Pat Ferschweiler learned alongside Mike Knuble and later coached Mike’s son Cam to a national title at Western Michigan University.

Photo by Western Michigan Athletics

Find your wins.

It’s something Western Michigan University men's hockey head coach Pat Ferschweiler first heard while coaching alongside Mike Knuble with the Grand Rapids Griffins during the 2014-15 season. 

As Knuble’s long National Hockey League career had wound down, he realized that a new approach was needed, a mindshift he regularly shared with both the Griffins’ players and coaching staff.

Ferschweiler never forgot.

"On the back end of his career, Mike said he realized he wasn't going to go out there and score 25 goals anymore," Ferschweiler recalled. "But he still had to find his wins. Maybe a puck battle win or maybe a clean breakout win. Little things that don't always show up on the scoresheet but make a difference when they're done the right way over and over again."

Now, as Western’s head coach, Ferschweiler is finding lots of wins, including last season when the Broncos went 34-7-1 and skated to the first NCAA National Championship in school history.

But despite being at the top of the college hockey world, Ferschweiler thinks Knuble's lessons are as important now as they ever were.

"What Mike told me is so wise,” Ferschweiler said. "No matter the result, you’ve got to find your wins each day. That keeps you grounded, and it keeps you moving forward."

In hockey and in life, it has become a touchstone for Ferschweiler, one that became even more relevant when Mike Knuble’s son Cam came to Western Michigan to play for the Broncos. The fifth-year senior had a critical role in last season's title run, both on and off the ice as an assistant captain.

In Cam, Ferschweiler saw visible evidence of Mike’s “find your wins” philosophy.

"What Cam did was just continue to work and get better every day," Ferschweiler said. "He didn't play much his first few years, but he found his wins. And then last season he's an assistant captain helping lead his team to a national championship and a very, very important part of us winning the whole thing. Just an incredible young man."

In returning to Western's Lawson Ice Arena as the head coach in 2021-22, Ferschweiler also had a full-circle moment. 

A Minnesota native, he came to Western Michigan in 1990 and carved out a reputation as a cerebral, defensive-minded forward who suited up for 116 games for the Brown and Gold with 30 goals, 65 assists and 95 points. He earned the Rob Hodge Most Valuable Player award his senior season and accolades as the CCHA’s Best Defensive Forward in 1991-92. 

Ferschweiler also earned his bachelor’s degree in finance in 1993, after which he turned pro and ground his way through the East Coast and International hockey leagues, skating for teams like the Roanoke Express, Kansas City Blades and San Francisco Spiders. He also spent time overseas with the London Knights in the British Ice Hockey Superleague.

“I loved every minute of it,” he said. “The travel, the teammates, the grind. And I learned how teams really function, what keeps players going.”

When his playing days ended, he was planning on going into finance. He had a job waiting for him. But he got a fateful call one day that changed his career path in a significant way.

"I was in Kansas City where I finished my career in the International Hockey League," he said. "I got a call, and they wanted me to be a youth hockey director. They had a beautiful new facility with twin sheets, but it would mean not being a financial advisor, which would have been a great job and a great career. But I don't know if I love it, and I love hockey."

Ferschweiler knew he wanted to follow his passion, but he had to talk his fiancée Stacie, now his wife, into the decision. With her on board, his career arc suddenly shifted from finance back to hockey, and soon enough he was leading the Russell Stover AAA program in Kansas City to great heights. He built a reputation as an organizer and teacher and attracted attention in the hockey world, including from Jeff Blashill, who invited him back to Western Michigan in 2010.

“I owe Jeff so much,” Ferschweiler said. “He gave me a chance when I didn’t have a conventional coaching résumé. He believed in me.”

Blashill and Ferschweiler worked together for one season at Western before Blashill took an assistant coaching job with the Detroit Red Wings. When Blashill became the head coach of the Griffins in 2012, it set the stage for he and Ferschweiler to be reunited. In 2014-15 the coaching staff included Blashill as the head man with assistant coaches Dave Noel-Bernier, Ferschweiler and Knuble.

"Mike and I had different playing careers," Ferschweiler said with a smile. "But in coaching, we were both rookies in a way. That year taught me a lot, and I really enjoyed it."

Knuble also has fond memories of the time he and Ferschweiler spent together that season.

“Fersch and I actually crossed over in college for a couple of years,” Knuble recalled. “He was at Western and I was at Michigan. The college hockey world isn’t that big, so I knew who he was. But as we all got to know each other better as coaches that year, I remember being impressed by his adjustment to the pro game and his passion for teaching, for helping young players develop. It was evident already then how much of a teacher of the game he was. And I remember when he would talk about Western, he always had a little twinkle in his eye. He was a proud Bronco, and it didn’t surprise me when he ended up back there as a coach.”

After helping lead the Griffins to the AHL’s Western Conference Finals in his lone season with the franchise, Ferschweiler moved to the NHL, where he served as an assistant under Blashill with the Detroit Red Wings from 2015–19. That experience — game-planning against the best players in the world, adjusting to the relentless pace — sharpened his philosophy. When the chance came to return to Kalamazoo and his alma mater, he took it, and in 2019 he returned to the Western campus as associate head coach. Two years later, on Aug. 3, 2021, he was named head coach of the Broncos, bringing with him an approach he calls "next-time coaching."

"You don’t tear a kid down for a mistake," he explains. "You show them the better option, and you say, ‘Next time, here’s what we do.’ Players respond when they feel like you’re building them, not punishing them."

On the ice, that translates to an attacking brand of hockey. He wants defensemen jumping into the play, forwards backchecking with urgency and everyone embracing risk within structure.

"We don’t sit back," he said. "We attack. That’s how I want us to play, and it’s what recruits want to be part of."

It has worked. Under his leadership, WMU rose into national prominence, capped by the program’s best-ever run in 2024–25. In addition to the national championship last spring, he was named the CCM/AHCA Spencer Penrose Award winner as national Division I Coach of the Year.

Individual honors don’t mean much to him, but as for the national championship, even now, months later, his voice reflects both pride and the deep emotion of a long season as he thinks about seeing those final seconds tick off the clock and knowing that Western was about to be the last team standing.

"I'm a Bronco, and to come back here to Kalamazoo and bring the program to a national championship, I've never been prouder," he said. "So proud of our coaching staff and certainly super proud and happy for the group on the ice that earned it every single day. Because it's not a one-game thing, right, it's a season, and they earned it."

In the midst of the biggest moment of his coaching career, he also had time to reflect on all of the people who helped him along the way, including his parents, a brilliant mother who set expectations high and a father whose work ethic showed him how to keep moving forward. His wife has her own successful career in human resources, and together the couple has raised two daughters now finding their way as adults.

"Family grounds you," he said simply.

It's that perspective that has helped him weather the ups and downs of a profession where firings and criticism are constant. It’s also why Knuble’s find your wins advice resonates so deeply. Indeed, the Knuble connection is more than a coaching footnote. It’s a multi-generational thread that says much about both hockey’s small-world intimacy and the reach and appeal of Western Michigan as a burgeoning hockey hotbed.

First, there were Pat and Mike on the Griffins’ bench, colleagues finding their way as coaches. Then came Cam, Mike’s elder son and a key cog in the greatest coaching moment of Pat's career.

"To coach Cam after working with Mike, it’s definitely one of those full-circle moments you don’t plan," Ferschweiler said.

Cam Knuble, who signed to play this season for the ECHL’s Kalamazoo Wings, admits that when he first met Ferschweiler as a 15-year-old going to the Griffins’ coaching room after a game, he might have been a little bit intimidated. 

“I think I was scared of him,” Knuble said laughing. “I thought, ‘Wow, he's a pretty intense guy.’ And he still is intense, but playing for him in college, I'm just so thankful for him and really honored to have played for him. He's definitely one of my hockey idols. I want to coach hockey someday, and I plan on running it exactly the way that he did. He's an amazing, amazing coach. A great hockey mind and I have so much respect for him.”

Cam Knuble becoming a coach someday would weave even more of the three stories — Pat’s, Mike’s and Cam’s — into one. A coach learning from a peer. A father seeing his son mentored by that same peer. A son benefiting from both relationships and perhaps down the road passing on the wisdom of both men to the next generation.

Ferschweiler would love to see it happen for Cam Knuble. For all the big stages he’s been on, including NHL arenas and national tournaments, he often circles back to the simple joy of teaching when he talks about coaching. Trophies are great, but so too is breaking down video with players one-on-one, seeing a fourth-line grinder score a goal, watching a D-man flawlessly execute a breakout that's been walked through countless times in practice.

Those are some of Ferschweiler's many wins as a coach. They’re often not glamorous nor viral highlight material. But it’s the daily work that has made him a respected figure in the game and the steward of a program that’s thriving.

So the phrase echoes still: find your wins.

It has carried him for a decade now, from posts as an assistant to his current slot at the top of the Broncos' organizational chart. It ties him to the Knubles, father and son. It frames how he sees his players. And it explains why, when the spotlight hits, he deflects the credit elsewhere.

"The wins aren’t always in the score," Ferschweiler said. "They’re also in the people you help, the growth you see and the relationships you build."

Phil de Haan brings years of experience as a writer and communications professional to the pages of Griffiti, having crafted features and stories for organizations across West Michigan. A hockey fan since his childhood in Exeter, Ontario, and a longtime member of a local 6 a.m. hockey group, he combines a lifelong love of the sport with a storyteller’s instinct for bringing players and teams to life.