By CHAT News Today

Tigers hire new assistant coach

Jul 17, 2018 | 10:46 AM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — The Medicine Hat Tigers have hired a new assistant coach.

The team announced Tuesday morning that Ryan Smith will be joining the team behind the bench for the 2018-19 season.

“I’m very proud,” smith said over the phone from Manitoba on Tuesday. “It’s one of the traditional franchises in the league, always a contender, always put a good product on the ice. To be part of that is special and it doesn’t happen every day.”

“We are thrilled to add Ryan to our coaching staff,” said Tigers head coach and general manager Shaun Clouston in a news release. “Ryan brings with him a long and successful history of coaching Junior hockey, firsthand knowledge of the WHL and invaluable championship experience. We look forward to working together and would like to welcome Ryan and his family to the Tigers organization.”

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Smith has been a coach since 2008, after spending 11 years playing professional hockey in Europe. For five seasons, he was the head coach of the Selkirk Steelers in the Manitoba Junior Hockey League, winning the league’s Coach of the Year Award following the 2013-14 season.

After spending one season with the Humboldt Broncos as a general manager and assistant coach, Smith joined the Swift Current Broncos in 2015, where he has spent the last three years as an associate coach. This year, Swift Current won the WHL Championship for the first time since 1993.

“We felt at a certain point last year, we had a really good chance,” he said. “There were a number of teams in the East in particular to get better than. We tried our best with some moves, and it paid off for us in the very end.

“Long story short, to win a championship, it doesn’t happen very often. It was an amazing, incredible run.”

Smith says it was a personal decision to leave the Broncos, and sees the Tigers as an opportunity to learn and grow as a coach. He adds his three years with Swift Current were “tremendous” and was thankful for the opportunity.

Smith replaces Bobby Fox, who the Tigers announced will be taking over as director of player personnel this season.

He says he’s had many conversations with the coaching staff in the past several days as he prepares for his new role.

“I think our staff is a good mix of different personalities, and you need that,” he said. “You can’t have one dimension, you need to have two or three different kinds, two or three different voices and two or three different approaches. I think when you combine that, like we saw in Swift Current, and whenever you have a championship, that’s usually the case.”

Smith will join the Tigers during training camp, which is scheduled to begin in August.