From playing U11 A1 to ending his playing career with a U21 Provincial Championship, Xavier Poulin Norris (better known to his friends and teammates as Xav) has had no shortage of highlights during his playing career with NVMHA. And now, in his second year of coaching, he wants to help his team and players create highlights and memories of their own.

Growing up with NVMHA

Like many others, Xav’s playing career started at a young age. He played Cookie Monsters at a nearby association and joined NVMHA at the earliest point possible, which at the time was U7. And it wasn’t long until he began making an impact with the U11 A1 team — in fact, one of his favourite memories was playing alongside other talented players and beating the North Shore Winter Club U11 A1 team.

“In U11, we had a lot of really talented players who eventually left hockey to play soccer,” he tells NVMHA in an interview. “This is still a highlight of my minor career, our U11 A1 team beat NSWC’s U11 A1 team that year, and that was a huge deal — I know it was something that hadn’t happened in a long time. And I remember that NSWC team even had a lot of players that went on to play hockey at much higher levels.”

As Xav grew older, he continued playing both rep and “C” level hockey for NVMHA, even ending his minor hockey career on a high note — with a provincial championship with the U21 A1 team.

“It was really high level hockey, our NVMHA team had tons of players returning from Jr. A and Jr. B,” he recalls. “I don’t know if we actually lost a game that year, but teams would put up a good fight against us. Even in the provincial finals, it went to overtime.”

But alongside the competition and the championship run, Xav was simply happy to have one last chance to play minor hockey.

“It’s a continuation of minor hockey for players who still want competition but maybe don’t want to take it too seriously or don’t have the commitment for junior,” he explains. “For me, it was just another crack at competitive hockey and that experience with your friends.”

Coming back to the Storm

After finishing playing U21 A1 and a few years away from minor hockey, Xavier finally looked at returning to NVMHA — this time, as a coach.

“It was something that I was really interested in and the opportunity came up to coach with Clarke [Saunders],” he explains. “I’d seen how much fun and success that he was having with his players, so when he told me that NVMHA was looking for coaches, I was on him to give me that spot.”

In his first year of coaching, the U11 A2 team ended just shy of winning the playoff championship banner. Now in his second year of coaching, Xav is looking to take a more active role, communicate more with players, and help his team hunt down another banner.

“As a first experience coaching, I was definitely watching and learning a lot, taking notes and trying to learn,” he says. “I can definitely say that this year, I’ve taken more of a step forward and am getting more involved with voicing my opinion or communicating with players.”

Xav adds that he’s also gotten more comfortable with the public speaking involved in the role — whether it’s inspiring his players before games or communicating with parents and other coaches.

In the jump from coaching U11 to U13, he’s also been remarkably impressed with the maturity and smarts of his new team.

“I’m really excited to work with the U13s this year, it’s crazy to see the amount of maturity in these players despite a two-year age gap. We’re two practices in with our full team now and the improvement is already substantial — you tell the players something and they understand almost immediately.”

Another area where he’s been impressed is the sheer level of skill amongst this generation’s players — which he credits to the amount of resources and skills coaches that are more widely accessible.

“The ice time these kids are getting, compared to what we got growing up, it’s night and day, honestly,” he explains. “And they’re fortunate enough to be getting better training, more resources, skills coaches, and NVMHA is doing a great job of getting these coaches to provide extra development. It’s a great resource to have for these kids to learn and develop.”

So, with the regular season soon underway, what are Xav’s goals for the upoming season?

“Obviously the main thing is to have fun, we’re going to have a really fun season. And I do have high expectations, but I’m already really impressed with the level of the players that we have on this team. But win or lose, I just want to see us progress both individually and as a team. And I really want to see our players improve in how they work as a team as well.”

Rapid Fire

Want to learn more about Xavier? Here’s his round of rapid fire.

Who’s your favourite current NHL player and favourite of all time? 

Quinn Hughes and Henrik Sedin.

What was your favourite hockey stick of all time? 

The Warrior Johnson. 

What’s your favourite pre-game song? 

FE!N by Travis Scott. 

What piece of advice would you give to any NVMHA player? 

Work hard. 

What’s the best advice you got from a coach? 

Work hard (he laughs). 

When it comes to North Vancouver Minor, blue or white jerseys? 

Whites. 

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