Dave Drinkill gets up every morning looking forward to a new day and a job he absolutely loves and is grateful for.
"I know a lot of people work at a job that is not a career for them," the general manager of the Ontario Hockey League's Saginaw Spirit explained. "It's just a job where getting up on Mondays is tough because it's the start of the work week. I just don't have that feeling.
"I just love my job and I love getting up every day and striving to work for the organization and the people I work with."
Through his 14 years of working in the OHL, and now in his fifth season running hockey operations for Saginaw, the Elmvale native has put in a whole lot of hard work and hours to get where he is and he makes it his mission to encourage others to follow their hockey dreams like he did.
"It's great to look back," said Drinkill whose career in hockey operations began with the Barrie Colts. "If I go to the Barrie media room and I see someone putting the lines up on the board, bringing the coffee or when I go to Sudbury and see an intern throwing t-shirts into a crowd and think back, that was me at one point in my career.
"This is the route I took. I'm not saying it's going to happen for everybody, but it did happen for me and the route can happen for you, too. I definitely try to give as much advice and guidance as I can for people who are in the shoes I was once in."
Considered by many as one of the OHL's brightest young general mangers, Drinkill has turned around a franchise that once had difficulties attracting hockey prospects to a place where many of today's youngest hockey stars want to play.
"It's something we take great pride in and by saying we, I mean everybody that came on board when I took the GM job," said Drinkill, who is back in Barrie over the holidays, but is still busy working the phones as the OHL trade deadline approaches early next month.
"Everybody was all hands on deck trying to change that culture of the organization. I thought I thought that would be something that would take some time," he said. "It did take a lot of time, a lot of dedication, a lot of convincing from people to try and build things the right way."
Getting key American-born players like Blade Jenkins, DJ Busdeker and Bode Wilde to report was a huge step, but the big one would be attracting top Canadian players to move to a new country and a new school system.
That really changed when and the club's fifth overall pick in the 2018 OHL Priority Selection and current top NHL draft prospect Cole Perfetti agreed to join the club.
"It's been night and day from when I took over," Drinkill said of recruiting players to the organization.
He finds even those with no-trade clauses are willing to waive them now to come play in Saginaw.
"It's a testament to our scouting staff and coaching staff and our ownership and the way we play," said Drinkill, who also praised the support from the fans and the community.
"Our coach, Chris Lazary, has done a heck of a job developing players and developing talent," said Drinkill. "Other players see that throughout the league and we became a place where people want to come play and develop and live out their junior career.
"It's very satisfying for us, but we hope that leads to more players coming. Which leads to success and leads to championships."
Having an ownership group that believes in your vision and providing the necessary tools has also played a huge role, Drinkill says. He knew he was heading to a good organization from his first meeting with owner Dick Garber and president and managing partner Craig Goslin.
The ownership group made a large investment in the dressing room that Drinkill calls an NHL-style room. Players see that commitment.
"They're just great people who want the best for the players and want to build a team up to an elite franchise in the OHL," he said. "We kind of had a plan and I mapped out the plan for them, this is what my vision is and this is what my staff vision is. It's not going to be an easy thing to do to get there, but we have to stick with it."
Success, as Drinkill explained, would take some time. In the first two seasons with him at the helm, the Spirit missed the playoffs once and won just 51 of 136 games in the Western Conference.
"There were tough paths at the beginning," he said. "We traded off players for just draft picks, which I'm sure that wasn't great for fans to see. But it was all part of a master plan of drafting and developing good young players from good families that were high character kids that when you get them into the organization they're going to help turn that culture around."
The turn did come and in the last three seasons, including up to the Christmas break this year, the Spirit sport a combined 93-57-14-5 record. They finished second last season and advanced all the way to the conference finals before falling to the eventual OHL champion Guelph Storm.
Despite not having star goaltender Ivan Prosvetov and Wilde return from the pro ranks this season, the Spirit still find themselves tied for top spot in the conference.
Drinkill realizes there's been a lot of hard work to get to this point in his career.
"I remember being a young kid just wanting a chance to be a GM and how great that dream would be," he said.
He admired former Peterborough Petes GM and current Kingston Frontenacs advisor to the GM, Jeff Twohey. He wanted to follow in Twohey's footsteps, which is the reason why he headed back to school to take a sports management course at Laurentian University.
Even with all the hard work, Drinkill admits the need to have some breaks along the way and he got his with the Barrie Colts.
In Barrie he would eventually work his way up the ladder, thanks to the help, he says, of people like current Colts GM Jason Ford, head coach Dale Hawerchuk and former head coach Marty Williamson.
"They promoted me and trusted me to be an assistant GM in Barrie and we had some great years and that got my foot in the door to get my interview in Saginaw," said Drinkill, who notes it's still special every time he returns to Barrie for a game.
"Looking back I wouldn't have wanted it any other way, but it was definitely a lot of work to get to that point. I wouldn't change it, because you have a lot of pride when you look back and see how you got there."
Drinkill says he loves being in Saginaw, but admits, like players, he'd love the opportunity to ply his trade one day at the NHL level.
"I told our scouts and our players and coaching staff that if you guys aren't pushing to get to the next level, then you're getting comfortable and you're going to become complacent," he said. "I take that approach myself. I want to push myself to be the best I can and if that takes me to the next level, then that's great.
"But I'd never look at Saginaw or the OHL as a stepping stone. I love my job, I love the league and I'm very passionate about the OHL and it's been great to me and provided me with a great life."
Helping players like Damien Giroux chase their dreams is gratifying.
"I've never met a better human being in my 14 years of working in the OHL," Drinkill said of Giroux, who was a third-round pick from his first draft and has been the team's captain the last two seasons.
"This is who our younger guys are learning from and it makes kind of an assembly line of culture and we want to keep that going," he added.
