Ted Reeve’s Stephen King honoured with Ontario Hockey Federation’s 2023 Award of Merit
By ALAN SHACKLETON
Stephen King was recently honoured for his more than 50 years of service to the Ted Reeve Hockey Association with the Ontario Hockey Federation’s 2023 Award of Merit.
King, 74, was nominated for the prestigious provincial award by the Greater Toronto Hockey League (GTHL) and was presented with the honour earlier this year.
An East Toronto resident who grew up in the area of Ted Reeve Arena (at Main Street and Gerrard Street East), King first started his association with Ted Reeve Hockey at the age of eight as a young player in the association.
“I played hockey here for four years…, and then came back as a house league coach. And I’ve been here ever since,” he said in an interview with Beach Metro Community News this month.
King began as a volunteer coach in Ted Reeve’s house league program in the early 1970s, coaching a team with his cousin. He said the rink was a hub of the community, and he just progressed from coaching to taking on more and more responsibilities over the years with the Ted Reeve Hockey Association.
“The rink (and Ted Reeve Hockey) was the centre of the community. Everybody knew everybody’s family, and the whole family would be here and they just came back year after year. I also kept coming back year after year and then I became a convenor, then a director and then the president,” said King.
Stephen King, back row left, started coaching with the Ted Reeve Hockey Association in the early 1970s. Photo: Submitted.
He took over as president of Ted Reeve Minor Hockey in 2005 from John McKay. King remained the association’s president until 2022. He is still chair of the Ted Reeve Hockey Association, which includes the house league, Tornados select, and the GTHL Ted Reeve Thunder programs.
The association’s house president is Ann MacDonald, and the GTHL Thunder president is Adrianna Johnstone.
King said helping provide hockey for young residents in the community was what kept, and still keeps, him involved with the Ted Reeve Hockey Association.
“I like doing it for the kids, and that was what you did as part of the community. You came here to the rink and you helped out. You’d come in Saturday morning and have a coffee in the snack bar and would be talking to everybody in the place. Everyone knew each other,” he said. “You’d be here from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., and it was a great day.”
King remembered that in the early days, he would come to the rink with his four-year-old daughter and she’d hang around all day playing with friends and family. “Everybody in the rink knew her. Everybody looked after each other.”
Being a minor hockey volunteer also required a lot of work and time commitment as the association grew. “I’d put in 55 hours a week,” he said of his volunteer commitment. “It was interesting.”
Volunteering locally was just part of what it meant to be a member of the community, said King, and that was what helped make the Ted Reeve Hockey Association so successful and such an important part of life for so many East Toronto residents.
“Everything was done by volunteers. The coaches, the refs, the timekeepers. They were all volunteers,” said King.
However, as is the case with so many other organizations that once had a seemingly endless pool of volunteers, Ted Reeve Hockey Association is finding it tougher to find parents of players and others who have available time to volunteer.
One of the challenges is all of the certifications required by volunteer coaches, even in house leagues. Getting the certifications is a big time commitment for parents volunteering to coach their child’s house league team and that can lead to a lack of available volunteers, he said.
While some minor hockey associations have taken to paying coaches, especially GTHL coaches, King said that’s not something the Ted Reeve Hockey Association is interested in.
He said he’s not against helping GTHL coaches with expenses for travel and hotels, especially if they do not have a child on the team, but he is not in favour of paying them simply to coach. “Being a volunteer shouldn’t have to cost you money out of your own pocket,” said King.
Ted Reeve Hockey is still a community-run non-profit organization (and the rink itself is run by a community board), as opposed to some GTHL organizations that are privately run entities.
“I still see it as community work you volunteer for,” said King of being involved in minor hockey.
Though some GTHL teams are privately owned, King said that will never happen to Ted Reeve due to its community-run status and links to providing a house league system for all players.
“You’ll never have to worry about Ted Reeve being sold. We’re about giving kids a place to play and we take them from development, to rep to Thunder. I totally disagree with the idea of making a profit from it. We put the money back into our kids.”
The nomination for Order of Merit Award cited the many hours King has dedicated to minor hockey.
“There is no question as to Steve’s commitment to his community and growing the game of hockey,” said the nomination.
“The players and volunteers are his greatest focus and he could be found in the arena almost every day of the season. Steve spends three or four nights a week seated in the snack bar at Ted Reeve Arena watching Thunder GTHL games and talking, listening to and supporting coaches and team managers.
“He spends every Saturday morning assisting with the house league program and continues to show up to help and whatever needs to be done. During COVID, Steve did whatever was necessary to ensure the players had access to hockey for their physical and mental health and in the safest environment possible. Steve is the keystone of the Ted Reeve hockey community. He is respected by everyone he interacts with. Steve’s passion, dedication and selflessness has had a positive effect on thousands of children and their families over his 54 years of volunteering and he stands as a role model to those who follow in his steps.”
Stephen King, president of Ted Reeve Hockey Association, drops the puck at a ceremonial face-off in advance of a game featuring players of different ages on Saturday, Oct. 5, 2019 to celebrate the association’s 65th anniversary. Beach Metro Community News file photo by Alan Shackleton.
The Ted Reeve Hockey Association will celebrate its 70th anniversary in 2024-205 season, and details on plans for the celebration will be available in the relatively near future.
For more information on the Ted Reeve Hockey Association, please go to https://tedreevehockey.com/
