quite a lot — way more than what Craig and I did, I’ll tell you that,” Ron Kenney said. “I’ve coached her (Courtney) whole life and she won a state title in high school out of Ann Arbor, so she has played quite a bit of hockey. 

“She just loves the sport, and she likes the kids and tries to help the old man out because I’m not really that great on the phone to try to do all the phone work you have to do, plus getting hold of all the parents and dealing with parents. 

“I’m way better with the kids on the ice,” coach Kenney added. “It doesn’t sound like a lot, but to play the amount of games we did was a credit to them because every time we turned around something was getting canceled, or we had to shuffle this or shuffle that. Of three tournaments that got canceled, the Lansing one is a nice one and the Columbus one is a good one.”

Horvath added, “I’ll have to be honest. I never thought we’d play games. If you would have talked to me at the beginning of the year, I would have said, ‘Hey, if we get 10 or 12 games in, I am going to be happy for my seniors.’ It was just a mess for everybody, so for us to play 26 games, what a blessing that was. 

“We had four or five games get canceled, but still to play 26, I would have never thought that would happen. The quarantine killed us, too. Two or three different times we had kids out who were just quarantined. They did not even have it (COVID). But, you know, we made it through, and we are turning our cheek to this thing.”

It is people like Courtney that make a program strong, too. Both coaches remember a time when their club program was on its last legs. They have seen multiple prep programs in the Toledo area get dropped, or go from varsity to club teams, while in Cleveland and Columbus the numbers of varsity teams continues to grow.

“Fourteen years ago, I had the same problem. I did not have many kids. We just tried to do things right and it ended up working out and we are still doing it,” said Horvath, “It’s diminishing and sad, and I just want to see kids playing. Someone gave me the opportunity to play 40 years ago, so I’m just doing my little thing,” Ron added, “The word gets out it will go because a few years ago Craig and I thought it was our last year. We had eight kids and we thought that would be it, and then the next year we happened to have people hear about us, and we got a few kids from the Wauseon area.”

Kenney remembers when most Toledo City League schools had hockey. Varsity programs are dropping in the Toledo area so fast now that it may come to the point that the Ohio High School Athletic Association determines that the Northwest district winner has to play another district champion before advancing to state.

“Back when I played almost every City school had a team,” Kenney said. “Even Macomber, that is not there anymore, and Woodward had teams and they were decent. When I played for Waite, we were good and only lost a couple games in the years I played there. We were really good but that was the late 1970s though.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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