HighSchoolHockeyForums.com

Little Falls was never a hockey hot bed until coach Couture came to town and made Little Falls a contender in all levels of hockey. Where did he come from. his coaching style and how does he keep turning out d-1 players?

Couture is a PE teacher at the Little Falls schools, I think he's at an elementary school now, but was at the high school. He's the nicest guy I've ever met, awesome guy to be around and really got along well with everyone even in a 9th grade gym class. From what I can remember he played high school hockey in International Falls, and then went on to UND.

He was managing the Old Country Buffet in Eveleth prior to his Little Falls gig.

INDUS wrote:Little Falls was never a hockey hot bed until coach Couture came to town and made Little Falls a contender in all levels of hockey. Where did he come from. his coaching style and how does he keep turning out d-1 players?

When did he show up in Little Falls and is he heavily involved in the youth hockey association?

stitches wrote:He was managing the Old Country Buffet in Eveleth prior to his Little Falls gig.

Haha. Nice. The thing is the d-1 hockey players are coming from families that have the tradition of hockey throughout their family trees. I'm not knocking his coaching totally but he has been getting help from other families.

I believe that Ben Hanowski's father, John is the person that deserves the credit for D-1 players coming out of Little Falls. Nothing against Tony, but John was Ben's and Jared Festlers coach from Mite's on up. He's the one that taught them how to play the game. Let's not forget about Beau Hanowski, with a little more size he could also be playing D-1 hockey.

Little Falls success has come from both Coach Couture and solid coaching in the youth program.... Ben's dad John was a big part of the youth program he coached the kids that were on the 2006,2007,2008 state tourney teams and a few on the 05 tourney team. He coached most of these kids multiple years in mites through peewees. 2 of those peewees teams qualified for state, which for the number of kids LF has out is pretty impessive.

I also know that couture coaches alot of youth hockey. He has a son who is a mite and he coaches that age group 2-3 times a week.

Bigfan wrote:I believe that Ben Hanowski's father, John is the person that deserves the credit for D-1 players coming out of Little Falls. Nothing against Tony, but John was Ben's and Jared Festlers coach from Mite's on up. He's the one that taught them how to play the game. Let's not forget about Beau Hanowski, with a little more size he could also be playing D-1 hockey.

That was the point of my question. I believe it was Ben's dad that talked the hockey association into fielding "A" teams to get there kids use to playing the top level, even if it meant they would take a lot of lumps along the way.

I believe he is from International Falls. Doing an excellent job in LF. I'm sure others also deserve credit for the turn around in LF as well, one guy can't do it all. I hear he is taking some heat from people in LF. They should be VERY happy with him. FL plays the game the right way, rink rats, skills, instinct, no lane hockey.

INDUS wrote:Little Falls was never a hockey hot bed until coach Couture came to town and made Little Falls a contender in all levels of hockey. Where did he come from. his coaching style and how does he keep turning out d-1 players?

I think it might have something to do with growing up as a program, coinciding with the decline of other programs. In 1997 Little Falls finally got to the section 4a championship. They lost to Fergus Falls 3-0, that 3-0 was probably surprising. For the youth to see the big guys playing at a championship level is huge. Fergus ended Little Falls' season the next 3 years...but the scores got closer, in the regulay season anyway, with at least one last minute or OT loss, and probably a tie. Along this same time they started beating Detroit Lakes and competing with Alexandria. Detroit Lakes hasn't been that great since the Garret Raboin adn Tim Serviss show. About 5 years ago Wadena broke a seven year run by the Otters with a great team and the start of Fergus Falls' down years. Wadena isn't healthy enough of a program to sustain that kind of success and Little Falls was waiting. In that time they obviously made some players start to really get interested and some good coaches stepped in. About 4 years ago Little Falls finally broke through, and so far they aren't looking back. Their youth are strong, and they are competing with top programs in district 15.

Couture is from Int'l Falls and played goalie for UND in his college days. He is a great guy and coach. I remember being bat boy for the Int'l Falls VFW baseball team in the mid 80's when he was my brother's coach. Even though I was 3 years too young to play, Cooch would sneak me in to pinch run once in awhile.

Couture is a solid coach no doubt, he knows his stuff and has done a great job in managing a successful hockey team..but, he is not the reason for Fes and Hano going D1. The true colors should come out for Falls after Hano is gone the way i see it

clapper17 wrote:Couture is a solid coach no doubt, he knows his stuff and has done a great job in managing a successful hockey team..but, he is not the reason for Fes and Hano going D1. The true colors should come out for Falls after Hano is gone the way i see it

I believe if I am not mistaken that this years Bantam team (minus the 5 who moved up to the H.S. early) went to state as pee wee's as did next years Bantam team. Although they did not have the success that this years bunch of seniors had, they did nicely and competed quite well with the exception of one game. They might have a lean year or two, but they are by no means done competing for the section title.