If the ageless Ronnie Whitten, back for another dart up the pond Wednesday with the Fine Strokes crew, is the Henri Richard of Quidi Vidi Lake with his 10 Regatta championships as a rower, then Bert Hickey is the Jean Beliveau of the sport.
But who, the casual sports observer might ask, is this Hickey chap?
The quiet, soft-spoken product of Outer Cove might not be a household name away from Quidi Vidi, which may be just how he likes it.
Hickey, you get the impression, would prefer surgery than crowing of his feats at the yearly Royal St. John’s Regatta.
But consider this: in a career that is worthy of Newfoundland and Labrador Sports Hall of Fame discussion, Hickey has won seven championships as an oarsman and another 13, and counting, as coach.
“He’s the reason,” said Katie Wadden, stroke of the M5 women’s team, “we row as fast as we do.”
And M5 are hardly slow pokes.
The reigning two-time defending championship set a new unofficial course record this week, zipping around the pond in a nifty time of 4:55.
Short of their shell springing a leak Wednesday, M5 will give Hickey another championship.
“I’ve never,” Wadden said, “met anybody so dedicated, so committed, so passionate about the sport of rowing as Bert Hickey.”
In addition to M5, Hickey is also coaching the Outer Cove men’s team — with his son, Brent, on stroke oar — which also carries two straight championships into Wednesday’s big 200th Regatta.
Like M5, Outer Cove will also win a third title.
In other words, Hickey is poised to win Royal St. John’s Regatta championships Nos. 21 and 22, uncharted waters for anyone ever associated as a rower, cox or coach in the grand old event.
How about this for a resume? Since winning his first race as a freckled-faced 13-year-old from Outer Cove, rowing stroke on the Billy Summers Jr. midget crew comprised of five other Outer Cove boys, Hickey has amassed seven championships over a career that’s lasted 30 years, off and on.
On top of that, he was part of two record-breaking crews — the 1982 Outer Cove six that wrestled the 9:13 record back from Quidi Vidi Village and Smith Stockley; and in 1991 when the bitter rivals, Smith Stockley and Outer Cove, joined forces to row a then-record 8:59.42, the first team to officially go under nine minutes.
There was a third record, too, in 2007 when he coached the Crosbie Industrial Services men’s team that enjoyed a Regatta Day for the ages, setting a new course record in the morning (8:54.06) and then bettering it in the evening, in the final race of the day with an 8:51.32 showing.
It’s a standard that still stands today.
“That was a very satisfying year (2007),” Hickey said, “because I had kind of broke out on my own (as a coach). I had my own ideas, my own philosophy, my own thoughts and I implemented them into the Crosbie team.
“I told the guys, ‘This is how I see it should be done, these are the kind of workouts we need to do if you want to get to where you want to get.’ I’m very meticulous about the style of rowing.
“I kind of went out on a limb. This was something new. So the results we got were very gratifying. It made me feel I did the right thing, and it gave me a lot of confidence.”
Just as he was introduced to the Regatta at 13, Hickey closed out his career in the winner’s circle, in 1999 with the NTV crew.
Athletes-turned-coaches will often say that while nothing replaces playing the game, coaching it is a close second.
Hickey was quick to embrace coaching, less than a year after finishing up with NTV. Together with John Barrington, another in the select club who could be considered Regatta Royalty, they coached the crew to another four championships.
In 2006, Hickey formed his own team. And what a team it was. Crosbie’s would win two straight championships, culminating with the big year in 2007. Two rowers in that boat — Brent Hickey and James Cadigan — are rowing with Outer Cove this week.
“I always felt that when I had the opportunity to coach, especially in 2006-07, to really put my own thoughts and ideas into those crews, we could get really good results,” Hickey said.
Cerebral might be another adjective used to describe Hickey, an admitted student of the sport. He has, for years, been reading up on and watching video of the world’s best slide seat rowers ply their trade.
“In the older days (of the Regatta), we might have thought we were using our legs, but we weren’t,” he said. “For the crews that came from the slide seat program, it was an automatic thing for them to use their legs, even in a fixed-seat shell. It was ingrained in them.
“I recognized that and I saw how much better they were. I really tried to learn from that, and I think I did. I’ve looked at different programs national teams use, their training programs and I’ve tried to integrate that in to the crews I’ve had.”
“He has this insane intuition about the sport of rowing,” says Wadden, “that you really can’t find in a lot of people.
“The number of championships speak for themselves. He’s an extremely talented coach, to say the least.”
Now 62, Hickey has a boatload of Regatta memories. It’s hard to top 2007, but the 1982 Outer Cove crew certainly holds special meaning.
For 80 years, Outer Cove held the course record at Quidi Vidi until the upstart Smith Stockley finally broke the 9:13 in 1981.
To the folks in Outer Cove, it was like a dagger to the heart.
So Mike Power put together a team with one aim: to re-claim the record.
And that they did, when stroke Andrew Boland, Hickey, Campbell Feehan, Gerard Ryan, Jim Hibbs and Owen Devereaux clocked a 9:03.48 in the first race of the day in ’82.
“When that record left our town, that was something that hurt,” Hickey said. “It was something that certainly the older generation had clung to, and was very proud of. When that went, it created a very big hole.
“To be able to go back the next year and get it back, boy I tell you, to see how happy everyone was, and how proud they were of us, that was pretty gratifying.”
Robin Short is The Telegram’s Sports Editor. He can be reached by email [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @TelyRobinShort
