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Date: Feb 03, 2010

Workman, Defever Keeping Chiefs Upbeat

The Motor City Chiefs have just five wins this season, and while most teams would have thrown in the towel long ago, that's not the case with the Chiefs.

Motor City head coach Jeff Bond credits two of his captains, Cole Workman and David Defever, with maintaining a sense of responsibility and keeping the Chiefs upbeat through this tough year.

"Both Cole and David played for Randy Montrose at Howell (Mich.) High School and they learned team leadership at a high level," explained Bond. "When they came here, it was an easy transition for them. They are two guys that I can count on to speak and be heard and on the road, they keep guys in check. I think you can thank their parents for that because that groundwork was laid keeping them grounded long ago."

Workman was drafted by the Chiefs last May and Defever, who didn't play hockey last year, was talked into playing his final year of juniors by Workman.

Both Workman and Defever play on Motor City's top line and Workman leads the team in scoring with 20 goals and 42 points going into this weekend. That said, Workman would sacrifice some of those points for more wins in the standings.

"Cole is a kid that can have three or four points in a game and you'd never know it," Bond said. "He won't sit there on the bench and say that he can't do it all. He's a team-first guy, as is David."

Workman, still just 18 years old, has the skill set to play in the North American Hockey League next year and Defever will most likely land with an ACHA team in the fall.

"What we try and do here is advance kids to the next level, whatever that may be," said Bond. "We want to give kids as much ice time as we can and not have them look back when they're 40 and wish they would have played as long as they could. What's interesting about Cole is that he didn't start skating until eighth grade. He learned a lot from Randy in high school and he also played some roller hockey, but he has progressed so much that I do believe he'll be a pretty good player in the NAHL next season."

With 10 games left this season, Bond wants to obviously win as many games as the Chiefs can. Last Friday night, Motor City erased a third period deficit and beat the Metro Jets, 4-2.

"That was a character win for us," said Bond. "We have five wins and they have been against four teams. The rest of the way, we want to beat as many different teams as we can. I think we can pick off a couple teams that we haven't beaten yet. We've heard from a couple teams after we play them that they don't think our record indicates how good we are.

"It is hard to shake the stigma of losing, because I've been a winning coach at the AAA level my whole career, but when I look at our team, I see that we have improved and we've kept at it and haven't quit."

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