1,000 and Counting  – and Looking Back

EDMONTON – When Kraken assistant coach Bob Woods met his wife, Mary Sue, it didn’t take long for them to know they belong together in this life. They started dating January 1991 in Utica, NY, during Bob’s third American Hockey League season as a defenseman and 1988 draft pick of the New Jersey Devils. Two months later they were engaged and got married that August. What was less clear is exactly where they would be sticking together, loving each other and raising two sons, Brendan and Colin.

As it turns out, the “where” has been multiple and staggeringly plural: Bob played in eight states and one country (Austria) over 15 seasons as a pro hockey player, then eight states and one country (Canada) in 28 seasons as a coach. It adds up to 12 different states, three countries, 17 cities/towns and 55 separate lines on the widely used reference website, HockeyDB.com, to list all of Woods’ signing, hirings, trades, and promotions as both player and coach, plus even four summertime seasons as a pro roller hockey player.

Woods’ most impressive number rings up four digits Saturday night when the Kraken face the Oilers here in Edmonton. Woods will be behind the bench for his 1,000th game as an NHL assistant coach. Everybody in the Kraken organization is happy for him and greatly respects how Woods is as relevant with today’s players as he was back in his October 2009 debut with the Washington Capitals, just months removed from leading the Caps’ AHL affiliate Hershey Bears to the Calder Cup title. He’s in his first year working with the likes of Adam Larsson, Vince Dunn, Brandon Montour, Jamie Oleksiak, Ryker Evans and Josh Mahura, but 2024-25 marks his 13th season as an NHL assistant specializing in working daily with the defensive corps along with handling shared power play duties at stops in Washington, Anaheim, Buffalo, Minnesota and Seattle.

“Bob has done a great job with lots of different types of defensemen in different places,” said Kraken head coach Dan Bylsma, who has 42 HockeyDB.com pro hockey listings of his own. “There’s John Carlson with Washington; a young Cam Fowler in Anaheim; 21-year-old Rasmus Ristolainen in Buffalo; and Gary Suter, Jared Spurgeon and Matt Dumba in Minnesota. At every stop, now here, he’s always been able to establish relationships with all those players and every defenseman he coaches to get them playing their best not only for the team but playing their best hockey.”

Common Denominator From Game 1 to No. 1,000

When asked during the current road trip if he remembers his first NHL game behind the bench, Woods had to think about it for a few beats, then guessed: “Maybe Boston? I know my/our first win was against Boston.” He was right. The Capitals beat the Bruins in a 4-1 road win. No one, Woods included, would propose today’s NHL is the same as those early heydays of Alex Ovechkin and Sydney Crosby. There is no debating NHL players are faster and more skilled than ever, which only makes the job increasingly difficult on the ice for defensemen and said position coaches.

“The game has changed,” said Woods. “Plus, you've got analytics. You have so many more tools now [to evaluate players]. It's become a big part of the game. I think the players are basically still the same, maybe changed a little bit. If you're honest and ask what they think, I find being able to communicate is a big thing then and now. Is it hard to make decisions [about players and playing time]? Absolutely, but I've always believed, if you know it's the right decision, it's not a tough decision ... As coaches, we're always learning. Whenever you think you don't need to learn anymore, you're going to be in trouble. If you don’t you stay up with things, you will be left out.”

Staying Power at Work and Home

There are many reasons why Bob Woods will be cycling through his NHL squad’s in-game defensive pairs for the 1,000th time Saturday night against the division rival Oilers, marking the historic occasion with the tall task of factoring the matchups with all-world players like Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl on the ice.

But it says here one of biggest clues to Woods’ longevity and success was on the phone from Utica this week. Their love story has fueled Woods’ hockey dream and made it a full realization that included AHL Calder Cup titles as a head coach, assistant coach and player, plus winning a Kelly Cup as a player in the ECHL.

“When I first met Bob, it was after I had dated one guy for a very long time,” said Mary Sue Woods, who at that time was teaching second grade in the early stages of a career teaching elementary classes and taking on special education responsibilities (she has degrees in both disciplines and many former students keep in touch on Facebook). “When my family, who all still live here in Utica, saw the way I was caring about Bob, they were asking ‘What going on with you, we’ve never seen you like this.’ We fell in love. My parents were apprehensive. They thought I would marry a doctor or lawyer ... but a hockey player?”

At one of the team’s hotels this week, Bob Woods frequent grin was flashing and his could have been twinkling but can’t verify because the smile was so big.

“She has had no idea what she was getting into,” said Bob. “She knew I was a farmer from Saskatchewan. I presented the farming option. She chose hockey, and she's been along for the ride the whole way.”

Goaltender Definition and Falling in Love

One thing that has changed is Mary Sue knows more about hockey these days, with her husband’s full-throttled involvement and both sons playing the sport in every new town, Older son Brendan (selected in the fifth round of the 2012 NHL Draft by none other than then-Carolina GM Ron Francis, playing in seven NHL games for the Hurricanes and more than 300 in the AHL).

“I had never been to a hockey game,” said Mary Sue during our phone conversation. “I didn't even know what a goaltender was, so Bob told me on the night we met ... I was out at a bar one night after a wedding, and the whole [Utica] team was there. My girlfriend dated one of the players from the year before. She knew some of the guys and Bob was there. Somebody introduced us and he thought my name sounded like a farm name because he was born and raised on a farm. I'm like, ‘No, that's not it.’ Then we kept running into each other. I saw him at the grocery store and again at a bar another night. We became friends first. After a few months, he asked me out ... we just fell in love very quickly. We didn’t want to be apart for the next season.”

Brendan was born after that next season, which was the first of three years playing for the Johnstown Chiefs of the ECHL. That set a trend that still holds today. The family went where Dad coached. And, oh, if the Johnstown Chiefs sound familiar, yes, that franchise was the inspiration for the hockey movie classic, “Slapshot,” starring Paul Newman. Soon enough, the boys were school-age and playing youth hockey. That made it more challenging if Bob was offered a step-up role, though longer stays in Hershey (PA), Biloxi (MS) and Minneapolis-St. Paul were huge contributors to a bit more normal life, especially for the kids in Hershey and Biloxi and the Bob and Mary Sue in Minnesota.

“We tried to make sure we stayed so that it wasn't so crazy for them, especially as they got a little older,” said Mary Sue. “One thing that helped was the boys played hockey everywhere they moved next and made a whole team of new friends each time.”

For his part, Bob Woods is grateful to Mary Sue and his sons for supporting his hockey dream that will be validated in a meaningful methodology Saturday night in Alberta, just the next province over from his family’s farm some 380 miles or a six-and-a-half-hour drive away.

“It's a tough life and you depend on your family,” Woods said about making his way in the NHL. “It's hard on your kids. It's a lot of the moves, but it was always our decision not my decision. We were just trying to get to a better situation. My goal was always to make it to the NHL. It was a lot of games to get there. I played over 900 games as a player. I've coached over 700 games in the minors, and finally got to the NHL, which was the goal. I would love to have made it as a player, but it just didn't work out. It was tough, it was hard, but I don't think we'd change anything.”