Tuesday, August 14, 2012

New Assistant Coach

Today the Spruce Kings released their staffing for the coming season with the announcement of two new names and few familiar names and roles. The announcement centered around the new assistant coach coming in to replace Kurt Walsten who spent last season in the role before taking a similar position with the Drumheller Dragons of the Alberta Junior Hockey League.

Brad Rihela accepted the assistant coaching position with the Spruce Kings and comes with a nice hockey resume. Rihela has spent the past two seasons coaching in the Lower Mainland with the Seafair Minor Hockey Association and last year worked as a head coach with the BC Hockey High Performance U16 program.

Along with the assistant coach, the Spruce Kings also named a goaltending coach. Blake Buckham is a resident of Prince George who has helped young goaltenders in the Prince George Minor Hockey Association and spent last season working with the Prince George Midget Female hockey team.

That sets up the Spruce Kings nicely with a full compliment of coaches behind the bench with head coach Dave Dupas and returning assistant coach Jason Garneau along with the video coach Colton Buffie. The other announcements were for Tom Bohmer who has stepped down from his position last year as an assistant coach, but will remain a consultant for the team.

I had an opportunity to talk to the new assistant coach about coming to Prince George and taking on the position with the Spruce Kings. It was interesting to find out that he has ties to the city and is looking forward to getting to the Coliseum and getting started with the club.

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