Brighton Coach's Impact 'Immeasurable'
By
Tim Robinson
Special for MHSAA.com
October 7, 2020
By Tim Robinson
Special for Second Half
Paul Moggach has never been much for looking back.
And as he begins his first season away from the Brighton hockey program in more than three decades, he’s still looking ahead.
“I’m thinking about what I’m going to miss more than the mark I left,” he said in a phone conversation last week. “I guess I enjoyed so much of the time I had, the opportunity to coach at Brighton, I’m thinking more how I fill the time and the things I'll miss.”
Moggach (pronounced MUG-uth) retired as Brighton’s coach this past summer after 25 seasons and having led five teams to MHSAA Division 1 championships. He compiled a record of 466-172-47 during that period.
But that’s not what he remembers most, nor why he wants people to remember him.
“I would like them to remember the teams and players who played for me and my assistants, more than me,” Moggach said. “We have so many blessings and opportunities in our lives, and hockey was one for me and hopefully for the players and assistants I worked with.”
One of those assistants was Kurt Kivisto, who joined the Bulldogs originally as a team manager more than 20 years ago and was a player at Brighton. He eventually won a national championship at Michigan State before rejoining the program as an assistant coach a decade ago.
“The No. 1 thing I’ll take from him is sticking by your beliefs and not sacrificing those beliefs for the team,” said Kivisto, who was named Moggach’s successor in September. “He sticks by those beliefs and ... he’s not willing to sacrifice that even if it could hurt the team. The character and integrity he has, how he treats people with fairness and what he believes is right is the biggest thing I’ll take.”
A stepson, Damon Whitten, played for Moggach at Brighton and at MSU before becoming an assistant coach and eventually the head coach at Lake Superior State, where he is in his eighth season.
Asked about Moggach’s impact at Brighton, Whitten said, “I’m not sure you can measure it. Your mind goes to the hockey players who have come to Brighton, and that’s a big part. But I think it goes beyond that. The money they’ve raised over the years for different families in need, for example. He’s had a big impact, and the players he had were a big part of that, but it goes well beyond that, and he did it the right way. Thirty-plus years (in the program), and I’m not sure you can count more than a handful of times where he made a bad decision or handled things poorly. He did things the right way, every day, all of the time, and I think it’s why he was so successful for so long.”
The team’s charitable works were mostly kept under the radar – Moggach’s reasoning being his players had been given much, it was their turn to give back, and he didn’t want people thinking they did those things for publicity.
Moggach joined Rick Bourbonais as an assistant at Brighton in the mid-1980s, then switched roles with him for the 1996-97 season.
He realized Brighton’s potential in the 1992-93 season, when the Bulldogs upset perennial state power Trenton in the Class A Quarterfinals before losing to Detroit Catholic Central in a Semifinal.
“That, to me, said, at least in my mind, that we can do this,” Moggach said. “It’s not impossible.”
He slowly began to build the program, getting good players and a schedule that would challenge them.
“You get the players by building a good culture,” he said. “Back in the day, when I started, we weren’t very disciplined and our league wasn’t very disciplined. So I think we realized we had to build that, and I could have an influence on building that in Brighton.”
Along with the culture, Moggach looked for an edge whenever he could find it. He was talked into making a trip to the Keweenaw Peninsula by one of his player’s parents, and found enormous benefits for his team, both competitively and in team bonding.
“It’s a lot about the little things we do,” he said, “that we find joy in, and create those opportunities. Creating the little moments really can build to bigger moments. We played capture the flag one day in about two feet of snow.
“Almost killed them,” he added, chuckling. The exhausted players didn’t have much left for the game that night, but spending time together for four days in a bus and hotel room always brought the team closer on and off the ice.
That first UP expedition also led to more teams making the trip, for team bonding and a glimpse of a part of the state, and themselves, they might never have seen otherwise.
“We didn’t do that for long,” he said. “But we always came back saying we were better together because of that experience.”
Bob Nelson had three sons play for Moggach, and Nelson’s wife, Kris, was president of the team’s booster club during their involvement over nearly a decade in Brighton hockey. Nelson also coached the program’s younger players for five seasons.
“We got to know the Moggachs really well,” he said. “It was a good experience, both as a coach and as a parent as well.”
Moggach introduced other things, including an emphasis on nutrition and off-ice training, that players resisted at first until they saw the benefits.
He savored conversations with referees and opposing coaches before the games and even the occasional reporter after games.
But his first priority was the players. At times he would erupt in practice at a player or, more commonly, the team, and the boys soon learned to hear the message, not the volume. But for a couple of seasons, they also wrote some of his wilder statements down in a notebook after practice.
One year, they read some of them at the banquet, and after each one, Moggach’s wife, Sharon, would look at him and ask, “Did you really say that?”
Moggach would laugh and confess to remembering he had actually done so, then laughing.
“He knew part of what made the program good was his relationship to the players,” Nelson said. “If it was a good time, he wanted to enjoy it, even at his own expense at times.”
Moggach has staying in the background this offseason, letting Kivisto shape the team.
Asked if he were willing to fully switch coaching roles, as he and Bourbonais did a quarter-century ago, Moggach laughed.
“No,” he said emphatically. “Rick wasn’t in his 70s when we made the switch. Kurt needs his time. I’ll be there if he needs me.”
Moggach, who is 74, still works fulltime as the University of Michigan’s director of risk management.
He plans to spend more time with his wife and watch his grandsons play hockey, as well as catching some Lake Superior State games.
“I was really blessed to have Rick and Brownie (longtime assistant Mike Brown) along for the ride, and then to get Kurt involved,” Moggach said. “They weren’t the only ones, but they were the kids for me.
“The other thing is the support from the Brighton (High School) administration, the teachers, and our community. There are more people to thank than I could ever bring up. I do think that, all together, it was a great run. It couldn’t have been any better.”
PHOTOS: (Top) Recently-retired Brighton hockey coach Paul Moggach celebrates the 2018 Division 1 championship game win over Saginaw Heritage at USA Hockey Arena. (Middle) Former player Kurt Kivisto, left of Moggach during the 2018 Semifinal win over Detroit Catholic Central, served as an assistant before assuming the head coaching job in September. (Below) Brighton's 2018 championship was its fifth under Moggach. (Photos by Hockey Weekly Action Photos.)
Referee Camaraderie: Bloopers, 'Nerding' Out, Lots of Laughs Create Powerful Bond
By
Pam Shebest
Special for MHSAA.com
February 13, 2024
KALAMAZOO — When it comes to blooper highlights, four MHSAA hockey officials don’t hesitate to share their miscues.
One of them, Bob Corak, even has his pratfalls set to music on an internet site called Zebras with Pucks.
Laughter is the sound of the day when the four gather every Tuesday after their yoga class at Nisker’s Char-Grill & Slap Shot Hockey Bar in Kalamazoo.
The camaraderie between Corak, Corey Butts, Nick Schrippa and Nat Swanson is evident, but the tone gets more serious once the talk turns to officiating.
“We’ve all played, we’ve all coached to some extent, but officiating is just what speaks to us,” Schrippa said. “That’s our niche.
“Every player on the ice has a fan in the stands. Every player on the ice has support on the bench. We’re the only support we have in the arena. We’re the only ones we can lean on. We’re kind of on an island.”
Most times the friends are part of different four-man crews made up of two referees and two linesmen for South Central High School Hockey League games. But that just gives them more to talk about when they get together on Tuesdays.
“We spend an hour every Tuesday with Bob’s wife (Susan) just kicking the crap out of us and then come to (Nisker’s) to debrief,” Schrippa said. Susan Corak runs Be Well Yoga and Fitness in Kalamazoo.
"We never talk about the workout. Somebody will bust out a phone and we’ll go over a video and we’ll talk about a situation, talk about rule differences,” he continued. “We are nerds to the nth degree, and that’s just how we’re wired.”
Yoga is a good way to keep in shape, the four friends agree.
“I’m a little older than most of the referees I meet,” said Corak, who retired after 35 years with Pfizer in information technology. "It keeps me limber, keeps me in shape to an extent, not a lot of cardio but the strength is there that we get from yoga, especially the core, plus injury prevention.
“If I’m not skating, I’m officiating or I’m working the books for the association (Kalamazoo Ice Hockey Officials Association).”
Corak assists in the scheduling, billing, etc., leading Schrippa to quip: “Remember when Bob said he did information technology? We take full advantage of that. He is, in fact, the glue that holds a lot of our shenanigans together. He really is.”
Referees vs. Linesmen
Butts and Corak prefer wearing the referees’ armbands, while Schrippa and Swanson like working the lines.
“’I’m a smaller guy,” said Butts, who has been officiating for 14 years. “Linesmen typically tend to be 6-foot-5. When you’re smaller than most of the players, it doesn’t work out well.
“I like the freedom to be able to get out of the way. It’s a high traffic area as a linesman.”
When not spending evenings officiating, Butts is the penalty box timekeeper for the ECHL Kalamazoo Wings home games. His day job as a third-party examiner for the state of Michigan means he gives driving tests, and that leads to some interesting conversations.
“I’ve given most of (the players) their driver’s licenses,” he said. “I’ve had a group of players in the middle of a high school hockey game, getting ready to drop the puck at the start of the third period, and they’re trying to schedule a driver’s test for the next day. I’m like, ‘Guys, not now. Talk to me after work.’”
Swanson is the newest of the quartet, moving to the area three years ago from Syracuse, N.Y., where he started officiating at age 11.
He is a pilot in the U.S. Air Force International Guard in Battle Creek flying MQ-9 Reaper Drones.
“I like refereeing better (than being a linesman) because I like managing the game and look at the big picture,” Swanson said. “Sometimes it’s great to be a linesman because they get to communicate with the players, crack jokes and sometimes throw the referee under the bus, ‘Yeah, I agree that was a terrible call. But you’ve got to move on.’”
All four also officiate college and youth hockey, which can lead to a dilemma.
“Those are all different rule books, so we don’t have to know just one set of rules,” Schrippa said. “None of them are what you see on TV.
“While we have a couple hundred people in the building who are yelling at us that we got it wrong because that’s what they saw on ESPN, that’s not how it works. So not only do we have to know the rules, we have to know the differences in the rules.”
With mentorship programs available, some current prep players are also officials for younger leagues.
“They’re learning, we’re teaching them,” Corak said. “We have games with them as officials, then we’ll officiate their games when they play for their schools.”
Swanson added: “I think that makes them better players because they understand the rules, where they can bend rules and where they can’t.”
That is what led Schrippa to officiating.
“(Late referee) Mike Martin was officiating a game and pulled me aside,” he said. “I was 22 years old and he asked if I wanted to become a ref.
“‘(Heck) you’ve broken all the rules,’ he told me. ‘You probably know most of them already. He wasn’t wrong. I talked to a couple friends who had done it, and they talked me into doing it 29 seasons ago. I fell in love with it.”
Fun with bloopers
All four laugh as they regale each other with their funniest and most embarrassing moments.
For Schrippa, it was the college game where he made his refereeing debut.
“I was given the rookie lap,” he said. “I was jazzed. I came out of the gate, turned left, went around the back of the net, got to the blue line, caught a toe pick and Supermanned, slid from the blue line to the top of the next faceoff circle and was soaked because the ice hadn’t set yet.
“I got a standing ovation from the few hundred fans that were in the rink. Both my linesmen were doubled over laughing. It was a very cold first period.”
Something similar happened to Swanson.
“I was taking a hot lap, not seeing they’ve got a carpet out for somebody, hitting the carpet and Supermanning,” he recalled. “Then having a linesman watch you do it as there’s a few hundred people in the stands and give a big washout sign.”
Butts and Swanson had moments that actually delayed the start of a game.
For Butts, “I forgot my pants because I washed them separate and my wife had to bring them to me, and we could not start the game until my pants arrived,” he said, while the others laughed and nodded in agreement.
Swanson actually found himself at the wrong rink one time.
“I’m like, ‘Where is everybody?’” he said. “My phone starts ringing. ‘Hey dude, game starts in 15 minutes. You going to be here? Uh, yes, in 20.’’’
The four agree most officials go through highs and lows, funny times and embarrassing times, and that’s one thing that brings them all together.
“What’s unique about what we do is I could meet another official from Sweden tomorrow who I’ve never met before, and within minutes we’ve already got that relationship,” said Schrippa, who is the Southwest Michigan communications representative for the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT).
“That’s something we all share, we all know that feeling, we all understand that bond and it just takes a second. It’s so neat, it’s powerful.”
Pam Shebest served as a sportswriter at the Kalamazoo Gazette from 1985-2009 after 11 years part-time with the Gazette while teaching French and English at White Pigeon High School. She can be reached at [email protected] with story ideas for Calhoun, Kalamazoo and Van Buren counties.
PHOTOS (Top) MHSAA hockey officials, from left: Nick Schrippa, Bob Corak, Nat Swanson and Corey Butts get together recently for one of their weekly hangouts. (2) Schrippa makes a call. (3) Corak, center, confers with a group of players. (4) Swanson prepares to drop the puck. (5) Butts monitors the game action. (Top photo by Pam Shebest; following photos provided by respective officials.)