The Newfoundland Growlers announced on Wednesday afternoon that they have named Gene Reilly as the team’s associate coach to Adam Cooke. Newfoundland was the last team to fill their head coaching vacancy before they named Cooke as the head coach back on October 7th. Reilly, 61, has spent the previous two seasons overseas in Russia as a team consultant for Avangard Omsk. The Massachusetts native has experience at all three levels of professional hockey (NHL, AHL, ECHL); however, most of his experience has come at the NCAA level as he spent three seasons at the University of Maine as an assistant coach and saw time as an interim head coach in his final season with the Black Bears, four seasons as an assistant coach at Northeastern, a year as an assistant at Harvard, and three years at Colorado Collage as an assistant before spending a year as a Senior Advisor at U-Mass Lowell. His AHL resume includes stints as an assistant with the Grand Rapid Griffins and Binghampton Senators, and he spent the 2019-20 season as an assistant with the Wheeling Nailers. Reilly also spent five seasons in Austria with EC Salzburg, where he held many titles throughout his five-year stint.
Newfoundland is coming off an opening weekend sweep of the Reading Royals and will welcome the South Carolina Stingrays to town for three games beginning Thursday. This is the first-ever visit to Newfoundland for the Stingrays.
