1-On-1 with Head Coach Steve Potvin
Tucson Roadrunners Head Coach Steve Potvin joined Adrian Denny and Kim Cota-Robles on this week’s Insider Podcast with the season just over 100 days away. For the complete conversation, including Steve, Kim and Adrian drafting their favorite offseason activities and drinks download the full podcast below.
Listen to “60 Minutes With Steve Potvin” on Spreaker.
Great to see you on Thursday to kickoff our 9th season of Roadrunners hockey in Tucson with all of our fans, partners, the City of Tucson and Rio Nuevo.
It was great, great to see everybody. You can feel the energy and the excitement about next season and here we are approaching the NHL Draft and a long ways away from the start of the season and there’s excitement here. Our season is going to get ramped up by Rookie Camp (September) and once that starts, the season is underway and it’s go time to get back to the Whiteout.
What have you been up to since we last talked after the season? What have you reflected back on the season?
I started watching the playoffs as a fan first, to let the series start to evolve. Then you start to record the games and watch them, review them, you start to look at avenues and areas where we can make improvements and kind of steal what’s working in the NHL right now. From afar, I’ve been very envious of what’s going on in Coachella; seeing those two teams (Coachella Valley/Hershey) going back to the finals and get a chance at winning the Calder Cup. It just keeps adding fuel. I know we talk a lot about the success that we had last year, but the real success lies in the guys’ willingness to buy in and grow last season and really be apart of the process. They worked hard. There was a lot of times spent in practice preparing and competing against each other and I think that was the real part of our success and what led to the victories. I want to make sure that our guys, fans and people around the game understand how much effort that they put into it and how much they cared about each other. The growth and the giving was nonstop and I think that’s where the success lies.
What is the nerdiest thing about you?
I think I’m just a nerd in general. It sounds like I’m boasting but I’m not; I think I have a high level of discipline and so some times I just kind of walk the line and that’s kind of nerdy sometimes to just walk the line. My kids, I’m just constantly always coaching them, and it’s kind of funny; I kind of laugh at it bit and they’re like dad, “enough, have a little fun, relax, quit being a nerd, live a little bit,” I’m always on the no fun diet. (Laughs)
Roadrunners Rapid Fire Questions: Steve described the below in one word:
Summers in Tucson: Hot
Team President Bob Hoffman: Go-getter
General Manager John Ferguson: The best
Whiteout Tucson: Let’s do it again
2023-2024 Roadrunners: Dedicated
2024-2025 Roadrunners: Too early to say
Offseason Getaway: Greece
Golf: Yes
When the season ends, do you have time to do anything with the team?
It ends so quickly and it’s amazing how anti-climatic it is at the end of the year. You don’t get a chance to get everybody together. You get into your exit meetings and you get guys onto their next step. It’s an unfortunate part, it’s a really odd feeling at the end of the season. It’s just over. There’s really no closure. You expect to go on this long run and the next day it’s done and you’re saying goodbye to the guys and you really don’t believe it’s done. It’s hard to wake up that next day and not get into that routine again. The guys get together, but the staff it’s just one-on-one meetings and get on with it.
If you were talking to your 15-year-old self, what would you say to yourself?
I would say: figure it out, wake up, let’s go. It’s amazing, at that age, you’re really trying to discover who you are. And it’s hard as a 15-year-old kid. You have so many thoughts and so many things that you want to accomplish and you don’t know how to get after it and do it. Nobody really gives you the answers to do it. If I could say one thing, it would be figure out who you are and what you want. I don’t think that you have the confidence to set aside you’re ego; you have this thought of who you are, but you really don’t understand what that looks like and what you value and what you want. Sometimes you can get off course a little bit when you’re a little younger. I would say figure out who you are quicker. I think if you have a little bit of awareness of where you’re ego is taking you, it can help you stay a little more on the course.
