OTTAWA – David Frost, the former hockey coach and NHL agent acquitted in 2008 on sexual exploitation charges involving teenage hockey players, says he is not ducking his detractors.
He also has set the record straight, in a telephone interview with the Ottawa Citizen, about “bogus” reports that have him coaching under an alias at a hockey school in Southern California.
“I don’t care if the whole world knows I’m down here,” Frost said Tuesday. “At the end of the day, I was acquitted, and for those people who wanted me to disappear into the night …” Frost offered an expletive.
“Hockey is what I know. It’s what I do, and it’s how I feed my family. And I know hockey like nobody else,” he said.
The gruff ex-NHL agent, who calls himself “Hockey God,” did acknowledge that he uses an assumed name and has for about two years. He calls himself Jim or D.J. McCauley. The name is drawn from his middle name Jim and his wife’s last name, McCauley. She is the daughter of the late legendary NHL referee, John McCauley.
This is the name he uses in Laguna Beach, Calif., where he’s signed a one-year contract to give live instruction on specialized hockey training systems licensed to 30 rinks worldwide. Frost said he and All Motion Hockey Systems U.S. director of operations Robert Barth wanted the business to be about the machines and the elite training, and not about “Big Bad Dave Frost.” Hence the assumed name.
Frost, now 43, gained notoriety when one of his most loyal players, former NHLer Mike Danton, pleaded guilty in a U.S. plot to hire a hitman to kill his longtime coach and mentor-turned-agent. Danton was a forward for the St. Louis Blues at the time of the contract-killing plot against his agent and life coach.
Danton has since been released from prison and is attending Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, N.S., where he is playing on the hockey team for a second season.
It’s not the first time Frost has been accused of using someone else’s identity. In fact, Frost once beat charges that he had impersonated Danton by using his player’s credit card to buy gas and candy bars. The reality was that he had power of attorney over Danton’s finances while the player was in U.S. prison.
Frost says he signed on with the hockey training systems firm in June, after being approached by Barth. He first met Frost 15 years ago when he enrolled his son at the coach’s hockey camp in Toronto.
“I watched his kids develop right up to the national level,” said Barth, who grew up in The Bronx, in New York City, and was raised on baseball.
“He’s crude and rude, but he can take a kid on the bubble and turn them into a player putting the puck in the net twice a night. He is a master of hockey,” Barth said.
Frost gives a three-day basic training workshop on the machines to coaches in a 12,000-square-foot showroom, in what he calls a “Disneyland for hockey.”
“It’s tough synthetic ice, and it’s not just skating against resistance, but stick handling and shooting against resistance. It’s unbelievable and I’m so proud to be behind this,” Frost said.
“And to set the record straight, I’m not running a hockey school and I’m not coaching and I’m not behind the bench,” he said.
When he’s not giving demonstrations on the training systems, Frost breaks down tape for clients, mostly young players, who contact him through his website – http://www.hockeygodonline.com.
He is under contract with the training firm (www.allmotionhockeysystems.com) through his wife’s company, McCauley Hockey Development and Demonstration.
Frost has long caused a stir in rinks across the country for being abrasive and violent. He has been kicked out of junior hockey leagues across Ontario.
“The bad boy is something that the media made up and I have embraced it,” Frost said.
His coaching style in amateur hockey used to routinely make the news for aggressive play.
“I coached a certain style 12 years ago that in today’s game would not work. You have to move and learn with the times and clearly you have to be smart enough as a coach to work at understanding the changes as they happen.
“Coaching is still about motivating players, but there are several ways, including something I call “˜kill them with knowledge’ and the players will follow your lead once you show them you know the game.”
Ottawa Citizen
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