Monarchs establish first junior hockey team in Macomb County

The three-year old Midwest Junior Hockey League’s (MWJHL) lone 2014-15 expansion team is several weeks into its season. But the more compelling story is how the team came to the league at all.

The formation of the new MC Monarchs Junior A (Tier 3) hockey team actually began over a couple of Red Coat Tavern hamburgers in 2012. That’s where Jason McCrimmon, one of only two native Detroit African-American hockey pros met Mark Gilman, a marketing and public relations executive who had spent the past 17 years as a hockey Dad to three boys and a Director with the Michigan Amateur Hockey Association. McCrimmon had just returned from a multi-year stint as the Captain of the Hela-Kiekko pro team in Finland and was asked by a mutual friend to meet with Gilman, who was intrigued by the 6’4, 260 pound McCrimmon’s story and asked for the lunch.

“The first thing I asked him was to see his hands,” said Gilman. “I knew he had a lot of fights in his career and wanted to see the toll that was paid on his knuckles. He made me laugh when he said the worst part about hockey fights was not broken bones in the hand, but that you never get used to being hit in the face. He wanted out.”

Later that year McCrimmon was hired as head coach of the now-defunct Holland RiverBandits Junior team and then co-coach of the MWJHL’s Detroit Fighting Irish, who he helped lead to a playoff berth last season. Over that time, Gilman, a 56-year-old Massachusetts native and father of five, formed a deeper friendship with the now 31-year-old hockey nomad McCrimmon, who yearned for more stability after playing for three colleges and countless Junior and pro teams before the age of 30 and sought out a means of developing some permanent roots in Detroit to help provide more stability as Dad of 13-year-old daughter Iceis.

McCrimmon, who trains elite hockey players during the off season, told Gilman what he really wanted was a team that “was his.” He wanted to recruit the kids HE wanted and be given the freedom to train and coach them without interference from team ownership or other coaches. Gilman, who had only coached sparingly over the years at the youth level, was more than happy to hand the keys over to McCrimmon in helping launch a new team that could be his.

“I trusted Mark from the beginning and I know he felt the same about me. I had met his family, knew how much he loved hockey and he was with me in wanting to run a team the right way,” said McCrimmon. “I’m sure he’ll tell you now that he had no idea how much work this was going to be, but we’ve managed to use our obvious differences in background and experience as an advantage with the Monarchs.”

As is usually the case with married men who want to spend money on things that might not necessarily be the greatest investment in the world - Gilman’s biggest initial challenge was getting his wife Patti to buy in. A successful award winning Realtor with Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel (who is also the team’s signature sponsor), Patti unexpectedly ended up making dinner for her family one weekday evening this past March with one extra guest at the table - McCrimmon.

“At the end of dinner she looked at Jason and said, you know I love having you here, but what’s up?,” said Gilman “We took her to our family room and laid out the season budget. Her only response was that as long as Jason was being taken care of, she was good with it. Then off we ran.”

The next issue was what city and what rink where they going to play out of? The MWJHL currently covers an area from the Detroit area to the Soo to Traverse City, Alpena and Decatur, Illinois. But after determining a couple of Junior hockey teams in other leagues had either folded or moved out of Macomb County in the past couple of years, the two decided that there was too much hockey talent in the area to not have a Junior team housed there. After looking at several rinks, Fraser Hockeyland and its new management team, led by the rink’s effervescent long-time management fixture Evaline Vigiletti, came calling and recruited the Monarchs to their 3,250 seat “Monster” rink with more than a million dollars in restorations going on over the summer.

“It made complete sense for us,” said McCrimmon. “Great location, great historic hockey environment and they did a great job restoring the rink to what people remember it being years ago. I’ve known Evaline for a lot of years and it’s become a great partnership.”

One of the first orders of business was a McCrimmon-initiated trade for three of his former Irish players including Monarchs team co-captain Jarrad Vroman of Lincoln Park who is only 17 but has shown advanced maturity even though beginning only his second year in the league. “I really enjoy being with a team where I can trust the whole organization from the ownership to Coach McCrimmon,” said Vroman. “They have done everything they can for us and have followed through what they told us at the beginning. I’m really happy to be here.”

One other thing Gilman and McCrimmon set out to do with the Monarchs was make sure their players were involved in more what was going on at the ice level. The team has formed a partnership with the food and assistance non-profit Hope Center in Fraser as well as opportunities like utilizing the players to help McCrimmon at his Ice Dreams learn to skate program in Detroit, which they assisted in over the past couple of months.

The Monarchs have jumped out to a quick start with a 9-3 record, good for second place in the MWJHL. But for Gilman and McCrimmon, while fully aware there is much work to be done, know that getting to this point was a hockey adventure they won’t soon forget.