Rinaldo finds passion behind the bench
For as long as he can remember it has been all hockey, all the time for Zac Rinaldo.
The 33-year-old coach of the Pelham Panthers had a successful National Hockey League career as an enforcer, racking up 758 minutes in penalties over 374 games for five organizations. Before that, it was a career in the Ontario Hockey League with the Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors, London Knights and Barrie Colts before he was selected in the sixth round of the 2008 NHL draft by the Philadelphia Flyers.
Rinaldo last played in 2021/22 for the Calgary Flames and after retirement quickly found himself serving as a personal trainer. Last season he was as an assistant coach with the Milton Menace of the Ontario Junior A Hockey League and with the Toronto Red Wings U14 AAA of the Greater Toronto Hockey League.
“I never left the game, realistically,” Rinaldo said following a recent practice at the Pelham Meridian Centre. “This is my life. It’s been my life since I was six years old. Ever since I was eight years old, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. There was no plan B. It was NHL and that’s it.
“This is all I know.”
Rinaldo joined the Panthers this season after quickly catching the coaching bug helping out former London teammate Dan Erlich with the Red Wings.
“I was behind the bench and I don’t know what clicked inside my brain but I fell in love with being behind the bench and having the kids in front of me,” Rinaldo said. “I saw my ex-teammate was drawing up plays and the kids were executing them and I thought that was really valuable.”
Rinaldo then moved on to Milton and was hooked for good.
“I had a great time with them so it all came very quickly and I didn’t have time to digest it. I just knew that this is what I’m loving to do and I’m going to keep going.
“It’s the way the universe and the energy was guiding me into this.”
Rinaldo was a tough customer on the ice — he twice led the OHL in penalty minutes — and brings the same intensity as a coach.
“They know I come from my heart, from a place of love,” Rinaldo said. “They all know that and that’s why I’m able to push them into places where they’re uncomfortable. I told them if you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing. We had a saying in Calgary — be comfortable with being uncomfortable — because that’s where the growth is.”
But Rinaldo insists his way isn’t the only way.
“That has never been my approach. I was there and I continuously tell them I’m here for development,” he said. “It’s not a dictatorship here. It’s not my way, it’s Hockey 101. Foundational, fundamental things. It’s not my way, this is just how it’s played.
“I give them creativity. If they see something on the ice, I encourage their feedback. They’re the ones playing and feeling the game. This is a team, a partnership more than anything else.”
Rinaldo feels the best way to get the most out of a player is to get to know them on a personal level.
“I have to know the person first before I know the player. I really get to know them on a personal level so I’ll know how to teach them better and know how to interact on a day to day basis. If you know them on a personal level you know them on a playing level.
“I really take the personal approach first. Everyone is different and everyone has different personalities.”
Rinaldo is not above hanging out with the players every now and then in the dressing room and shooting the breeze about everything from hockey, to school, to life.
“It all about camaraderie,” he said.
Rinaldo feels that personal connection is key when it comes time to get tough. He keeps an eye out for possible issues and is quick to pull a player aside if he feels it necessary.
“If I sense they’re feeling that way, I’ll sit down and show video why and the lightbulb goes off and they re-set, he said. “I have to back myself up because if I don’t they’re going to resent me and stop playing for us. That’s on me to identify if a player is feeling that way so I can correct it sooner than later.”
Rinaldo loves the teaching aspect of coaching and admits he is still learning that part of the job.
“The thing I’m still trying to get better at is not too much information,” he said. “I tend to maybe over-teach. I think sometimes I get carried away because there is so much to give I kind of word vomit and maybe it’s too much to unpack for these guys but more information is better than no information. It’s having the balance.”
Rinaldo played for a number of coaches along the way and mentioned current Hamilton Kilty B’s coach John McDonald, Dale and Mark Hunter in London and Peter Laviolette and Rick Tocchet at the NHL level when asked who had the most influence on him.
“John McDonald had a huge impact and Dale Hunter was a father figure to me and Mark Hunter. If it wasn’t for them I don’t know if I would have pushed myself as far as they were pushing me. They taught me so much,” Rinaldo said.
Rinaldo loved Laviolette’s approach too.
“He was was a very personal coach. He had an open-door policy and I felt like I could talk to him about anything and he wouldn’t judge me. He knew me as a person.”
Tocchet, meanwhile, was a leader by example.
“He would bag skate with us, he would do extras with us. Before practice he would show us little things but he would actually do it. I thought it was so cool he would show us in full speed and then I could really see it happening in front of eyes. He was awesome.”
Rinaldo isn’t sure what the future holds — in fact, he prefers to live in the present.
“I don’t like looking too far ahead and I don’t like looking in the past at all,” he said. “I have to focus on the task at hand. My mindset is take what I was given at the beginning of the year and make them better than they were last year and keep build brick, by brick, by brick.
“If something along the way comes, great. I’m very confident if I keep doing the right things, good things will come.”
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