Gerald “Gerry” Forler

After years of playing minor sports in New Hamburg, Gerry Forler started coaching baseball and hockey at age seventeen. For the next thirty-five years, he coached minor sports without taking a break. During these years, Forler coached baseball, softball, T-ball, minor hockey, ringette and Junior A, B, C and D hockey.

Forler was the founding coach of the New Hamburg Junior D Roth Transport, Junior C Hahns, and Elmira Sugar Kings, as well as coaching the Kitchener Rangers. He led the New Hamburg Midgets and Junior Ds to Ontario championships in the same week in 1961; the Midgets again in 1962 and the Ontario Champion Junior C Hahns in 1963 and 1967. Some years he combined coaching two baseball teams in the summer, two hockey teams in the winter, along with his job as a teacher.

Other than two years in Niagara Falls as Educational Counsellor to the Junior A Niagara Falls Flyers, and coach of the Junior B Stamford Bruins, all of Forler’s sports years were spent in Waterloo Region.

In the early 1960s, Forler was chosen to attend the first Canadian Amateur Hockey Association coaching clinics in Kingston and Montreal. He later organized and instructed at several coaching clinics in Waterloo Region.

Forler retired as an elementary school principal in 1994. His thirty-six years of teaching, including twenty-five years as a principal, combined his respect for young people with his talent for educating them. However, his passion for sports was never far behind.