On January 10 at Tech CU Arena, the San Jose Barracuda will honor former head coach Roy Sommer with a pregame ceremony and banner raising. The night will also include a giveaway of a copy of the banner to the first 2,500 fans, and the team will wear special San Jose Rhinos jerseys, representing the now-defunct professional hockey team that Sommer coached for two seasons and led to the league championship in 1995.
Notable alumni will be in attendance, and before warm-ups there will be a ceremony honoring Roy and his family, recounting his historic AHL coaching career.
“I met Joe (Will),” Roy recounted. “He walked up and said, ‘We’re going to make it a special night for you… raise the banner.’ And I was like, ‘What? Why?’”
The AHL’s winningest coach and 2024 AHL Hall of Famer, the night may have been a surprise for the “Cowboy,” but it shouldn’t be.
“It’s an honor,” he said. “You don’t really see all the years that have passed until it’s over. I raised my family like a Shark. They’ve always known tax.”
Roy’s story begins in Oakland, where an unlikely romance began as a young child playing outside the Berkley Ice.
“I never thought it would come back full,” he said. “We used to go through San Jose to visit my grandparents in Ben Lomond, and it was cherry orchards. Who would have thought they could put a team in San Jose?”
He worked alongside the California Golden Seals, Northern California’s first NHL franchise, even working as a bouncer and helping relay goal information with marking tape before computers.
In the mid-90s, Doug Wilson called Roy a gift that sounded more like a summer adventure than a performance move:
“You want to go out and practice roller hockey?”
Roy had never coached roller hockey in his life, so he called his friend, Chris McSorley.
“Chris says, ‘It’s intense. It’s a three-month gig. Men on rollerblades.’
So Roy jumped to the International Roller Hockey League with the San Jose Rhinos,
they were sent tapes just to learn the rules.
“Probably the best move I ever made,” he admits now.
Little did he know that roller hockey would lead to an interview with the Sharks, then an assistant coach, and finally began a 24-year run behind the bench in the AHL’s San Jose affiliate: Kentucky, Cleveland, Worcester, and finally, back home in San Jose.
Before he coached, Roy played, and won everywhere he went. Calder Cup champion. IHL champion. Time in the NHL when a kid from California scored a goal while sharing the ice with Wayne Gretzky.
But coaching became his life.
The spark started in the pool in Jamaica, when his coach in Muskegon asked if he had ever thought about moving from behind the bench.
“That’s how I started coaching,” said Roy simply.
Since then, he has coached more than 150 players who have graduated to the NHL, something he considers the true legacy of his career.
“In the American League, if you kick 2, 3, 4 guys a year, you’re doing your job. And that’s what we did.”
He prided himself on being honest, even when it was difficult.
He says: “Don’t lie to them, then you will never lie to them.”
His famous “10 game meetings” became part of the tradition.
I was like, ‘Throw anything at the wall, if it sticks, we’ll work with it.’ Sometimes the boys would tell me something I didn’t know about them. One boy said, ‘I’m the best boy.’ I put him there and he ended up with 25 goals. Another said, ‘I don’t want to be on the power play, I like to kill penalties.’ And he became a great penalty killer.”
For Roy, the best part was always the people.
“That’s what I miss the most, the teamwork.”
Ask Roy about his career, and he’ll quickly point to the person who made it possible: his wife, Melissa.
He says: “To be honest, I don’t think I would be living here without him.”
He built his own career, special education teacher, now coordinator at Flathead Community College, while supporting every movement, every city, every late night on the bus.
“He didn’t find a place to live because we were always moving, but he is a good teacher,” said Roy proudly. “He was in charge of the house while I was on the road, he sacrificed a lot.”
Her daughter, Kira, who recently got married in Brooklyn, will be there on January 10 with her husband.
“He’s really happy now,” Roy smiles. “It’s going to be fun to have him out here.”
His son, Caston, is now a rising coaching star, already thriving at Quinnipiac after successful stints in the NCAA and WHL.
“You’re smarter than me,” Roy joked. “He soaked everything in. He did it all by himself.
Then there’s Mo, Roy’s constant shadow and the heart of every locker room he walks into.
“He probably rode 750,000 kilometers on the bus with me,” laughs Roy. “The players love him. They don’t ask about me, they ask about Mo.”
Legacy Raised on the Tracks On January 10, the Barracuda will wear special Rhinos jerseys, another nod to Roy’s journey. Old players will return. Fans will be happy. And in the new state-of-the-art Tech CU Arena, Roy’s name will forever rise above the ice.
All roads lead back to San Jose.
