ADM Kids

University of Minnesota men’s hockey coach Bob Motzko isn’t afraid to speak his mind or light a fire under his players if they aren’t giving maximum effort or playing with an edge.

But in an ideal world, one he works to cultivate as a coach, he doesn’t have to do that because the flame is perpetually lit. Motzko is fond of saying, “I’d rather put out a fire than start one,” roughly meaning that he wants players he has to rein in rather than ones he has to push to play with a greater spark.

That message should resonate at levels below college, Motzko said, as our recent conversation drifted toward youth hockey and 14U or 16U players.

“Every coach will tell you they’d rather put out a fire than start one,” Motzko says.

To play with fire or “an edge” means, to Motzko, competing at a maximum level without crossing a line. His Gophers are routinely among the least penalized teams in college hockey even though Motzo’s style demands energy and physicality.

“If you're going to play the sport and you're going to succeed in it, there's no question we do a great job in our state developing talent,” he says. “But it also comes with: You have to play the sport with an edge, and you can't go overboard on it.”

Growing up in Austin, Minn., Motzko played with an edge in three different sports. That’s what all the athletes did back then, often in pickup games – particularly informal outdoor hockey games. He worries that early specialization in one sport (like hockey) and a societal trend away from competition are hurting players when it comes to playing with fire.

“I think the best edge is, you know, first one to five wins. How many times did we do that as a kid or then you’ve got to win by two? You’ve got to develop that toughness, that edge in winning,” Motzko says. “I know sometimes people want to hand out yellow ribbons for being competitive. But you've got to have an edge in winning and in small games I think is where you can really develop that.”

When asked how he coaches players to exhibit that fire, Motzko can rattle off a long list of former players he coached either with the Gophers or St. Cloud State that had the “edge” from the day they arrived on campus.

He worries that he will leave players out, but eventually his voice trails off.

“I wish I had the full answer for that but you’ve got to surround yourself with certain athletes that you bring in. Brock Faber, you know, we just use him as an example,” Motzko says of the former Gophers standout defenseman now starring for the NHL’s Minnesota Wild. “Many of our players, they have an edge, they come with it. I like it when they take it to the top of the edge, but you can't go over.”

Those players show the next wave how it’s done, and eventually – hopefully – there’s an entire team full of players that play that way, Motzko says.

“It is a skill that you have. Some are born with it and some, you know, inherit it,” he says. “But unfortunately some of the ones that fail just don't find that edge. They still have a great experience, but they don’t make it to a level where they all want to try to get to.”

Perhaps the most rewarding experience for a coach is when they can guide a player searching for that fire to have it more consistently.

“The biggest thing is if they show it to you one time, you know they have it. Then it’s just keep rewarding them,” Motzko says. “If they can get on that page and, and then more consistently show it and you keep rewarding that and they reward themselves with maybe more playing time, maybe they get more points, where the light bulb comes on. So there's a lot of that that goes on for all of us coaches that we could continually put them in those high pressure or competitive situations.”

Motzko mentions Huntsville, Alabama native Nic Dowd, a former St. Cloud State Husky who has gone on to play more than 500 NHL games, as someone who developed that edge along the way.

“We watched him grow and find that edge through his career. It comes at different levels,” Motzko says. “Those are the ones you remember, you know, not just because they were good. What made them good was they played on the edge.”

Combine enough players who inherently play with an edge with enough players who follow their lead and grow and you will probably have a lot of really good players.

“Like I’ve always said, I'm a really good coach when I’ve got really good players,” Motzko says. “And that's what we try to surround ourselves with.”

One of the most talented teams Motzko has ever been associated with was the 2001-02 Gophers team that broke Minnesota’s 23-year NCAA championship drought. Motzko was an assistant coach on that team and still remembers many of those players fondly even if – or especially because – they were constantly testing the limits of the edge.

“I mean, we had to put a fire out almost weekly with those guys,” he says. “We still talk about those stories when we're together.”