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HAMPTON -

Through the 11 years of those electric Thursday night home games that usually turned into positive Friday mornings at school, Wayne Johnson never lost sight of what was important as head coach of the Hampton Huskies boys hockey team.

Like anyone else, he wanted to win but the veteran coach, who will enter the New Brunswick Sports Hall of Fame in June as a player with the 1972-73 Hardy Cup champion Saint John Mooseheads, grounded the program on a philosophy that demanded plenty from its student athletes.

He usually got it by focusing on developing confidence and character and maintaining control.

Now, he's handing over the program to the next generation of hockey administrators at the school, retiring from coaching on the ice and teaching English (he also taught physical education, history and English in other schools) in the classroom at the same time.

He is looking forward to hours of work on houses or his carpentry projects and is quite confident he won't be back - although some feel the bug will be too tempting to resist.

He might travel a bit as well.

Earlier this month, a large crowd of friends, players - former and current - teachers, administrators, civic officials, family and friends crowded the school's cafeteria to salute his commitment to the team, school and the town with special gifts and words of praise from across the province.

He said while his team had plenty of success - a credit to the community and school administration - the biggest lessons and tests of character occurred when the results weren't good.

In fact, after a 19-1 start in 1997, he was asked how the players were handling winning.

"I remember saying everybody handles winning well," Johnson said. "I'll know what kind of kids they are when we lose. Handling losing is a lot more difficult than handling winning and they handled it well."

Johnson, who was named coach of the year for the seventh time in the southern conference this year, was motivated by those who had coached him in the past. He saw and admired what they did, liked working with kids and wanted to pass it on.

There were many highlights, including:

• That strong start in 1997;

• In 2001, they went 18-0 in the southeast conference, winning 11 one-goal games and in 2004, they went to the provincial final before falling to Leo Hayes;

• The next year, 18 players had graduated and the Huskies won the southern conference final with a thrilling five-games series victory over St. Malachy's.

"We had 18 new players, quite a few of them who had played house league hockey," Johnson explained. "From a coaching standpoint, I was extremely pleased with their progress."

Hockey Night in Hampton is a Thursday night event during the varsity season, one rich in tradition and importance in this tightly-knit community.

"The kids at that school love Thursdays because everybody at the school talks about the games and if they win, they really like Fridays," Johnson said.

"If they lose, they pretty much have to answer to the whole student body as to why they lost. It was a neat atmosphere in that school on Thursday and Friday."

He started in 1996 with the hockey program after years of coaching in the Hampton minor program in a variety of sports.

Now it is time to move on.

Preliminary letters have been sent out to find out which people might be interested and Johnson will assist in the transition to the new person in charge.

But he won't be back.