When Kyle Aucoin was younger, parents of fellow players would ask his dad, Adrian, how he taught his son to read the play and cut off passes.
The other parents had been correct to assume that Kyle Aucoin learned from his dad. Adrian Aucoin, after all, played 18 seasons in the NHL as a defenseman, including the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons with the Blackhawks.
However, they might have been surprised by his teaching method. Adrian Aucoin didn’t work with his son on defensive plays when he was young.
Instead, from the time he was 3 or 4, Kyle Aucoin went to his dad’s games and watched every play from the stands. He didn’t take a shift off.
“All these other kids would be running around, having the time of their lives, and he would be watching hockey,” Adrian Aucoin said. “I think that is kind of something that has translated into his game, where his awareness is at an elite level.”
Kyle Aucoin, a Hinsdale resident, is now a 17-year-old defenseman with several elite attributes. A dynamic skater and a gifted athlete, Kyle Aucoin is ranked the 127th-best North American skater eligible for the NHL draft by the league’s central scouting department. He is playing this season with the Tri-City Storm, a USHL team based in Kearney, Neb. He has two goals and 12 assists in 47 games.
However, Kyle Aucoin learned far more from his dad than how to excel on the ice.
“He taught me so much as I person, that I look back and I don’t really know where I could be without him,” Kyle Aucoin said.
Kyle Aucoin said that this season, some of those insights have come via phone calls while he plays his home games two states away.
One of the things Adrian Aucoin has tried to pass on to his son is a love of learning. The message seems to have gotten through: Kyle Aucoin is committed to Harvard.
“Here where I’m living, it’s a new environment, so I’ve really gotten to take in all the knowledge from my coaches, the guys on my team,” Kyle Aucoin said. “We have a lot of older guys on the team who I really look up to.
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“He really just taught me that the more you can learn about everything, every situation you can be put in, the better.”
Adrian Aucoin has also talked with his son about the increased expectations that others might have of him on the ice because his dad played in the NHL.
“I think the biggest thing is just being genuine and showing who I really am as a person,” Kyle Aucoin said. “I think he’s parented me in a good way that it really comes naturally for me. I know there’s people watching, but that’s not going to change me as a person.
“Obviously, I know there’s going to be higher expectations, but that’s something that I appreciate. I like being held to a high standard.”
One of the people who has kept an attentive eye on Kyle Aucoin is Barry Brennan.
A strength and conditioning coach by trade, Brennan helped develop an off-ice training regimen for Adrian Aucoin — and many other players who lived around Ottawa, Ontario — in the 1990s. Brennan has also worked with Kyle Aucoin the past two summers.
Brennan said father and son are quite similar and “men of great character.” He added that Kyle Aucoin demonstrates his makeup by taking action — he cleans up the gym and helps less-experienced players — without being prompted.
“I recall watching him in the gym when he was already done for the day and some younger players were just beginning to warm up,” Brennan said in a text message. “He took it upon himself to warm up with them, to demonstrate the drill to them.”
Adrian Aucoin also taught his son about hockey in the traditional sense.
He was his coach from 2012-13 through last season with the Chicago Mission. However, Adrian Aucoin said he learned from his dad that it’s important to leave the game at the rink. Unless Kyle Aucoin brought it up, Adrian Aucoin rarely talked about his son’s game away from the ice.
“A lot of parents think that’s kind of odd,” Adrian Aucoin said. “Because I drive a lot of kids to the rink back and forth, they’re always like, ‘Hey, can you tell my kid to try this?’
“I’m like, ‘Nope.’
“They’re like, ‘Why not?’
“‘I’m like, ‘I don’t talk to them (about hockey). It makes for an unenjoyable ride because then all of a sudden you’re coaching and you’re not Dad anymore.”
Adrian Aucoin said he wanted to foster a positive atmosphere. He stressed that having fun playing with friends was important.
With Kyle Aucoin’s move to the USHL and the upcoming NHL draft, the stakes seem a bit higher.
Kyle Aucoin has put in extra work with Storm associate coach Ethan Goldberg on defensive skills throughout the season. Among other things, they watch film of Washington Capitals defenseman John Carlson, who helped lead his team to the 2018 Stanley Cup and is a contender for the Norris Trophy this season as the NHL’s top defenseman. They study how he creates more time and space for himself, and then they work on adding those skills — such as slowing down to draw a forechecker in close and then accelerating past him — to Kyle Aucoin’s game.
However, Kyle Aucoin hasn’t changed.
“He just shows up every day and just continues to want to get better,” said Goldberg, who played at Lake Forest College. “I think that takes, obviously, being humble.”
Ryan Nilsson is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Twitter @Pioneer_Press