The York Toros team of 11-year-olds have been shocked by the sudden death last week of their head coach, Joe Cabral.
Cabral, 48, was in his flatbed tow truck and suffered a heart attack.
"We don't know if he died from the heart attack or the crash," said team manager Nick Vrysellas. "The parents and the boys loved him and his truck.
"The first time, when I met him and talked to him for an hour, I was mesmerized. If you saw him, you would say he was the typical tow truck driver.
"The Greater Toronto Hockey League sent in grief counsellors for us and a specialist for the children," Vrysellas said. "There wasn't a dry eye among the parents.
"He loved hockey," the manager went on. "He had high hopes...not of winning it all but of learning to play proper hockey. He would tell the boys, 'Listen to the Fatman and you will go places'."
He referred to himself as the 'Fatman'.
"In the dressing room, the boys would bunch up, kneel down and were wide-eyed listening to this man," Vrysellas said. "The pre-season camp he took the boys to a hotel from Friday to Sunday so they could bond together. Parents could come at any time."
Vrysellas said as a parent on the bench, Joe Cabral took the time to teach him to be unbiased and not show emotion in any way as it might upset the boys.
Cabral had coached his own daughter Jessica and as well as son Ryan, 21, over his 15 years behind the bench in the GTHL and Mississauga Hockey League. This was to have been the third time the father and son would coach together.
"I am going to take over as head coach," said Ryan, 21. "I have to. ... I want to. The system he taught to them, he had taught me every year. I've done it."
Ryan said that when his dad was off the ice he was the boys' greatest friend but on the bench, He wanted you to hate him.
"It was a love/hate relationship," Ryan said. "He was a screamer. He screamed everything from the bench."
Parent Marilyn Santaguida is new to the team but admired Cabral.
She calls him a "wonderful coach!
"Parents and kids are all in shock," she said. "He loved the kids and the game of hockey."
There is no greater praise than that for any coach.
He leaves his wife Christine, daughter Jessica and son Ryan.
