It’s impossible to hold a discussion of the FIAHL’s greatest coaches without including AM Lumber’s current, Hunter DeLauretis. In the young franchise’s first five seasons, DeLauretis has lead AM Lumber to two Le Coupe de Iron’s, and one Unity Cup. While DeLauretis and the rest of his coaching staff are far from cementing themselves a spot in the FIAHL Hall of Fame, DeLauretis has not faltered in his persistence of such a coveted spot in history. Instances of his brilliance have never been as apparent as what occurred on the night of June 25, 2017.

That night, with only nine minutes left in the game, AM Lumber found themselves behind on the scoreboard. After entering the final period with a 4-2 lead, the team had, naturally, chosen to relinquish its hold on victory. As the final minutes approached, any flicker of hope had seemed to be snuffed out. Nothing was working for the young team. Harney’s interactions with the puck looked like when you take two positive magnets and try to put them together, Pellegrino’s speeches held about as much weight as a feather in outer space, and all Bufis could think about was the “new” kegerator that he had found at the team’s last weekly dumpster-dive. With the leadership crumbling all around him, DeLauretis was seconds away from removing himself from the bench. “It was upsetting, to say the least”, DeLauretis told us after the game, “I push these guys way too hard in practice for them to be giving up like that when the game is on the line. We only allowed [the Chiefs] to score six goals on us that period, and our guys were ready to give up? Not in my Cabin”.

Yet DeLauretis knew leaving matters in the hands of his captains would have resulted in the team’s folding before the final buzzer had sounded. He needed to take action, but what could he do? “Everyone sucked, so, so badly that night. I had to check my calendar to make sure that it wasn’t April Fool’s Day or something, it looked that much like they were playing a prank on me. I looked to anything I could think of for a solution, my notes, the rest of my staff, the hot girls in Section 11, Row 8, Seats 1 through 4, nothing worked. And then I looked at Austin. Quite frankly I had forgotten we signed him for this season. I’m so used to him blowing his contract money on questionable activities in far off countries. It was kind of shocking to see him there, warming the end of the bench. ‘He’s the best player in the league’, I thought, ‘that’s gotta mean something’. So I threw him out there to see what would happen, and whaddya know? He scored like a point per minute for the rest of the game, and we won. We actually won…”.

History is made every day in the FIAHL. Players put their blood, sweat, tears and beers into the game every time they take the ice. Yet it’s the coaches who rarely get the recognition they deserve. DeLauretis’ call to throw the league’s most effective player into the fray in the game’s dying minutes may have been unprecedented, but this momentary stroke of genius may have been just what AM Lumber needed to turn this season, and the franchise, back around. DeLauretis concluded the press conference that night by saying he can’t have been the first coach to put his best player on the ice when the game was on the line, right? There’s no way he’s the first coach to ever do that…

In related news, Albrecht has been sent to work on his conditioning with the Boston Bostonians, in Amherst, MA for an undisclosed period of time.