34 Years And Still Going Strong

Les Lawton Reflects On Ongoing Legacy of Greatness in Women’s Hockey

SportsDaniele Iannarone — Published October 29, 2014

“It’s a great environment to work in,” said Lawton. “You’re working with bright and motivated university kids, so they’re really good to work with.”

During his 34-year tenure, Lawton has accomplished much with the Stingers and with Team Canada’s international women’s hockey program. On top of his two national championships and 15 provincial championships with the Stingers, Lawton coached Team Canada to a gold medal in the 1994 International Ice Hockey Federation Women’s
World Hockey championships in Lake Placid, beating the Americans on their home soil.

With over 615 career wins to date, Concordia has regarded Lawton as the coach with the most wins in women’s hockey history.

Lawton began his career as an assistant coach with Concordia’s women’s hockey team in 1979, but was promoted to head coach after just one season following the resignation of the previous head coach. Lawton took over at a point where the quality of the women’s hockey program wasn’t as renowned as it is today.

“Women’s hockey was a varsity sport but we weren’t part of any national sports organization,” Lawton explained. “We had girls that were coming in from figure skating and from ringette, playing hockey for the first time, so a lot of players were very inexperienced, but it was a lot of fun to work with them.”

Lawton has coached a number of players who went on to become Olympians throughout his career at Concordia, including Canadians Caroline Ouellette and Thérèse Brisson, Swedish goalie Cecelia Anderson, and Americans Cammi Granato and Karyn Bye. Lawton is pleased with the Stingers alumni who have gone on to bigger and better things, and continues to keep in touch with them.

“I’m very proud of the number of players that have gone on to graduate,” Lawton said. “Really, it’s the players that have moved on from university and succeeded in other things and we would hope that Concordia would be a big part of it. We’re extremely proud of our alumni and the players that have moved on.

“Obviously the national championships were very special to me,” Lawton continued. “We’ve won a number of league championships, but it’s really the relationships that I’ve built with players over the years that is something I’m really proud of.”

Lawton’s success as a coach could easily be chalked up to his work ethic, committing everything he can to his team. His squad practices three hours per day and plays one or two games per weekend, playing at home at Ed Meagher Arena, and in road games as far as Ontario. When he’s not preparing his team for their next game, he’s building
for the next season through recruitment.

“We sit down, we have a number of player-coach meetings, there’s a lot of film to look at, we’re evaluating other teams, we’re recruiting,” said Lawton. “Whenever we’re not playing on the weekends, I’m out recruiting. There’s always things that keep you busy in the life of a coach.

“We do normally see [Lawton] on the ice and behind the bench, but there’s so much that goes into what he brings on the ice for games, for practices, that he does on his own time,” said starting goaltender Briar Bache. “I know he does research for different drills and other teams and the scouting, that takes up a lot of time itself. [The scouting] is the things that people don’t think of, but there’s a lot that he puts in.”

“Being a coach, he has a family so it just goes to show how dedicated he is,” added forward Valerie Wade. “Putting all this time and effort into our team, it says a lot about himself too and how much he cares about the program.”

This season Lawton’s Stingers are in a rebuilding process. They have 15 players who are in either their first or second season as Stingers, and, according to the players, Lawton wasn’t afraid to let go of senior players in order to accommodate a rebuild.

“He could be fine with keeping fourth or fifth-year players and not doing as much recruiting, and we’d have the numbers but we don’t necessarily have the skills, so he puts the team first,” said Bache. “Rebuilding isn’t the easiest thing for anybody, but it’s necessary.”

“We had a good recruiting year [this year], we had a great recruiting year last year and the kids know what we’re going through,” Lawton said. “They realize that in a couple of years, or maybe as early as next year, we’re going to be a team that other teams will have trouble beating.”

While the team may have ways to go before bringing a national championship back to Ed Meagher for the first time since 1999, Lawton has been working hard to ensure that success eventually returns to Concordia, and doesn’t envision himself leaving the hive any time soon.

“It’s a great environment to be in with young, energetic people that have good goals both academically and athletically,” he said. “I still enjoy it, I still enjoy working with the athletes, I still enjoy working with the department. I haven’t even thought about moving on to tell you the truth.”