A dirt hole and a dream.
That is what Jeff Jackson had when he became head coach and senior director of USA Hockey’s National Team Development Program in the summer of 1996. The goal of the program was to take the top young American talent and improve the skill level so the U.S. could better compete on the men’s international stage.
Jackson was coming off a successful run at Lake Superior State, a smaller school in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where he won two NCAA Division I titles in his six seasons as a head coach (and another in four as an assistant). But he was up for a challenge that was unlike anything he had experienced.
He proved to be the right person for the job.
Jackson built the fledgling NTDP from the ground up, transforming the American presence on medal stands from virtually nonexistent to a regular presence.
Jackson will receive the 2025 Distinguished Achievement Award on June 6 at the USA Hockey President’s Awards Dinner in Denver. He recently completed his final season of coaching, wrapping up his 20th year at Notre Dame where he secured his 600th career victory and over his career led the Fighting Irish to 12 NCAA tournament appearances, including four Frozen Fours.
Jackson had an immediate impact on the international stage. In Jackson’s first event as coach with a roster put together specifically for the 1997 IIHF World Junior Championship, the U.S. captured a silver medal — the highest finish in history for the Americans. Since then, the U.S. has won seven gold medals, another silver and five bronzes. Previously, the Americans had won two bronzes in 23 trips to the World Juniors.
That future success all started in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where USA Hockey set-up shop for the NTDP and gathered together 46 players who would make up the Under-18 and Under-17 teams that would begin play in the 1997-98 season.
The early days of recruiting players were rough. The new program didn’t have a schedule and was in a state far from home for many.
Bob Mancini knows. He was an assistant to Jackson and director of player personnel at the time and is now USA Hockey’s assistant executive director of hockey development.
“We had a hole in the ground where the locker room was going to be,” Mancini said. “We didn’t have offices. We were in a multi-use area of the rink with windows where everybody can see in and see our cubicles. We were selling a vision.”
While Mancini and Greg Cronin were there to help formulate ideas and execute the plan, it was Jackson’s vision — on and off the ice — that made everything work. Jackson also had to negotiate building a schedule, working with the USHL and major junior teams in Canada.
“He had tremendous passion,” Mancini said. “He had experienced the difficulty that was laid in front of us all on the international stage and he had some great ideas in terms of, ‘How can we make it better? How can we make our path forward better?’
“It was about culture. It was about togetherness, and it was about innovation. There was a lot of courage to what we were doing — and Jeff certainly portrayed that.
Getting the players to develop camaraderie was a huge challenge. Mancini equated that experience to what Herb Brooks encountered with the “Miracle on Ice” team, where players from Boston, Minnesota and Michigan could clash. Even a generation later, those walls still needed to be broken down.
“What Jeff wanted to do was have everybody — just like in the movie — rally around the flag and play for a bigger cause,” Mancini said.
Jackson’s experience with the complete picture came from his days at Lake State, where he helped build a new facility two years before he left that program. That is what you do at a small program. You have your hands in every little aspect.
But there was another important philosophy to building the NTDP. While sports are all about wins and losses and championships, Jackson’s approach to the NTDP was different. He emphasized development more than results. After all, the U.S. wanted to be a threat in each tournament it participated in.
“Our basic structure is still very much the same as what Jeff came into it with, which is our focus is not on winning every Friday and Saturday night as much as it is development,” said Scott Monaghan, USA Hockey’s assistant executive director for the NTDP and USA Hockey Arena. “We're a holistic development program. They have to be doing well in academics or they're not going to play. There is a certain amount of time allotted to off-ice training every day and we don't sacrifice the off-ice piece for winning.”
While players originally attended a few schools in the Ann Arbor and later Plymouth, Michigan, area (where the NTDP is now located), following the COVID-19 pandemic, all 46 players do their schooling online, with time each day spent in a supervised classroom. Also, housing has evolved from staying with host families to many of the players’ parents moving to Michigan.
While there was stiff opposition to the creation of the NTDP 30 years ago, it is now a pillar program and one other countries want to emulate.
“It was always aspirational,” said Monaghan, who was on the business side of things when the program started. “‘Here's where we want to get down the road. We want to get to the point where the United States is viewed as one of the best hockey countries in the world and we're in the hunt for medals in every event.’ We've got there. Now, we still have some hurdles we want to see us climb, which is an Olympic gold and the men's national team winning gold. But at the World Juniors and world under-18 levels, we've had significant success over the last 15 to 20 years.”
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.
Source: usahockey.com