Fairbanks Ice Dogs Alumni Association

Couple of the Old Dogs catching up…

Chris Hau 01-04 and Ken Bouthillier 02-05

Congrats Ty Proffitt!

The Janesville Jets are thrilled to announce our new coaching staff!✈

Our official new head coach and GM will be Garrett Roth who was previously the head coach and GM of the Oklahoma Warriors in the NAHL for 4 years. He also coached other teams for a total time spent of 14 years in the NAHL and we are proud to have him.

We're also excited to announce our new assistant coach, Ty Proffitt who recently graduated from UW-Superior and was a Top Prospect in the NAHL during his time with the Fairbanks Ice Dogs.

Thank you to Coach Dibble and Coach Jonasson for all you've done for the Jets in the previous seasons!

https://www.janesvillejets.com/janesville-jets-announce-new-coaching-staff/

The 2024 Fairbanks Hockey Hall Of Fame Inductee is Rob Proffitt!!

It all started in a little hockey town situated between Lake Superior and Lake Huron. There have been some star players come out of Sault Ste Marie, MI. For the hockey community in Fairbanks, none of them shine brighter than Rob (“Prof”) Proffitt.
Proffitt started skating at the Pullar Ice Arena at age 3. In an incident that would portend his future, Prof got a black eye from bumping into a friend and falling together. He started playing hockey at age 5. There are no records from that era to prove or disprove the rumor that the young Proffitt got a fighting penalty in his first game. “Hockey was booming in the UP (Upper Peninsula of MI) at that time. We went to a different town for a tournament every other weekend ... Hancock, Marquette, Houghton, Calumet, and of course Soo, Ontario. When we weren’t traveling to those towns, they were coming to ours. My favorite memory of that era was billeting in the homes of host teams,” he explains.
Rob must have excelled from the beginning … he was the captain of his team almost every season. Prof rattles off his coach’s names with ease – Ken Horka, Dave Guisbert, and Ron Barkley. “Guisbert taught us the value of having a work ethic, the need to compete and the importance of being a good teammate,” Proffit recalls.
In his early teens, Rob broke his neck while swimming. “After I recovered from that injury, I got into reffing. It was my way of still being involved in the game I loved. It also helped build my ‘hockey IQ.’ Most of my baseline knowledge of the game came from those years as a ref. I wasn’t just calling the game. I was learning lots of strategy,” Prof explains. He eventually officiated in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association, one of the premier college leagues in the country. As he regained strength, Proffit felt the itch to play again. He approached his doctor for permission. The physician shot him down with a simple statement of “Too risky.”
For someone with less determination, that might have been the end of contact sports. Not Prof. In an effort to improve his stamina, the young man arranged to use the local rink for personal training late at night. He knew the “rink rats” who ran the building were partial to a particular brand of beer. If he showed up at the back door with a case of their favorite suds, he was allowed to skate until his legs and lungs gave out.
Proffitt dabbled with college. He attended both Nothern Michigan University and Lake State University (in his home town). He was certainly capable of handling the academics but “ … let’s just say I didn’t really apply myself.” He did, however, begin applying himself once again to hockey, both with intramurals and a men’s travel team. He also coached some youth hockey, just to “ … learn the ropes.”
There were several young men from Da Soo playing for the Gold Kings here in Fairbanks at the time. Star defenseman Joey Behling approached Rob and asked if he would be interested in trying out for the team in Alaska. Prof talked to several other Soo residents who had played for the Gold Kings. They told him, “There’s tons of opportunity up there. You can get a good job and make good money. I never took advantage of that side of things. Don’t you make that same mistake.” Proffitt decided to give it a shot, with only limited concern for his neck injury.
Rob drove up to Fairbanks in the summer of 1991 with two friends. They were both pretty much guaranteed a spot on the team. The same was not true for Proffitt. He knew he would have to earn his spot. To add further motivation, the President of the team (John Rosie) told Prof that he would pay his travel expenses and college tuition if Rob made the team.
Suffice to say that he did indeed make the team, but it wasn’t easy. Rob explains, “One glance at the roster told me I wouldn’t be the leading scorer on this team. We had a TON of talented players. I had to find another role. Whenever a teammate got into a scrap and needed some back-up, I was there. After a few of those incidents, the boys accepted me. My favorite linemates were Billy Barton and the Haman brothers. We had an understanding … no matter what happened, we always had each other’s back.”
“I played four years when we were an amateur program and then two years as a pro team. We won two national titles as amateurs. The 1992 national championship was held in Stamford, CT. I had always strived to be the ‘last team standing.’ That kinda became our motto for the year, and we were able to do it.”
“Those first few years up here were great for me. I coached kids and played for the Gold Kings in the winter, and worked construction in the summers. We won nationals again at the end of the 1994-95 season in Fresno on an overtime goal by Chris Cahill. It was great to be a part of that team.”
“I’m a ‘bottom line’ kinda guy. The bottom line for me is that if Joey hadn’t invited me to come up to Fairbanks and if John Rosie and Roger McKinnon hadn’t given me a chance, then I wouldn’t be here. Pure and simple. I’ve never forgotten that they did me a favor, and I never will.”
“I was offered a chance to go back to the Soo and coach their AAA Midget team. I had met my future wife Stacee by then, so I decided to stay in Fairbanks.”
“John Rosie decided to take the Gold Kings to the professional level. He didn’t have much choice. There weren’t many amateur Senior Men’s teams left any more. I wanted to be in the best physical condition, so I started an intensive training program in early August. That was something new for me. The team did well in the first half of the season, but faltered in the second half. We lost in the first round of the play-offs. At that point, I was pretty sure that I was done playing competitive hockey.”
“That year, Chuck Cartier hired me at Alaska Rubber and Rigging. He taught me a ton about business principles. Among other things, I sold wire rope to Fort Knox. I didn’t start the season with the Gold Kings. John came to me at Christmas and asked me to play, which I did. I gave my best, but my time had passed. They were scheduled for a long road trip at the end of the season, but I pulled the plug at that point.”
“Stacee and I got married on August 2, 1997. I was working at Alaska Rubber and coaching the P*e Wee A team. Things were cruising along. There was talk of trying to form a Junior B team. I went to a meeting at Sport King on August 18 and almost before I knew it, I was hired as a coach along with Roger. Most of the players were Fairbanks kids that Rog and I had worked with over the years. As things progressed, I began taking a bigger role. One day, Rog didn’t show up for practice. When I stopped to talk with Rog later that day, he told me, ‘This isn’t for me. You’re in charge.’”
“We had Deb Baker in the office. Sam Halbert was in charge of game night, with a lot of help from volunteers. In addition to coaching, I was General Manager, but still learning the business side of things. I got a lot of help from our Board of Directors with that aspect of our operation. The team was winning and everything was sailing along. Sam could see that I was over-committed, so he asked if I wanted to make this a full-time gig. That sounded appealing, so I quit my job at Alaska Rubber.”
“We started out in a league called the NOR-PAC, which was short for North-Pacific. That morphed into the Western States Hockey League. Next, we were in the America West League, which eventually merged with the North American Hockey League, which is where we have been for the last 20 years.”
“Both my parents and Stacee’s parents were a huge help in those early years. My Dad Randy was our Equipment Manager for four years, and my Mom Roberta helped with our kids. They would move up from the Soo for the whole winter. The in-laws (Sandy and Silas Hill) helped out tremendously, too. We couldn’t have pulled it off without all of them. It was a hectic time.”
“On road trips, I would buy a charcoal grill in each town and cook for the whole crew. By watching the pennies, I could feed 25 people for $100. We ate a lot of PBJ sandwiches. Billy Ackiss one time joked that I cut the lunch meat so thin he could read the newspaper through it.”
“I coached ‘til 2008. In those 12 years, we went to the national tourney eight times. We had several great Assistant Coaches – Bobby Schwark, Howard Beito, Dallas Ferguson, John Haddad, Josh Hauge. With all of my other obligations as GM, I felt as if I was ‘cheating’ the players. I moved to full-time GM and Hauge became the Head Coach.”
“The budget had grown considerably since we started, so I had to focus on raising more money. On game nights at the Dipper, I felt lost not being the coach. Didn’t know what to do with myself. I tried to do color commentary on the radio, but that didn’t work too well. I got too emotional. We bought some head-sets and I tried to help the coaches with input from upstairs. That was just an imposition on the actual coaches, so we scrapped that idea.”
“One night, I grabbed a bag of T-shirts and started throwing them into the stands, and the promotions just took off from there. We stole ideas from minor league baseball with sumo wrestling and frozen T-shirts and you name it. We started giving away a four-wheeler at the end of each season. I have a lot of fun ripping around the ice on that thing. Friday and Saturday nights had shifted from being just a hockey game into being an EVENT! We were confident that we would always have 1200-1400 dedicated hockey fans in the seats, but we need another 1000 people in the building to make the financial side possible. So far, it’s worked out pretty well.”
“Hauge did a great job for us. He brought a big change to our program. I had always emphasized defense. He brought in an aggressive offensive style. His first year, we lost in the NAHL finals to Bismark. The next year, we won it all in Topeka. We had that great line of Fairbanks kids -- Jared Linnell, Taylor Munson and Alec Hajdukovich. I had watched from the upper deck. I had tears in my eyes walking down to celebrate with the team. It wasn’t so much that I was happy for myself. It was more a matter of being happy for the players and the community.”
“Hauge left to go to the USHL. There were no hard feelings. He had earned the right to move on. I hired Trevor (“Stewie”) Stewart to replace him. He continued the transition toward a more offensive-minded system.”
“The 2013-14 season was off the charts. We had a great team and a great regular season. That season, the League agreed that the final series would be played in the home rinks of the final two teams. We ended up winning here at the Dipper. It was good for the team and good for the coaches, but it was GREAT for the community. We already had a good reputation in town, but that championship pushed it up to another level. It was almost like a ‘validation’ of what we had been building since the beginning.”
“With that kind of support throughout the town, it put some pressure on me. It was ‘good’ pressure, but still pressure. I had to keep coming up with creative ideas that meshed with the sponsors’ goals. We added a new sound system, VIP suites, video boards and top row seating. Those additions made the fans happy.”
“Before we move on from the ‘Stewie Era,’ I want to express my immense appreciation for what he did for our program. He spent 10½ years with us and brought two national titles. It was a great partnership. I wish him all the best.”
“When I look back on things now, I think mostly of the people who helped me along the way. Roger McKinnon was from the Soo and I always looked to him for guidance. John Rosie brought me to town not knowing hardly anything about me. He gave me a chance. That first year, I got in a couple of scuffles away from the rink. He called me into his office and told me what he expected (“ … act like a Gold King”). Everybody who ever played for that team should thank John for what he did. He and I talk quite often about the business side of trying to run a hockey team in Fairbanks. He has become a mentor as well as a great friend.”
John Rosie has nothing but good things to say about the guy who has led the program which followed the Gold Kings, “Prof came North to play hockey. He played, stayed, coached, married a local gal, had two wonderful children and took the Fairbanks hockey scene to a totally elite level. Sure, he was good as a player but he truly excelled at building the Ice Dogs into a program which filled the void left by the Gold Kings. He continued the proud tradition of Fairbanks hockey by bringing home several more National Championships. He expanded the base of support among local merchants and hockey fans beyond anything previously seen. Maybe as important, he recruited solid young men who would play in Fairbanks and go on to play at the highest level of college hockey and spread the word about the huge benefits a player could get from time in this far north community. Fairbanks and its hockey is truly better because of Rob's decision to come north and stay.”
Prof continues, “Lots of other people played a role, as well. Jack and Darlene Tragis were a big help, especially in the early years. Sam Halbert has been on our Board of Directors since the very beginning and is an amazing friend. My Dad gave me some important qualities … work ethic, be tough, be relentless, everything is black and white – there is no gray. I learned my social skills from my Mom.”
“My wife Stacee has seen me through thick and thin. She is my best friend. She essentially raised our kids alone for weeks at a time when the Dogs were on road trips. She and I made a deal one time. She knew that lots of good Fairbanks teen hockey players went to play in the Lower 48. She didn’t ever want our son Ty to do that. The deal was that if Ty never left Fairbanks, I wouldn’t have to clean the bathrooms at home for the rest of our lives. Well, Ty did eventually play Outside at 16, but she never made me clean the bathrooms.”
“What was the hardest part of coaching and running the team all these years?? When Ty was 19, he started the season with the Dogs. To be honest, our team was very good that season and he couldn’t quite crack the line-up, which meant that he wasn’t getting a chance to improve. I had to trade him to a team where he would get more ice time and (hopefully) improve. My mantra had always been, ‘I owe the game. The game doesn’t owe me.’ Ty and I had talked about that concept many times over the years. When I told him about the trade, he didn’t complain. He just asked, ‘Where do I go? How do I get there?’ I was really proud of that. He came back the next season and played an integral role for the Dogs.”
“Our kids made sacrifices as a result of me being with the Dogs. Ty was born in October and he was ten years old before I was home for one of his birthday parties. Our daughter Jordyn has spent essentially every family vacation connected to hockey in some manner. She now runs the merchandise booth during the games and is very knowledgeable about the team and the game itself. She’s pretty amazing that way.”
“You couldn’t find better in-laws than I’ve got. They check all the boxes … plus some. They drive 100 miles from Delta Junction for every home game.”
When it came time to form a Board of Directors, I tried to follow some advice from my Dad, ‘Surround yourself with people who are smarter than you.’ Our Board members are not only leaders in the Fairbanks business community. They’ve also become great friends. The current group has been together for over ten years; some of them much longer than that. We meet formally twice per year, but talk informally quite frequently.”
“What’s the biggest thrill from these 27 years with the Dogs? The championships were great. I also love it when former players call years later and ask for advice. However, the biggest thrill is when a college coach calls and offers a scholarship to one of our players. That’s our number one goal and it feels great when it happens.”
“So, what does the future look like for me and the Dogs? In the short term, I don’t see much change for me. I enjoy going to work every day. Recruiting players is hard, but also rewarding. I really enjoy interacting with the college coaches. I get a big kick when I walk out on the ice on game nights. I stay close enough to the game that I can ‘scratch that itch.’”
“For the sustainability of Junior hockey in Alaska, we need to get a fourth team up here. At some point, we’ll need to find a new General Manager but hopefully not for a few more years. There’s no need to force it; it will happen naturally. The hockey side of the Dogs will take care of itself. Our best recruiters are the kids who wore the sweater. The business side of the Dogs will always be a challenge. We have to keep things fresh and stay connected to all sectors of the community.”

Proffitt will be inducted into the Fairbanks Hockey Hall of Fame during the annual ceremony at 4:30PM on Saturday February 17 at the Big Dipper. The public is invited to attend.

Welcome 𝙋𝙖𝙪𝙡 𝙆𝙞𝙧𝙩𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙 back to the Buckeyes! He is joining the staff as an assistant coach.

📰 https://go.osu.edu/mhkypk051723

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Senior Kyle Mayhew has signed an contract with the for the 2023-24 season and will join the Eagles this year on a Professional Tryout.

Congrats Kyle!

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Congratulations to our NAHL Top Prospects Tournament delegation of McCabe Dvorak, Tyler Herzberg, Brady Welsch and Coach Dave Allison. Make us proud fellas! More information on top prospects: http://nahl.com/news/story.cfm?id=35879

NAHL Alumni Update Six former players earn monthly honors for December.

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