Clouston leaving

[scamperdog]

http://gdrinnan.blogspot.com/

[fightstrap50]

I guess they can offer Brad Lauer a head coaching job if thats true eh. Ouch this really hurts here. Boogaard'd

[Spungy]

its going to be an interesting season this year i guess.

[fightstrap50]

I read here that Clouston is leaving us to go to the AHL, Congrats to him by the way, thats a HUGE accomplishment!, but seeing as how Brad Lauer has also resigned this leaves us in a huge pickle.

When the ICE came to Cranbrook after leaving Edmonton, we were a struggling team for a season or two under head coach Ryan McGill. Ryan soon found great success in a coaching style all his own and lead the club to two Memorial Cup appeances, winning one of them. Soon after he went PRO.

Clouston served as his assistant and protege and picked up on this winning style of coaching and has also lead the club through many unreal seasons here despite the lack of playoff succes. He is a top elite coach in the WHL now because of the winning ways of defence first ect year after year that this club and coach has set out as precedent.

Brad Lauer has learned everything he knows, coaching wise, from Cory and the McGill era coaching and has also recently left. This leaves us with huge holes and high expectations for sucess in a small market team that a little spoiled lol.

The McGill era is over officialy now if this deal goes through with Cory, and now what do we as fans get on super short notice for possitions like these. How do you find two new coaches and acheive sucess? Do we now watch a bottom feader club for years and years As we struggle to find the pieces of the puzzle again? Or do the ICE try their damdest to try and get a guy like Habscheid back in the WHL to run on the great tradition this club has of winning? sure would be nice I'd say. But thats a tough one to land.

Or do the ICE go back to Brad Lauer and approach him with the job and fill the assistant role elsewhere?

[KIF]

Cranbrook, BC -- Jeff Chynoweth, General Manager of the Kootenay ICE Hockey Club, today announced Head Coach Cory Clouston has resigned his position. Clouston has been with the ICE organization since June 1999 and was promoted to Head Coach in July 2002. He is the all-time winningest coach in franchise history (209 wins) and has a career regular season winning percentage of .638 (209-110-41). In five years as bench boss, his teams recorded three 40 plus win seasons and two 100 point campaigns. Cory was the Head Coach of Canada's Under 18 team which won gold in August 2006 and was the WHL Coach of the Year in two of the past three seasons (2004-2005, 2006-2007).






The ICE will begin the search for a new Head Coach immediately.


Good Luck

applause

[Spungy]

Boogaard'd this is crazy, now what?

[fightstrap50]

I say lets go for Shaun Clouston and Mark Habsheid for a coaching tandem. Would that work for everyone here? LOL

[Chipper]

This is bad timing for the Ice and our fans. I can't understand how Brad didn't see this coming and wait for his chance to take over the coaching position. Maybe there is something behind the scenes that we don't know about that is driving our staff away. First out trainer then ast coach and now head coach. With just over a month before training starts there is going to be a mad scramble to fill the positions....... Maybe Scott Neidermeyer will retire and jump in.

[Redwic]

That definitely leaves Kootenay in disarray, looking for a coach.

Here's a viable possibility: How about hiring Marc Habscheid, who coached the Kelowna Rockets to the 2004 Memorial Cup championship, and who is on the market again after being fired from his assistant job with the NHL's Boston Bruins? I have a feeling that Habscheid will return to the WHL, and the most likely (current) candidates are Kootenay, Portland, and Kelowna. Although I'm sure that many fans believe he will return to the Rockets, history shows that coaches returning for a second-stint with a former team (which they originally had success with) tend to flop.

What do some ICE fans think?

[Spungy]

personally i love the idea of Marc Habscheid coming to Kootenay. I remember reading though that there were some other teams at a higher level that were interested in him.

[Chipper]

I doubt that the Ice would bring in a big name coach as they demand a large pay check and the history of our franchise is that they tend to be thrifty when it comes to spending money for anything. My guess is that longtime local coach and second ast coach Colin Patterson will get a big advancement in his coaching carrier.

[Arthur Fonzerelli]

It sucks being a small market team. The new teams in Vancouver, Everett, Chilliwack, Calgary and Edmonton have set standards spending money that pure hockeytowns like Cranbrook, Prince George, Swift Current, Moose Jaw, et al. just can't afford. The hockeytowns are like the old Montreal Expos just development teams for the rich guys to buy players from.