Thanksgiving is a time to spend time with family, but the day will have extra special meaning for the Truitt family.
Kerrington Truitt is the daughter of Prince Albert Raiders head coach Jeff Truitt. She is currently a third year student at UBC Okanagan in Kelowna where she is pursuing a degree in Health and Exercise Science.
“She’s getting a good education in athletic therapy and she’ll be at the game as well (on Monday).” Jeff explained in an interview. “She’s helped out with the Rockets training camps and things like that for the last two years and she really enjoys it. She’s been a real hockey fan of ours ever since she’s been small and our son is the same way but we get to see her in Kelowna and meet up with her for a bit. Short term because we’re in and we’re out back into Kamloops after the game, but it’ll be nice to see her for a couple minutes. Midterms are coming up in university, so we gotta check in on that.”
Because of her dad’s career and the demands of being a coach, Kerrington has not gotten to spend many Thanksgivings with her dad. With the Raiders visiting the Kelowna Rockets on Thanksgiving Monday afternoon, she will get a chance to spend some time with him after the game.
“I’m so excited,” Kerrington says. “I have not seen my dad on Thanksgiving in I don’t even know how long just being apart from him, even when I lived at home, them being on the road so much. Obviously (with) our travel schedule too, I was so nervous that they would be out here this year when we were gone, but it worked out so well. Even if it’s just a quick conversation, just to be with him, especially on the holiday, is really special.”
Kerrington also serves as a student trainer with the UBC Okanagan Heat women’s volleyball team. Her duties with the team have taken her all across Western Canada. Her choice of career is a unique combination of what her parents do for a living. While Jeff has been a coach for various teams in the WHL and AHL during her life, her mom Shauna is a nurse by trade.
She says she loves being able to follow in both of her parents footsteps.
“I love it. Since I can remember, I have thought of kinesiology or some sort of realm in that space as my future career. It’s cool because I found a mix between my dad’s job and being within the sports world, being within that team community, but as well as following what my mom does as a nurse. I love that I’m kind of in the middle of them and can see both sides.”
Jeff says athletic therapy has always been an interest for Kerrington and she has had a great teacher with her mom always willing to help her when it comes to learning about medical situations.
“That’s kind of a unique situation that she’s always been around the rink and she’s always been around me in coaching and whatnot in the different cities that we’ve been in. She really takes after her mom and she’s gone down that medical path. She’s got a great teacher in Shauna, my wife, with medical questions, anatomy, biology and those types of things. I think that’s helped her throughout her high school years when she took some sports med classes. She never changed what she enjoyed and she likes the competition, she likes the athletic part of it.”
Kerrington says being able to relate with both of her parents about different aspects of athletic therapy has made her closer with both of them.
“My parents are both my best friends, but it definitely has brought us closer to be able to go to both of them for different reasons. I talk my mom’s ear off all the time about school and any questions I have that way. I can always go to my dad for motivation, a pep talk of any sort of being in the team environment and that aspect. To have both of them almost be involved in what I’m doing is the best.”
Kerrington is not the only child in the Truitt family. Her older brother, Cale, is constantly traveling all over North America for work but Jeff says he is enjoying every minute of it.
“He’s 23 and he works for WestJet, he’s flying around and doing his thing and he really enjoys his line of work. He’s stationed in Calgary and gets to fly around and he’s always been into aviation. Sometimes I have to check in on him just to find out where he’s at because I lose track of him every once in a while and next thing you know he pops up in Houston or LA. He’s kind of hard to peg down sometimes but I’m glad that he’s enjoying things.”
Jeff Truitt’s coaching career has had several stops with twists and turns along the way. He started his coaching career with the Lethbridge Hurricanes as an assistant coach in the 1993-94 season. He has since spent time with the Camrose Kodiaks, Kelowna Rockets, Springfield Falcons, San Antonio Rampage, Texas Stars, Red Deer Rebels and Prince Albert Raiders.
Jeff credits Shauna for being the rock for their family while he has been on the road coaching various teams and the multiple moves the family has had to take for his career.
“The strength is in your wife. We’re out traveling around in the American League and even in the Western Hockey League, we’re not there all the time. They’re the pillars for us to allow us to do our jobs. She takes care of the house, she takes care of the family, organizes things and is the voice of reason a lot of times with the kids with advice and things like that. They’ll kind of poke at me every once in a while just for a little bit of advice here and there.”
“She’s done a tremendous job with the kids and also helps me as well so she’s been a real pillar. It’s been enjoyable. The kids have been able to experience a lot of different cities that way, some people think that it is maybe not right that you’re traveling around as much from city to city after your stints in some towns. I think it’s been a benefit to our kids, they’ve had to make friends and they’ve had to adapt to different things. I think that makes them a better person that’s adaptable when they get into their adult life.”
For Kerrington, the constant moving throughout her childhood has provided challenges and benefits. She says that because of her dad’s career, she has been able to form connections and friendships with people all over North America.
“All I’ve ever known was kind of moving year to year, place to place, but I cannot picture my life looking back any other way. I cannot settle down now. I have such a love and want to go see the world and different opportunities and experiences, and I’m so grateful that we’ve kept such close connections in all the places that we’ve lived. I have friends in Massachusetts now, in Texas now, and all over Alberta, Saskatchewan, BC. It’s been really awesome to have those young opportunities. You’re the new kid in school all the time, but I learned how to make friends quickly, which I think helped for sure, but I think me and my brother both are easily adaptable now, which is a skill that I’ll take forever.”
Monday afternoon will be far from the first time that Kerrington has watched her dad coach in person. In 2020, the Rockets posted a replay on YouTube of the 2004 Memorial Cup Final that took place at Prospera Place, which Kelowna won 2-1 over the Gatineau Olympiques. If you look closely during the post game celebrations, you can spot Shauna Truitt holding an infant Kerrington in the background.
“I do not remember it.” Kerrington recalls. “I was three months old, really little with my mom, but to know that I was there in a part of such a milestone of my dad’s career is something that I might not remember, but I love that I had gotten to be a part of it. The Rockets have just been so amazing to us, the Hamilton family, all the office staff, of keeping in contact with us throughout the years. They were always people that we knew, never strangers.They are truly family here, and it has been amazing to have a support system out here, being away from my parents. They get my dad’s job. It’s very relatable to them. They understand the struggles, the ins and outs. I can go to anyone in that organization for anything, and that’s something I’m so thankful for.”
Despite having close connections with the Rockets and attending several games as a fan while living in Kelowna for university, Kerrington says he will be pulling for the Prince Albert on Monday.
“Obviously Dad (and the Raiders) is for sure who I’ll be cheering for but I have loved to be a Rockets fan these past three years and to go to games. But when Dad comes to town, you got to flip sides a little bit.”
While Kerrington may not have any memory of her dad winning the Memorial Cup with the Rockets back in 2004, she says getting the chance to see her dad hoist the Ed Chynoweth Cup with the Raiders back in 2019 is something she will never forget.
“That was so much fun to also be a part of from afar. I was still in high school so living at our home in Red Deer and I’ll never forget it. We hooked up WHL Live to the TV in the living room and me, my mom and my brother all set up shop and turned it on the game. That OT win and watching him go all the way to the Memorial Cup that year was so special because it held such a huge piece of my dad’s heart. To fully understand it now and how long it took them to get there, the hard work and the dedication. It was such a cool experience to be close enough to that and to be able to remember that.”
Puck drop between the Rockets and Raiders on Monday afternoon is scheduled for 2:05 p.m. Pacific time, 3:05 p.m. Saskatchewan time.
