Winnipeg grass the perfect shade of Green for new Winnipeg Ice assistant coach

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This article was published 06/08/2019 (2613 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Josh Green has spent most of his adult life immersed in hockey and he was overjoyed to get his next gig in the game so close to home.

The 41-year-old local resident was unveiled as the final addition to the Winnipeg Ice’s bench staff Tuesday, joining the Western Hockey League club as an assistant coach.

Green joins head coach James Patrick and associate coach Jon Klemm, who made the move to Manitoba when the club relocated from Cranbrook, B.C., in the off-season. Patrick and Klemm will be in their third seasons with the club.

Green’s Winnipeg-born wife Krystin and sons Liam, 9, and Luca, 5, were also thrilled to be staying put in Winnipeg.

Green was an assistant coach with the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s Winnipeg Blues in 2018-19. He retired from a 19-year playing career in 2016-17, which included 341 regular-season games in the NHL. Patrick, Klemm and Green have a combined 2,394 games of regular-season NHL experience.

Along the way, Green’s career also took him Austria, Sweden (where Liam was born) and Finland. He explored other coaching opportunities but reached out to the Ice early in the process.

“This is the job I kinda had my eye on, the one that I wanted,” said Green. “It was important for me and my family to stay close to home and stay in Winnipeg. I told my kids about it and they were almost in tears they were so happy. Because they’ve been moving around the last six, seven years with my career so they’re happy to stay in Winnipeg. I’m thrilled with the opportunity; it couldn’t have worked out better.”

It was during his final four years playing in Finland that Green started to consider the possibility of coaching as a career.

“That was kind of when I started to think about retirement and what the future would hold and I always felt like my natural progression from playing would be to move into the coaching side of things,” said Green.

“It didn’t materialize my first year out of hockey — I did some TSN work, some radio stuff and TV — and then last year I worked with the Blues and absolutely had a blast. I just knew that coaching would be for me and I’d like to take it as far as I can.”

Green knows the club has a number of very talented young players coming on board, including 15-year-old St. Albert, Alta., phenom Matt Savoie.

“It’s super-exciting for me to get to work with someone like him,” said Green, a forward during his playing days, while Patrick and Klemm were both NHL blue-liners.

“I haven’t seen him with my own eyes yet but I’ve heard amazing things about him. So, yeah, there’s added responsibility for anyone you’re working with. You want to get the most out of every single player, no matter if he’s a first-line player or a fourth-line player.”

Green is well-acquainted with the WHL, having spent time with the Medicine Hat Tigers, Swift Current Broncos and Portland Winterhawks during a 4 1/2-season stint in the mid-’90s. He admits the league has changed in fundamental ways.

“I think it’s more of a skill game now,” said Green. “I think the players nowadays are so much better. They’re smarter now. They’re always asking questions about what we’re doing, why are we doing it. So, as a coach you have to be extremely prepared every single day you come to work. When I played, it was crash and bang, dump the puck in and go to work. Now it’s puck possession, even though there’s certainly an element of physicality in the game. But it’s more of a skill game.

“When I played junior, we had to take separate warmups from the other team because of the threat of a brawl in warmup. It’s still a rough game, a tough game. You have to be strong-willed to play like before, but the player has evolved so much more because they’re so much more cerebral.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @sawa14