In my opinion, one of the things that separates the Western Hockey League from most other developmental leagues is the extremely high level of coaching. The WHL is a teaching league for everyone involved from the players, referees, scouts, general managers, journalists and that list includes the men behind the bench.
We frequently see coaches moving up to and then on from the WHL to further their careers at the professional level and sometimes those same coaches return to the league armed with a new arsenal of experience to teach a new crop of players.
The sign of any strong franchise is its depth and you could argue that holds true for the WHL’s depth of coaches. When a coach leaves for a pro job, that vacancy has to be filled from somewhere and often, it’s from within the league.
A perfect example this year is that of Mitch Love who, after seven years on the bench as an assistant coach with the Everett Silvertips, has now made the move to Saskatoon to become the head man for the Blades.
Dave Struch in Regina is another example. John Paddock’s move upstairs paves the way for Struch who has spent the last 12 WHL seasons honing his skills as an assistant coach to finally put on the boss’ whistle.
Other teams will take on a coach who had previously been working at a lower level but is, hopefully, ready for the next challenge in his career. And then there are those who come to the WHL from the professional ranks to finally add head coaching experience to their resumés.
But is one method better than the others and if there is, what might that mean for teams with new head coaches this year?
I’m a big believer that a new coach who has first hand experience with the WHL, preferably as a coach but at least as a player, has a distinct advantage over the new coach that does not have that same background. But not being a coach myself, I wanted to know if my impression was fair or not so I asked some folks who would know.
Three seasons ago, Luke Pierce broke into the league as the head coach of the Kootenay Ice. He came to Cranbrook riding a successful 6-year stint with the Merritt Centennials (BCHL) but he had zero exposure to the WHL as either a coach or a player. The 2015-16 edition of the Ice finished with a league low 12 wins and 31 points. Late in the season, Pierce was a guest on The Pipeline Show and I asked him about his transition to the WHL from the BCHL.
“I’d say I was somewhat naive but I don’t think anybody can step into this league and have the right expectations for what they are getting into unless you’ve been an assistant for a little while or something like that,” he said, “It’s such a change and as many people you try to talk to to prepare yourself, there are just so many small things that you’re just not ready for.”
It was a very candid interview and I was impressed by Pierce’s openness in explaining the areas where he struggled the most and what makes the WHL unique.
“The biggest difference, from my perspective, is coaching,” he said, “These coaches are phenomenal; they’re so well prepared, they’re experienced, the in-game adjustments, all that stuff is certainly at another level and has been a big challenge for me.”
Kootenay won just 14 games the following season and Pierce was replaced by another coach with zero firsthand Western Hockey League experience; James Patrick.
A veteran of almost 1300 NHL games as a player and 11 season on NHL benches as an assistant coach for Buffalo and Dallas, no one in their right mind would insinuate that Patrick didn’t have the hockey accumen to coach in the WHL. However, even he admitted last season that he had underestimated the league.
“For me personally it’s been a huge learning experience; learning about the league, about the players, about working with younger players,” Patrick told me during an interview on The Pipeline Show.
“I worked close [before the season] with [General Manager] Matt Cockell in terms of a refresher course on the league and what our talent level was like and what we had coming in,” I knew where the team has been the last two years but I still felt that if we competed hard night in and night out and we had some structure to our game…that was my mindset coming in.”
“Now, it is a big difference, certainly coming from the NHL,” Patrick stated, “The players you have here, that’s all you have. You don’t have a farm team so if this guy’s not working out you can’t send him down and bring someone else up, there is no one else.”
I asked Patrick, who played his developmental hockey at the University of North Dakota before his decades in the NHL as player and coach, how he adjusted to the travel in the Western Hockey League. You can imagine that after years spent flying from game to game, riding the iron lung for long hour trips would be a shock to the system.
“That’s probably been the biggest adjustment,” Patrick agreed. “Hockey is hockey, teaching is teaching. You have smart players in the NHL, you have smart players in the WHL.”
But the travel?
“At the start of the year I was like “Oh my God!”
“We got beat 11-1 in Medicine Hat and we had some weather on the way in so we got in a little late, barely have a warm up and then you have a game,” he continued, “That’s just a fact of life in this league. You have to prepare for it, you have to learn from it. I’ve told my players ‘I don’t care if you’re going to be dead tired in the game, we’re going to have an active warm up where you’ll be doing full sprints, it’s going to be 20 minutes where I want everybody sweating because I’d rather have that than have you guys go out onto the ice cold’.”
For a new coach coming into the WHL, there is also the task of getting to know your team and the players around the league. In Patrick’s case, although he was coaching in the NHL at the time, he had reason to watch the league closely before he’d taken on the Kootenay job and it may have given him some insight on things.
“I will say this; with my nephew [Nolan Patrick] having played in the league, over the last three years I watched as many games as I could,” he began, “I’d say I averaged between 50-55 games a year, watching the WHL and that gave me a feel for the league. It gave me a feel for how similar the league is to the NHL, how similar the coaching is, how similar the systems are, what they’re doing on the power play or in the neutral zone. You see little variations in the NHL and you see the exact same things in this league. I think that part has been an easier transition.”
For a pro coach coming to the WHL there is also the aspect of going from working with men to mentoring a much younger team and that can be a huge adjustment.
“The other part of it is that you’re dealing with 16, 17 and 18 year olds and your veterans are 19 and 20 and they’re still young and immature at times,” Patrick said, “Sometimes it’s kid gloves, sometimes it’s reality check but it’s a teaching league, a learning and developing league and we keep reminding ourselves of that.
That was something Pierce said he struggled with too, even though his experience was coaching a similar age group in the BCHL.
“I’ve always wanted to be a players coach and have a good relationship with my players but also be very demanding,” Pierce said during 2015-16, “Coming into a situation that…these weren’t my players. In (BCHL) you recruit all your own guys so you have those relationships with them so you know when to put the hammer down and when to drive them and when to back off a little bit. Coming in I maybe spent too much time trying to get these guys onto my side and maybe wasn’t as demanding or as hard as I should have been at times.”
Those are just two examples of WHL outsiders who came to the league to coach. Certainly the quality of team a coach inherits will have a major impact on whether or not he is deemed “successful”.
Derek Laxdal’s coaching career was all professional when he first arrived behind the bench of the Edmonton Oil Kings in 2010-11. His club was coming off a 16-win season the year previous and although improved under his watch, Laxdal’s Oil Kings were under .500 in his first season. Of course the next three years were all 50-win campaigns including a pair of WHL titles and a Memorial Cup championship.
Vancouver has had a rotating door since Don Hay left the team after the 2013-14 season. The biggest misfire for the Giants was with Troy Ward who was canned after just 25 games. Ward had a lengthy NCAA, AHL and NHL resumé but couldn’t make the transition to the WHL.
That said, WHL veteran Lorne Molleken lasted just the 2015-16 season with the Giants before he was released so it can happen to even the most accomplished of men.
Last year, the Calgary Hitmen hired Dallas Ferguson to replace Mark French. Both are good coaches who had success elsewhere but neither had any history with the WHL and neither had significant success in Calgary. The man who hired Ferguson was the same one who hired Luke Pierce in Kootenday a couple of seasons before; Jeff Chynoweth.
This year Chynoweth replaced Ferguson with Steve Hamilton who had been coaching in the WHL with the Oil Kings since 2010-11 with Laxdal. I asked Chynoweth recently on The Pipeline Show if it was a conscious decision to hire someone this time who knows the ins and outs of the league.
“We wanted a head coach who understands the Western Hockey League, the schedule, the billets, the schooling, the travel where you’re playing four games in five nights, the different opponents – All the things that take time to get aclimatized to when you’re not used to it.” said Chynoweth. “I think it’s an adjustment for any coach coming to our league whether it’s NHL, NCAA or junior A. I’ve had coaches come to me before who have said ‘geez, it’s really an adjustment’ because there are so many things that are different.”
It will be an interesting scenario in Kamloops for new head coach Serge Lajoie. In his roles as head coach at the University of Alberta and at NAIT, Lajoie has watched the WHL closely for years as he’s recruited the league’s overage players to join his successful post-WHL programs. And yet he hasn’t coached in the league itself so he knows there will be a learning curve. To help, Lajoie told me that he will rely on GM Matt Bardsley, assistant coach Aaron Keller and video coach Tim O’Donovan for their WHL insight.
“Lean on those guys to get the information on the scheduling part of it; balancing the schedule, making sure that we’re doing enough teaching and development but we’re also providing enough rest for our players to perform well,” Lajoie said.
In a media conference call when he was first introduced as Edmonton’s new coach, Brad Lauer was asked about his familiarity with the WHL since he’s making his return after a decade in pro hockey.
“Is there going to be some adjustment period? I think there is,” Lauer admitted, “I’ve talked to other coaches in the league.”
One of those other coaches may have been Luke Pierce who has been added to the Oil Kings staff for this coming season.
Overall, eight teams begin the 2018-19 WHL season with a new head coach and as you would expect, some are veterans in the league, some played in the WHL and others are getting their first taste:
Calgary Hitmen: Steve Hamilton – 0 years played, 3 years WHL Asst. Coach, 5 years WHL Head Coach
Edmonton Oil Kings: Brad Lauer – 3 years played, 5 years WHL Asst. Coach
Kamloops Blazers: Serge Lajoie – 7 games played, 0 years as WHL coach
Regina Pats: Dave Struch – 4 years played, 12 years WHL Asst. Coach
Saskatoon Blades: Mitch Love – 5 years played, 7 years WHL Asst. Coach
Swift Current Broncos: Dean Brockman – 0 years played, 2 years WHL Asst. Coach , 2 years WHL Head Coach
Tri-City Americans: Kelly Buchberger – 2 years played, 0 years WHL coaching
Vancouver Giants: Michael Dyck – 4 years played, 9 years WHL Asst. Coach, 4 years WHL Head Coach
How do you think the above teams will start the coming season? Is it fair to expect some struggles early on or do you believe training camp and the preseason schedule with eliminate that concern? I’m interested to hear what you think. Follow me on Twitter (@TPS_Guy) and let me know.
