ECHL: Meet The Four New Head Coaches

It’s another off-season of coaching changes in the ECHL, however, it’s a little quieter than the 2022 offseason, where we saw seven new head coaches as heading into the 2023-24 season, four teams will have a new bench boss; Fort Wayne Komets, Trois-Rivieres Lions, Toledo Walleye, and the Newfoundland Growlers. All four of these coaches bring something different to their team, and all come from different backgrounds. One surprising fact is that three of these four teams that have new head coaches qualified for the Kelly Cup Playoffs (Trois-Rivieres was the only team that missed the playoffs), and it will be interesting to see if these teams can continue their success with a new leader at the helm. Let’s take a deeper dive into the four new head coaches in the ECHL for the 2023-24 season.

Fort Wayne Komets: Jesse Kallechy

There are a lot of coaches who are deserving of a chance to be a head coach at the ECHL level, and heading into this 2023 off-season, there was no one more deserving of a chance than Jesse Kallechy. The Alberta native spent the last three seasons as an assistant coach with the Florida Everblades, as the Everblades have won back-to-back Kelly Cups over the past two seasons and had a great mentor as Brad Ralph was the head coach in Florida, Ralph has yet to miss the postseason as a coach in his career.

Kallachy spent a little over two seasons with the Huntsville Havoc as a goaltender, and once he hung up his skates, he would join the team as an assistant coach for three seasons and would be named the head of Hockey Operations after his first season an assistant coach. In 2018 he joined the Fayetteville Marksmen as a head coach, where he spent two seasons before joining the Blades as an assistant. Kallechy replaces Ben Boudreau, whose contract was not renewed by the Fort Wayne Komets

Toledo Walleye: Pat Mikesch

The Dan Watson Era has come to an end in Toledo after six seasons as Watson got his call to the AHL, as he was named the new head coach of the Grand Rapid Griffins. MIkesch previously spent time with the Green Bay Gamblers as their head coach and General Manager for the past eight seasons and, prior to that, spent three seasons as an assistant on the Gamblers. During his playing career, he spent one season with the Orlando Solar Bears when they were in the IHL and spent time with the Louisville Riverfrogs and Florida Everblades in the ECHL, in his one season with the Everblades, he was the team’s captain and had his best season where he put up 23 goals and 37 assists for 60 points in 45 games.

Trois Rivieres Lions: Ron Choules

The Trois-Rivieres have had a very interesting off-season when it comes to head coaches as Marc-Andre Bergeron was fired by the Lions earlier this Summer as Pascal Rheume assumed the head coaching duties, but on August 22nd, it would be announced that he was leaving the Lions, and Ron Choules would be named head coach of the Lions. Choules has a ton of coaching experience under his belt as he’s spent eight years as a head coach in the QMJHL and a total of 15 years of coaching experience in the QMJHL, Choules was originally named an assistant coach of the Lions when Rheume was named head coach. The amount of experience that Choules brings to the Lions is huge, and I expect TR to have a bounce-back season under Choules. Choules was a 12th-round draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1983 but his playing career, but he would play in only 14 AHL games and 17 IHL games over the course of his three-year playing career.

Newfoundland Growlers: Matt Cooke

The Newfoundland Growlers were the last team to announce their head coach after Eric Wellwood, who had coached the team for the previous two years, took a job as an assistant with the Toronto Marlies, and just three days before the team opened up training camp they announced former NHLer Matt Cooke as their new head coach. Prior to joining the Growlers, Cooke had spent two seasons as an assistant coach and a year as an assistant coach with two different high school teams in Minnesota. The Belleville, Ontario native spent 16 seasons in the NHL, playing in 1,046 games, putting up 167 goals and 231 assists for 398 points as he spent time with the Vancouver Canucks, Washington Capitals, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Minnesota Wild, he would be a part of the Penguins team that won the cup in 2009 and was a member of the Team Canada’s World Junior team that won the gold medal in 2004.