Hockey Canada announced Tuesday the coaching staff and front office for the upcoming Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.
The coaching staff will be headed by former Vancouver Canucks bench boss Willie Dejardins. Dejardins will be accompanied by Canadian international hockey veteran Dave King, Vancouver Canucks player development consultant Scott Walker, and former KHL coach / current Swiss League coach Craig Woodcroft.
These coaches will have to work closely with the front office, made up of two former NHL goalies in Sean Burke as general manager and hockey legend Martin Brodeur.
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The group will also be managed by CEO Tom Renney, COO Scott Smith and Vice-President of Hockey Operations Scott Salmond.
The announcement comes in light of the NHL’s decision to not let its players participate in the Winter Olympics, making it an interesting process for Hockey Canada, who has had its pick of NHL players since 1998.
With no access to NHL players, the management group and coaching staff will have to look in other leagues to fill out the rosters, which may be challenging.
“I think the biggest challenge is just making sure we identify as early as we can who the core group is, who our leadership group will be,” Burke said. “We do need to focus at some point fairly early on building our team, building our culture. But of course, we need the right players at the end of the day.”
Watch below: Team Canada GM Sean Burke announces the coaching staff for the 2018 men’s Olympic hockey team.
Burke believes Hockey Canada could gather a fairly eclectic group of players from multiple leagues and countries. He said this could include the AHL (American Hockey League), the KHL (the Russian League), the NCAA, European leagues and even hinted at the idea of some NHL players without contracts joining the team.
Regardless of what the final roster looks like, Hockey Canada is very confident the players will be ready for PyeongChang due to the many tournaments they will play before the Olympics.
“We’re pretty fortunate having five tournaments like that, where we’re going to have a really good idea of what we’re going to put together and what our competition is going to be like,” Brodeur said.
“All these teams will do the same thing — Finland, Sweden, Russia — they’re going to bring some good teams to those tournaments, so we’ll be able to know where we stand before the Olympic Games start.”
Salmond noted when using NHL players for an Olympic roster, they often are not together as a team until four days before the tournament. However, the several upcoming tournaments will give management and coaching staff time to fully evaluate players and will also allow players to develop chemistry on the ice.
Watch below: Tom Renney announces the management staff of the 2018 men’s Olympic hockey team.
“These competitions are different,” Desjardins said. “How you play against Canadian competition or North American players isn’t the same as how you play against the Europeans; it’s a different style. So that’s why we have these tournaments and these tournaments will be used to evaluate. I think we’re going to have a good player pool to select from and I’m excited when I look at some of the names.”
The events that Team Canada will participate in are:
- The Sochi Hockey Open (Aug. 6 to 9)
- Tournament of Nikolai Puchkov (Aug. 14 to 17)
- Team Canada vs. Switzerland (Nov. 8)
- Karjala Cup (Nov. 9 to 12)
- Channel One Cup (Dec. 12 to 17)
- Spengler Cup (Dec. 25 to 31)
Burke also noted the rosters for the first two tournaments have already been announced and are on Hockey Canada’s website.
Click here for details on the Sochi Hockey Open
Click here for details on the Tournament of Nikolai Puchkov