The Kootenay Ice have rounded out their hockey operations staff for the 2015-16 WHL season with the hiring of Gordon Burnett as assistant coach and Darcy Ewanchuk as trainer/equipment manager.
In addition to the new hirings, the Ice renewed the contract of Garnet Kazuik, director of scouting.
The three join head coach Luke Pierce, who was hired by the club on May 26.
“We are happy to welcome both new and familiar faces to our hockey operations staff,” said Jeff Chynoweth, Kootenay Ice president and general manager, in a team release on Tuesday. “The success our club has maintained over the past 17 years can be attributed to the quality of our personnel and we feel as though the wealth of experience each of these individuals offers to our organization will allow us to grow on and off the ice this coming season.”
Burnett, Ewanchuk and Kazuik were all signed to three-year contracts.
Burnett, a 34-year-old native of Regina, joins the Ice after spending the 2014-15 season as an assistant coach with the University of Notre Dame (NCAA).
Prior to his time at Notre Dame, Burnett served as an assistant coach with the Arizona Sundogs of the CHL. He also played seven years of professional hockey (ECHL and CHL) after a four-year career at the College of St. Scholastica (NCAA Div. III) in Duluth, Minn.
Burnett replaces Jay Henderson as assistant coach. Henderson, whose contract was set to expire, left the team after the hiring of Pierce.
Ewanchuk, 45, brings more than 1,000 games of WHL experience, having began his WHL career as an assistant athletic traininer with the Edmonton Ice (1996 to 1998) and continued as athletic trainer with the Kootenay Ice (1999 to 2007).
He was most recently with the Tri-City Americans (2010 to 2014) as an athletic therapist and previously served as athletic trainer/equipment manager for the Edmonton Oil Kings (2007-08).
The hiring of Ewanchuk sees Cory Cameron leave his role as athletic therapist, though he will remain on as an athletic consultant.
Cameron spent the previous four years with the Ice and is in the process of opening his own therapy clinic in Cranbrook.
Kazuik has been the director of scouting for the Ice since 2007.
Pierce replaced Ryan McGill as head coach after it was announced the longtime bench boss and the club were mutually parting ways upon the expiration of his contract June 30.
The Kootenay Ice office will be closed from July 1 to 19.
Training camp is scheduled to open Aug. 30 in Cranbrook.