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Carlson/Makes Cedar Rapids a top-notch franchise► FROM PAGE 1Cfinal four appearances in the last five years and the 2005 Clark Cup championship.He has sent countless players on to college hockey programs and just had his first graduate to the NHL, too,.in Calgary forward Dave Moss.When you had discussions in the old days about the USHL, the Omaha Lancers were always in the same sentence. They were the flagship franchise, what Carlson said he aspired to when he first came to town.Now it’s different.“There are kind of a group of teams that are probably the top organizations in the league, that put top teams on the ice perennially,” said Riders radio play-by-play man Brian Lavelle. “But you look at (what Cedar Rapids has accomplished). Nobody else has actually done that. So they are among the top group. You can’t say they’re not.”It’s actually pretty amazing they are.Carlson left his assistant coach’s position with Northeastern University to come to the Midwest and run a junior hockey club in its infancy and with no home arena.The RoughRiders practiced daily at Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville and played the first three months of the 1999-2000 season on the road while waiting for the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena to be constructed. It was the first indoor ice rink in the city.Despite those obstacles, it didn’t take long for Carlson to get things going.Cedar Rapids made the USHL playoffs in the 2000-01 season and won its first playoff series the following season.Winning has become a habit here.“Mark Carlson is an outstanding young coach and a fabulous person,” said University of Maine head coach Tim Whitehead, who was an assistant coach when Carlson played at Massachusetts-Low-ell.The two coached together at Lowell one season.“Mark’s success in Cedar Rapids is certainly no accident,” Whitehead said. “Mark is intelligent, tough, caring, and focused. He is a student of the game and a great communicator. His teams play hard, they play smart, and they play as a team.”“In this league or in anything, you strive to win a championship, Carlson said. “But you’re not going to win one every year, you’re not going to win every game. But if we can teach life lessons and work hard and win our fair share along the way, that’s what this league is allabout.”Teaching life lessons is important to Carlson. Surprisingly, he said his biggestcoaching influence is his late father, Robert, a longtime businessman in New Jersey.Robert Carlson taught his son the value of hard work, the importance of doingthings the right way. MarkCarlson brings those ideals toLaura Schmitt photos/The GazetteCedar Rapids Roughriders head coach and general manager Mark Carlson speaks with a referee during the second period of Friday night’s game with the Tri-City Storm at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena. Carlson has been the team's coach since it came to Cedar Rapids in 1999, leading it to a league championship in 2005.the rink.“He’s a great coach,” said RoughRiders forward Pat Cannone. “He expects a lot out of you every day. It’s awesome. He helps you develop so much better. I’ve gotten so much better since I’ve been here. Coach just expects the best out of you all the time, and that just helps you become a better hockey player.”“Coach is one of the hardest guys I’ve ever had to .. like, you can’t really figure him out,” said RoughRiders forward Ian Slater. But the best way to describe him is he’s one of the hardest workers I’ve honestly ever met anywhere. I’ve seen him here at 6 in the morning, and I’ve seen him leave at 11 o’clock at night. He puts in so many hours.”Carlson doesn’t expect those kinds of hours out of his players. What he does expect is maximum effort every second they are on the ice.If you can’t do that, you can’t play for him.“The toughest part about playing for him is that you’ve got to be willing to put yourself on the line every single game for him. And that’s hard work, Slater said. “That’s what he expects out of each and every guy, just to go out and work their tail off and do what they’re assigned to do ... It’s not, more or less, hard to play for him. It’s whether or not you’re willing to work your tail off for him.Again, that all comes back to his dad.“I can remember being at the (public) viewing of my father after he died, Carlsonsaid. “One individual he managed told me a story. (He) started telling me how thankful he was that my dad managed him, and also how hard he was on this particular guy.“It took this guy awhile to realize that my father was hard on him because he saw something in him.”On Carlson’s desk is a blue note with the words “I see something in you” written on it. That piece of paper has been on his desk since his father passed away two years ago.“Sometimes you have to be hard on people, even though it’s hard to be hard on them, he said. “But in a lot of cases, that’s how people get better.“I’m thankful all the time that my dad was hard on me growing up. Doing chores, doing them the right way, working hard in hockey, working hard in baseball, making sure you did everything you were supposed to do around the house and doing it the right way.”But don’t get the idea that it’s always Mark Carlson, serious taskmaster.The coach said he realized early in his RoughRiders’ career that there’s also a time for play.After his first couple of seasons, Carlson made an effort to get to know his players off the ice.His house in Ely is almost always open to his players.In fact, Belarussian defense-man Sergei Kolosov has lived with Carlson, his wife, Tammy, and sons, Dustin and Brayton, since early last season.The entire team comes over three or four times a year for meals.Cedar Rapids RoughRiders coach and general manager Mark Carlson (right) watches action during the third period of Friday’s game against Tri-City at the Cedar Rapids Ice Arena.Carlson, who has built a solid program in Cedar Rapids, has had offers to return to the college game, but has turned them down.Then there are card nights and the annual Halloween costume party and pumpkin carving night. Apparently a karaoke night has been planned for the near future, too.“You don’t really know him as just the coach,” Slater said. “You know him as a guy off the ice, too. He cares about each and every one of his players, which is nice. Because you know some coaches just worry about their jobs and treat the players as meat. But he really takes the time to get to know each player, He’s always communicating with us, to see how we’re doing,“You can’t be afraid to have relationships with the guys and have fun with them, Carlson said. Then, stili, when need be, hand outa little tough love, if that’s what’s needed. I have really enjoyed getting to know the guys.”It’s the junior hockey age group that has caught Carlson’s fancy.He said he has had opportunities to get back into college coaching, being offered a couple of associate head coaching positions. But he enjoys the teaching and molding of players ages 16 to 20, enjoys being able to call his own shots, so to speak.Carlson signed a three-year contract extension with the RoughRiders before this season started. You get the feeling he is very content in the City of Five Seasons.“I enjoy it here. I enjoy the league. It’s a special league,” he said. “You never know, Is1 going to happen. But everyone has been great to me here. The ownership has been great to me here, the community has been great to me here.“I can’t say enough about the city, the housing parents, the facility. It’s been great to kind of grow up here in some respects. I came out here when I was 29 years old. In some ways I feel like I’ve grown with the city. I mean, we’ve got Lone Star Steak-tiouse now and Ruby Tuesday’s and Granite City, Super Target. That’s stuff that wasn’t even here when I first came here. So it is a great place to be.”Especially if you’re - ayoung, aspiring hockey . Ter. That’s something Mark Carlson has made sure of.* * * , . « ,.t - ,. • *. •. , - . *. .■ Contact the writer; (319) 398-8259 or: *■
Newspaper Details
Cedar Rapids Gazette
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, US
Mon, Jan 22, 2007
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