I recently had a chance to catch up with Assistant Coach,Ron Hatfield via telephone and learn a little about the Tiger Sharks second in command behind the bench.
Coach Hatfield was born and raised in Hatfield Point,New Brunswick. I did ask him if there was a coincidence in the names being the same and he just laughed. When he was 16,he went to play junior hockey in Nova Scotia and later went on to play university hockey for St. Thomas in Fredericton. This is where he originally met Coach Fleming; at the time they were playing on rival teams. After university he went on to play in what he called senior's and later to be the owner,operator,and coach of a junior hockey club in Sussex,New Brunswick.
I questioned him about his role with the team and he said that he was in charge of the defense behind the beach and that he and Coach Fleming bounce ideas off of one anouther,a sort of mutual kind of coaching. With the team currently getting over a few injuries and making adjustments to overcome call-ups,it is great to see the players progress and get a chance to move up. The important thing is to make it work even with these types of obstacles,which seems to be the case during the past month.
He is the proprietor of a bar and billiard hall in Sussex,New Brunswick and during the summer he coaches at the Yerxa hockey school,for kids ages 6 to 15,in St. John,New Brunswick.
When I asked him what he thinks of the city he remarked that it was nice to see the increase of fans at the games and that he enjoys being here in Tallahassee because it's a friendly and clean city.