OS BY DANIEL LI PPITT
Mike Lende
hopes his
Detroit Vipers'
experience
will lead to a
coaching job in
the NHL.
Video G a m e
Top:
Mike Lende studies a Vipers' opponent.
MIKE ROSENBAUM SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Inset:
Lende diagrams a play from the video.
e sits in his cubicle, watching a video monitor.
He studies the enemy closely, looking for weak-
ness, vulnerability. Soon he must report to his
superior with a plan of attack.
An intelligence officer from a Tom Clancy nov-
el? No, but Mike Lende's job with the Detroit
Vipers makes him hockey's version of the CIA.
Lende, 26, has performed many functions dur-
ing his two seasons with the Vipers. But his
prime duty is watching 'videotaped games of the
Vipers' International Hockey League opponents,
analyzing styles of play and reporting back to
Coach Steve Ludzik.
It's a low-profile, but highly significant job.
"My mistakes have to be minimal," Lende says.
"I submit a report to Steve Ludzik and I say, This
is what their team does' and he goes out and tells
the team, This is what Lende did and this is what
the opponent does.'
"And then if we go out there and the opponent
doesn't do what I said — if I make a mistake —
Steve's going out there with false information. If
we adjust our system to combat theirs and they're
not doing that at all and we get two goals scored
on us early in the game ..."
A Lende mistake can cost the Vipers a game
as easily as any player or coach.
In addition to his position with the Vipers,
Lende runs a successful hockey school, the Hock-
ey Academy of Toronto. A well-respected teacher,
National Hockey League teams send him 20 new-
ly drafted players each summer for a special pre-
season camp.
Lende possesses an impressive hockey resume
for a 26-year-old, but he hopes this is only Act II
of his career.
Act I began in Toronto. Like most Canadian
boys, he skated almost as soon as he could walk.
He began playing competitive hockey at age 6,
although most boys in the heavily Jewish York
Mills area preferred baseball. He played right
wing and reached the highest level of amateur
hockey, Canadian Major Junior A, playing for
the Toronto Marlboros.
But unlike most Junior A players, Lende didn't
seek an NHL playing career.
"I was a little bit of an oddball in Canada. I
dreamt of coaching, teaching, being behind the
bench. I dreamt of running practices. I had no
aspirations of going out there, banging heads and
playing. I had aspirations of coaching. So I stud-
ied the game."
He studied by playing, attending practices and
clinics. He even went to Sweden to study Euro-
pean coaching methods.
"I spent a lot of time learning how to teach," -
Lende says, "moreso than how to play."
By age 18 he began teaching his fellow play-
ers one-on-one. By 22, his playing days behind
him, Lende coached three teams at the same
time: Marlboros' AAA midget team, his high
school team, and as an assistant at Ryerson Uni-
versity in Toronto.
Meanwhile, he established his hockey acad-
VIDEO GAME page 122