Noah Babin has reached many heights in the game of hockey, but he also would be the first one to tell you that if his winding journey, which has taken him from coast to coast, has taught him anything it’s that there always is more to learn. 

So when the Jr. Gulls coach, who played primarily in the American Hockey League after an NCAA career at Notre Dame, delivers that message to his players he’s speaking from experience. 

In an era where flashy skills and the fast track often are the order of the day, Babin views skill development and team building much more holistically.

Yes, there are the hockey skills we can see, but just as important, if not more so, are the ones that are more difficult to quantify.

“I’ve been talking to people about the mental side of the game because that is very important,” Babin said. “(Junior hockey) was my first introduction to how impactful that could be.

“Thankfully, with the help of (former Notre Dame coach and NHL player) Dave Poulin I wrote a book for kids about the mental side of hockey. It’s everything that helped me with the mental side of hockey that kids can use. 

“Poulin was the big influence mentally for how to prepare for games, get confident, get focused. Professionally, just being around pro sports. It’s a whole different level of professionalism. It applies when kids get older – like (Jr. Gulls alum) Nate Kallen.” 

The other side of that scale is winning, something any youth sports participant, parent, coach or administrator regularly is confronted with. Part 2 of Babin’s philosophy deals with how that is managed. That was impacted by the man he called his biggest influence as a youth hockey player – Detroit Little Caesars coach Chris Corey.

“As a coach you try to make it fun, which can be challenging at times,” he said. “It’s a really hard balance.”

Babin grew up in Southeast Florida, where he said his first big influences were guys named  Spike, Marty, Jimmy and Peppy.

“When I was 13, I was playing men’s A league and those were the best players I was around,” Babin recalled. “Those were the guys I looked up to. As I grew up, I realized they probably weren’t the best role models.”

The next year, Babin moved to Michigan so he could play a (much) higher level of hockey. 

“There are a lot of Chris Corey’s philosophies I still hold to today, and No. 1 is everyone is playing,” Babin said. “If you’re on my team you’re not sitting on the bench. That frustrates me that it’s become normal at youth hockey that it’s OK to sit your third line. Chris’ motto was, you’re on the team for a reason, and you better get the job done or you’re going to let your teammates down. We all got to play in all situations. 

“Your fourth line guy at Pee Wee might wind up being a professional hockey player who’s getting called up to the AHL. You definitely lose games because of it, but who cares.

“(Former Notre Dame teammate) Brock Sheahan, who coaches the (Chicago) Steel (winners of the USHL’s regular-season and postseason titles in 2021), told me if he coached youth hockey that everyone probably would hate him because his team wouldn’t win many games.”

Babin moved to Detroit when the Red Wings were at the peak of their powers in the mid-1990s, and they, too, were a big influence. 

“I became a rabid (Sergei) Fedorov fan,” Babin said. “I loved the way he could play any position, forward or defense. He skated perfectly, his hands were amazing, and he’d bought a Ferrari F50 – my dream car – and he was dating (tennis star) Anna Kournikova.”

Little did Babin realize it then, but a position switch was in his future. 

“Corey moved me to D because I was a forward who wasn’t scoring much,” he said. “I started watching Nick Lidstrom and Brian Rafalski a lot more closely, just trying to learn how to play the game. 

“It was a little frustrating for me, but I didn’t have a coach who sat me down and made me see why we’re playing a system. I’m assuming it’s because I was a dumb teen-ager. I’m assuming (coaches) Mike Eaves, Moe Mantha and Dave Poulin expressed that.”

Babin took to the position switch, and his game began to take off, so much so that he earned a spot at the prestigious U.S. National Team Development Program from 2000-02. Among the future NHL players he played with were Ryan Suter, Zach Parise, Ryan Kesler, Matt Carle, Matt Hunwick, Jake Dowell, Pat Eaves, David Booth and Mark Stuart.

“It was amazing to be around that level,” Babin said. “You have multiple NHL superstars. Mike and Moe were two world-class coaches. They shared a lot of information with us, but I just didn’t get a lot of it. For whatever reason it never clicked or connected with me. 

“Communication is a two-way street, and people will learn things in different ways. You have to use different modalities, different analogies. Each person has his own way of learning stuff.”

After one trying season of junior hockey in the USHL, Babin was off to Notre Dame. Poulin was his coach for the first two seasons. His next coach with the Irish was the one who flipped another lightswitch for Babin. 

“The person who really got me to understand hockey was Jeff Jackson at Notre Dame,” Babin said. “Everything was broken down very structurally, very defined, very simple, very clear. It was such a clearly defined system, the whole game started to make sense.

“If you don’t have a structure, you don’t understand the mechanics of the game, how all the pieces go together. It showed me how important it was to break stuff down. 

“I try to keep a structured format with loose boundaries. Certain places kids have to be at certain places at certain times, but there is gray area within that to make mistakes.”

Babin emerged from college with a game well rounded enough that he warranted some preseason games for the Carolina Hurricanes. He also emerged a longer-term defense partner. He met his wife Kelsey during the last two weeks of his senior year at South Bend.

“We tried to keep it casual, but it was very obvious early on there was something there,” Babin said. “She’s from California and grew up playing soccer.”

After a couple of AHL seasons in which he tried to battle through a knee injury, Babin hung up the skates and settled in Southern California. By this point hockey was coursing through his veins, and he knew he wanted to pass along the lessons he’d learned from coast to coast. As it turns out, the Jr. Gulls are the only program he’s coached with.

“I did camps and skills work all over the place, but I shot an email to every program in San Diego,” Babin said. “(Former Jr. Gulls Hockey Director) Tevia Arlidge was the only one who responded. 

“I came out to a practice. I think he was trying to pull a fast one on me. He said, ‘Can you take over from here?’ I ran the rest of the practice. He said, ‘All right, you can come back.’ “

As the Jr. Gulls continue their rebuilding process, Babin said he wouldn’t trade his time coaching youth hockey for anything.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “The older I get the more I’m appreciating it.

“It’s funny. Now I’ll see certain players that remind me of other players. There is a little kid at the rink now who reminds me of (former Jr. Gull and Colorado College player) Jake Gates. It’s interesting how certain players fit in certain molds. You try not to pigeon-hole kids, but at the same time you might want to try these things you’ve seen other players have success.”

As Jr. Gulls families have learned over the years, Babin’s wealth of experience is a valuable asset he’s all too willing to share with young players.