Toronto’s new head coach is a local hero in Calahoo, Alta. We went to find out how the community is cheering him on
There are bales of hay in rolling fields and trees ablaze in autumn glory along Alberta Highway 37 as it approaches Calahoo.
They played softball for hours, hoping to win the Berube Cup – a tiny plastic trophy – and later enjoyed a Thanksgiving feast. His older sister, April Callihoo, was dressed in a Maple Leafs sweater. Berube’s father, Roger, and his uncle Emile wore Maple Leafs ball caps. So did others. “It is such a big market, and a Canadian one, that I was concerned, too,” she said as she sat at a picnic table beside the ball diamond. “It is tough place to coach.”
The team has only made it to the second round of the NHL playoffs once since 2004. In that time, they’ve chewed through a who’s who of A-list coaches, including Pat Quinn, Paul Maurice, Ron Wilson, Randy Carlyle and Mike Babcock. Sheldon Keefe, who helmed the team since 2019, was fired in May after the Leafs bowed out in the first round. Berube was hired later that month.
As head coach of the Blues, where he took over in November of 2018, he orchestrated a remarkable turnaround of a last-place team. From January on, the Blues went 30-10-5 over the rest of the regular season on their way to winning the Stanley Cup. It is the only time in NHL history a club has gone from last to first in such fashion.
And he recently shouted at Auston Matthews, Toronto’s star centre and team captain, after a mistake Matthews made led to a St. Louis goal. “It was nothing personal,” Berube said later. “It was just me being a coach and doing what I thought was right at the time.” “There is not a lot out there but it is beautiful,” he said. “It’s a very nice area, but I love it for family more than anything. My dad and my brothers see each other every other day.”
“I remember going out there at 11 at night and helping to clean off the ice,” Berube said. “Then we would play shinny until two in the morning.”Berube's last team before joining the NHL was the Medicine Hat Tigers in 1985-86, a season commemorated in the rafters of their arena.He left Calahoo in 1982 to play in British Columbia for the Williams Lake Mustangs of the Pacific Coast Junior Hockey League. After that he played in Kamloops and New Westminster, both in B.C., and Medicine Hat, Alta.
After they played softball on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the Berube clan poured through the doors of Calahoo’s community hall. There, a Norman Rockwell painting came to life.
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