Loomis Chaffee burst out of the gates for the prep hockey season, winning its first seven games.
J.R. Zavisza, a former prep player at Avon Old Farms who hails from Suffield, Conn., has been at the helm for the Pelicans since 2011. During the latter stages of his playing career, Zavisza, now 39, played 15 games for the U.S. National Team Development Program under-18 team, scoring a goal and two assists and racking up 66 minutes in penalties. He also spent time on the U.S. National Junior Team, recording three assists and 18 minutes in penalties in seven games alongside future NHLers Jordan Leopold and Adam Hall.
From there, he played three seasons for UMass-Amherst, recording four goals, four assists and 28 minutes in penalties over 57 games. While in his junior year with the Minutemen, he realized a playing career wasn't in his future, and turned to coaching. While still with UMass-Amherst, he took a coaching job at Belchertown (Mass.) High for five years -- three as an assistant, the last two as head coach -- before returning to Avon Old Farms in 2006 to coach its Varisty B team, where he would stay for four years. In 2010, he left for Loomis, a year later taking over the head-coaching role. The hockey program has taken great strides since then.
Fast forward to today, where his Pelicans are 7-1-2 and resuming action this week. Zavisza sat down to answer our five questions:
1. What is the most important character trait that you look for in a player?
Team-first and hardworking. I know that’s two things, but that stems somewhat from the two things that get me angry most, when kids are selfish and lazy.
2. What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned after all these years at Loomis?
I guess this is a life lesson, but don’t expect anything. And, I mean, that’s not to suggest that I haven’t taken my foot off the gas at any point or anything like that, it’s not even about work. ... It's even about the kid you expect to come back but decides to go to USHL, you know what I mean? Don’t take anything for granted.
3. Who’s the team to beat in prep hockey this year? You can’t say your team.
I don’t know. It’s a crapshoot every year. There are a lot of coaches that are working hard to put the best teams on the ice. High school kids are just funny about consistency. You can have the best roster that prep hockey has ever seen, but that doesn’t mean that you’re going to win the whole thing. There are so many intangibles about the chemistry and luck regarding injuries and whatnot, there’s so many uncontrollables that I can’t answer that question.
4a. What is your aspiration in hockey? What is your long-term goal?
To produce good people.
4b. Do you want to go to a different level or a different school?
I’m not in a position life-wise to even be thinking along those lines. I have two kids and I know what it took to build this program, and I'm sure whatever next job I got, it would be probably a building situation again, so I just know I can’t do now what I did then because I didn’t have kids then. I’m not looking at that at this point. I’m just concentrating on making this the best I can.
5. What advice would you give to a player who is considering options for their career? Why pick prep school over something else?
I don’t think prep school is for everybody. But I do think it’s for more (people) than it’s not for, if that makes sense. For people who value more than just hockey, which, in my view, that’s how everybody should be, and in some ways the people who only value hockey, that group, prep school is not for them in some ways. But still, you get kids who come, one-and-done, and don’t really value the full experience, so I think that the biggest thing is people who have balanced priorities and values.
Paul Grant is an editor and a writer for HockeyJournal.com and Seamans Media. He previously oversaw hockey content at ESPN.com and Sporting News. You can connect with him at pgrant@hockeyjournal.com.
