Katie Bannister had a dream in high school.
“I told my parents, ‘I’m going to be the first female coach in the NHL,'” she remembers.
In reality, Bannister never reached that dream. She’s a teacher in Thunder Bay, Ontario, and about three nights a week, she coaches a house league of 56 girls ages 4 to 8.
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“Coach Katie. That’s what they call me around the rink,” she says. “I’m like, ‘Aww.'”
Coach Katie may not be barking orders at St. Louis Blues captain Brayden Schenn and Co., but without her, husband Drew Bannister may never have been the club’s new interim coach. Not only has she provided a home base for a family with three hockey-playing daughters, but she’s also been a sounding board for Bannister when it comes to sophisticated conversations about how his teams in Sault Ste. Marie, San Antonio, Springfield and now St. Louis are performing.
“Yeah, I can’t imagine most couples having those conversations,” Katie says. “I love coaching, and every sport I was in, I was always analyzing. I watch behind the play, I watch mannerisms, whatever it is. Drew will say, ‘What did you think of last night’s game?’ and when I give my ideas, he’ll say, ‘I see what you’re saying,’ or, ‘I disagree, this is why I did that.’
“We both know the game, and I’ll never pretend to know it better, but I definitely watch as a coach. I’m his eye in the sky from far away.”
First win speech. 🤝 #stlblues pic.twitter.com/yLSDxZw9oZ
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) December 15, 2023
But Katie and the girls — Brinn (13 years old), Tatum (11) and Emery (8) — won’t be far away on Wednesday night. When the Blues host Dallas at Enterprise Center, it will mark the first time they’ve seen Drew Bannister behind the Blues’ bench in person and, in fact, it will be the first NHL game the kids have attended.
“I don’t know if I fully grasp it because it’s so fresh right now,” Katie says. “I always knew that his work ethic and attention to detail — up all night watching video — were impeccable. He’s laser-focused. So I am not surprised that he’s successful, but just the fact that he’s actually in the NHL is an amazing experience.”
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After a 4-1 start to his career, Bannister will be busy during the Blues-Stars game, so he won’t get much opportunity to gaze into the crowd and find his family. But just knowing that they’re in the building — after all the sacrifices they’ve made — will be comfort enough.
“I’m sure they’ll be smiling ear to ear,” he says. “I know my youngest will be wondering where I am. Where is he? My oldest will probably be trying to point it out. Yeah, so they’ll be pumped up, and it’s going to be pretty cool for us.”
Katie knew what she was getting into. Her father, Mike Busniuk, was a forward drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in the fifth round in 1971 who played 162 games with the Philadelphia Flyers in 1979-80 and 1980-81. After his playing career ended, he was a longtime assistant coach in the AHL with the New York Rangers’ and Ottawa Senators’ affiliates.
“I’m almost living my mom (Jan’s) lifestyle,” she says.
Drew and Katie met in Hartford, where he was playing for the AHL’s Wolfpack, and married in 2007. His playing career ended in 2011-12 in Scotland, and the following year, he became an assistant coach with the Owen Sound Attack of the OHL.
The family, which was expanding with the births of Brinn and Tatum, and eventually Emery, would live together in Owen Sound for the next three years. But when Bannister became head coach of the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, he and his wife had to make an extremely difficult decision.
Katie and the girls would relocate to Thunder Bay, Ontario, where her parents and other family members were, while Bannister moved to Sault Ste. Marie. It was a seven-hour drive.
“It’s never easy when you’re not able to be there and help on a daily basis,” Bannister says. “It wasn’t like we weren’t able to see each other. They were able to fly in and spend holidays when they had time off for school, and I was able to go back to Thunder Bay, too. But our youngest, who’s 8 years old now, would’ve been 1 at the time, so that was tough.”
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In their mind, though, it was the correct decision to choose stability over proximity to Dad.
“It would give them years of continuity, learning at a specific level and having expectations,” Katie says. “They could just go to school and play hockey, and they weren’t moving every couple of years.”
Before becoming the second draft pick in Tampa Bay Lightning history in 1992, Bannister was a member of Canada’s World Junior Championship team that won a gold medal in 1994. The defenseman played in seven games and had four assists.
Katie started playing hockey around the eighth grade, and after moving to Binghamton, N.Y., she played on the Johnson City High team with boys, and also on a traveling girls team.
“I was a left winger,” she says. “I was way too small to be anything else.”
Katie suited up for two seasons at Northeastern University, but as a devoted student, she gave up hockey. But after a few years away from the sport, she missed it, so when she moved to Hartford with her dad, she took a job coaching the local high school girls team. She continued on by coaching NCAA women’s hockey at nearby Trinity College, and after meeting Bannister, she stayed behind the bench when they moved to Sudbury, Ontario.
“I was still coaching while I was pregnant with Brinn, but I remember at some point I was like, ‘OK, I’ve got to get out,'” Katie says.
But when the family moved to Owen Sound, they lived on the water, and when it froze over during the winter, they put Brinn on skates at age 2.
“She was a natural, so I thought, ‘Well, guess I’d better start coaching again,'” Katie says. “She loved it, and when the other two girls started playing, they loved it, too.”
Brinn has developed into a defenseman.
“She is 5-foot-9 and built like her father,” Mom says. “She plays like her father, argues like her father, everything. She is her father.”
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Tatum is also a defenseman.
“She’s rush-the-puck, but she’s pretty responsible (defensively),” Mom says.
Emery, no doubt about it, though, is a forward
“She’s ready to score at all times,” Mom says.
Katie has coached all three of the girls, and in 2021, as a result of her work with the program in Thunder Bay, she received an award from Hockey Canada for efforts at the local level.
“The kids in the area are very lucky to have somebody as invested in hockey as she is, and our kids are lucky to have her around,” Drew says. “She understands the game very well, and she’s a great coach. I wouldn’t say that just because she’s my wife. If she wasn’t my wife, I’d be super-excited to have her coaching.”
But while Katie has been back home with the girls, Bannister has missed most of it.
After three years in Sault Ste. Marie, he was hired by the Blues as the coach of their AHL affiliate in San Antonio, Texas, in 2018. What was a seven-hour drive to Sault Ste. Marie became a six- or seven-hour flight when you include a layover, so the in-season visits became a lot less frequent.
“I’m not going to lie, I think some is lost,” Katie admits. “Some of the things he would like to be part of, and they would like him to be part of, unfortunately have to be videoed.”
Brinn and Emery’s birthdays are in March, so he wasn’t home for those, but Tatum’s is in August, so he was around for that one. Basically, whatever he wasn’t around for was celebrated in the summer.
“I certainly missed some key aspects in their life growing up,” he says. “I’ve had to make sacrifices, but the sacrifices my family and kids have made go far and beyond what I’ve done.”
Whether Bannister was in San Antonio, Utica, N.Y. (where the Blues’ affiliate played in 2020-21), or Springfield, he’s watched as many of the girls’ practices and games as possible on LiveBarn, an app that provides live feeds from rinks around North America. His wife sends him a schedule of events every week.
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“In Springfield, I’d have it up on my TV, and if we were playing, I’d be able to catch a period before we would go out for our game,” Bannister says. “I’d try to peek in there a bit and see if I can give her any pointers.”
Like the time Brinn had been working on her slap shot.
“If I say something like, ‘She’s got to release that shot faster. What should I tell her?'” Katie says, for example, “Drew will say, ‘She’s got long, arms, right? It’s going to come.’ But then she gets the shot going, and he’s like, ‘OK, now she’s got to learn how to fake the slap shot and go around and not use the slap shot.’ I’m like, ‘But she’s been working so hard for two years to be able to do that.'”
“I’m like, ‘Yeah, but step around, do some different stuff, it’s too predictable,'” Bannister says.
To Mom, it’s almost like Dad is there, and that’s what matters most to the girls.
“It gives them a sense that he’s helping them out from far away,” she says.
In September, Tatum, the middle child who’s in the sixth grade, wrote a report for school and said her dad would be an NHL coach within a year.
“I laughed,” Katie recalls. “I said, ‘Oh man, you’ve got to give this to Daddy.’ She said, ‘Mom, I just know it.'”
On Dec. 12, Bannister was indeed an NHL head coach, promoted from AHL Springfield after the Blues fired Craig Berube.
Bannister, who hadn’t seen his family since leaving for Thunderbirds training camp in September, was watching Brinn play on LiveBarn shortly before Blues general manager Doug Armstrong called to offer him the job. He accepted, of course, and called Katie right away, though he couldn’t get a hold of her on the first few tries.
“She finally picked up and said, ‘I’m doing laundry. What is the rush?'” Bannister remembers. “I’m like, ‘I’m going up to St. Louis,’ and she’s like, ‘What?!'”
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“I was completely caught off-guard, and I was just really excited for him,” Katie says. “The girls were sleeping, so I waited until the next day to tell them. I woke up Brinn first and she jumped out of bed. Then I woke up Tatum, and she was like, ‘I knew it.’ And Emery? She was just concerned about what jersey she was going to start wearing. I said, ‘You’re going to wear St. Louis.’ She’s been wearing a Springfield jersey for a couple of years, so in her mind, that’s what she was concerned about.”
Two days later, Bannister was in St. Louis, coaching his first NHL game against the Ottawa Senators.
Mom and the girls were back home in Thunder Bay, watching on separate TVs because Katie was sick and quarantined in her room upstairs.
“But I could hear them, and they were amazed, saying, ‘Dad’s on TV!'” she says.
“That was a tough one, not being able to be in attendance for my first NHL game,” Bannister says.
The family’s original plan — when they thought Bannister would be in Springfield — was to go there for the Christmas break. After a lot of consideration, they decided to stick with that.
So on Saturday, Katie and girls traveled from Thunder Bay to Springfield, and on Sunday, the morning after coaching the Blues to a dramatic 7-5 come-from-behind win over the Chicago Blackhawks, Bannister boarded a plane for Springfield.
Katie was asked to envision what that hug would be like.
“The three of them always run to him, and then I come in — that’s what always happens,” she says.
“Katie’s always last,” Bannister says in agreement.
“But I feel this time, I almost feel like it’s going to be, ‘Dad, you did it!'” Katie says. “I anticipate it to be a bit longer and emotional.”
The day finally came, and that hug happened.
“It’s one of those that you’ll always remember,” Bannister says. “There’s always special at this time of year, but this one was really special.”
They spent Christmas Day together, but, unfortunately, some of the gifts were in Katie’s luggage that was lost by the airline en route to Springfield. Fortunately, Bannister had something to replace them — three Blues jerseys for the girls, provided by the team with names and numbers on the back.
They packed them for their flight to St. Louis on Tuesday and will be wearing them at Wednesday’s game against Dallas.
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“They’re great kids and they’re excited to get to see their first NHL game,” Bannister says.
“I’ll be nervous,” Katie says. “I love when the team steps out on the ice at the beginning of a game. I just feel like it’s go time. But I think we’ll just soak it all up. It’s going to be a surreal experience.”
And while the journey has been difficult, Mom says it’s been worthwhile.
“Regardless of whether he made it to the NHL or not, we are very supportive, so I definitely think it was worth it,” she says.
When asked if it’s been worth it to him, Bannister pauses.
“I don’t know how to put this, but family should always come first — there’s no question about that,” he says. “My wife and kids should always come first, and sometimes in our game, we have to put our family second, and that’s the hardest part of getting to where you need to be.
“Katie, she’s an unbelievable person, that’s for sure. I’ve been really lucky not only to be married to her but for her to have that understanding of a coach’s life, too. You don’t get to where I am today, or where I was a couple weeks ago, without the support of them and other family members who were so positive.”
In Katie’s eyes, it could have been her coaching in the NHL.
“I think Drew is probably the reason I didn’t, because I was pretty determined that I was going to do it,” she says. “But I’m glad he did it!”
“She probably could be,” he says. “I think just life has gone a different way, you know?”
There’s still a chance, though, for Brinn, Tatum and Emery.
“Maybe one of them,” Mom says, “will be the first female coach in the NHL.”
(Top photo of Drew Bannister: Scott Rovak / NHLI via Getty Images)