{allcanada} Mike Babcock always wants to be better

 

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TORONTO -- Team Canada coach Mike Babcock had a pressing question when he took his place behind an Air Canada Centre microphone early Wednesday afternoon.

"Who in this room holds the record for [eating] Rice Krispies squares?" Babcock said with a grin, looking around the media center, having walked in past a table sagging with the snack. "Honestly … who?"

Eleven minutes later, on his way out of the room, his interview session done, Babcock walked briskly past the table of squares, never breaking stride. But oh, how he looked.

There is serious business at hand for Team Canada, one victory removed from capturing the World Cup of Hockey 2016 against Team Europe on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; ESPN2, CBC, TVA, TVA Sports).

But Babcock was enjoying his day, not at all consumed by hockey or feeling any pressure from being on the brink of the championship. This is a multidimensional man who, on this afternoon, was introspective but also playfully fascinated by tray upon tray of breakfast cereal was fused together with marshmallows.

Babcock can add to his sterling résumé with a win Thursday. He is the only coach who's a member of the Triple Gold Club, having guided teams to a Stanley Cup, in 2008 with the Detroit Red Wings; an Olympic gold medal, with Canada in 2010 and 2014; and a gold medal with Canada in the IIHF World Championship in 2004. You could add the 1997 IIHF World Junior Championship to that list, too; if you want to be thorough, there's also the 1994 Canadian collegiate championship with Lethbridge, Alberta.

But run Babcock's accomplishments by him and you'll get a polite shrug. He'll say there will be time to look back when he's retired or can no longer find coaching work, though it's not as if the latter is going to happen.

Team Canada has steamrolled the opposition at this World Cup, and there's nothing to suggest Thursday won't conclude with a trophy presentation. On Tuesday, Team Europe played what likely was its best game of the tournament and Team Canada played its weakest, but still won 3-1.

"We have an opportunity [Thursday] as a group that is a special opportunity," Babcock said. "They don't come along often. Live in the present, enjoy what you're doing and work as hard as you can to keep getting better."

His secret to success, he said, is "[having] good players. I finished dead last in the National Hockey League last year over an 82-game period [coaching the Toronto Maple Leafs], the worst coach in hockey. Let's not get carried away here. It's been a good month."

Babcock's quarter-century journey behind professional benches has taken him from Moose Jaw of the Western Hockey League to his current job with the Maple Leafs and what he's doing here, steering Team Canada.

Every stop has added to his database, giving him more tools and more insight. Babcock arrives at Game 2 of the World Cup Final with 2,146 games of coaching experience, from a 34-game season with Red Deer in the 1988-89 Alberta collegiate hockey to five World Cup games with Team Canada, not counting three pretournament games.

"If you move from Moose Jaw to New York City, it's a big jump," Babcock said. "But if you just get to a little bigger town, a little bigger town, a little bigger town and you arrive in New York City, it's not quite as big.

"I think the same thing happens here. You build a resumé over time and you feel confident and comfortable in what you're doing. The more you win, the more you feel like you're going to win. The more success you have, the steadier you are on the rudder for longer and you're not in a big hurry. … It's about confidence. You earn that by doing good things and working hard and being prepared."

Babcock, a 1986 physical-education graduate of Montreal's McGill University, has an insatiable thirst for knowledge, adding to it any way he can. With the Red Wings, he was seeking two assistant coaches in the summer of 2011. Plenty of seasoned help was on the market, but he considered what he'd absorbed from an inspirational book and chose a less predictable path, finally giving two men -- Bill Peters and Jeff Blashill -- their first NHL jobs. Blashill replaced Babcock as Red Wings coach when he joined the Maple Leafs last season, and Peters became coach of the Carolina Hurricanes in 2014.

As he began his search for new assistants, Babcock pored over Geoff Colvin's bestselling book "Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else."

"The book talked about all the young, enthusiastic people who were outdoing the old veterans," Babcock said. "So I asked myself, 'Why wouldn't I do that?' I found guys who won at the levels they were at with new ideas, and tried to get ideas that way.

"You can learn from people in any walk of life to make you better at what you do. If you're doing tomorrow what you've been doing for the past few years, the chance of you winning and being successful is very, very slim. To me, success is a moving target. You always have to be better."

Twenty-four hours from what might be the latest coronation for a Babcock-coached team, Wednesday was simply business as usual.

"I came in here like we always do," he said. "We did our work, I got a workout in, I'm going home, going to dinner with the coaches and the wives, we're going to have a team meeting tonight, I'll sleep great and get up in the morning.

"I'm going to do what I do. I love life. I love a full life. I'm not just coaching the Leafs and doing this. There are lots of things I love to do. I expect the players to do the same. This is a great opportunity for Canada, for our team, for these players and myself. We're thrilled to have the opportunity and we want to make good on it."

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