Zacharias at home behind Bisons bench

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This article was published 07/11/2023 (1044 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Jordy Zacharias’s first three weeks as interim head coach of the University of Manitoba women’s hockey team were devoted to multi-tasking.

Most days were spent wrapping up her responsibilities as one of the school’s student recruitment officers, coaching the Bisons and continuing the first year of studies toward a masters degree in counselling psychology.

On Monday, there was a chance to breathe — just a little.

“Now, it’s a little bit lighter — just hockey and school,” Zacharias said Tuesday after her secondment to the athletic department took full effect. “I’m lucky I don’t have kids or anything to round up at home.”

In mid-October, the U of M athletic department had to shuffle on the fly when veteran women’s hockey head coach Jon Rempel was granted a sick leave. Gene Muller, the school’s director of athletics and recreation, appointed Zacharias on an interim basis while indicating no firm timeline for Rempel’s return.

The 53-year-old Rempel was in his 18th year as head coach of the Bisons. He earned Canada West coach of the year honours five times and guided the program to six trips to the national championship.

He was also named the U Sports coach of the year after the program’s only national title in 2017-18.

A key part of last month’s transition was the addition of assistant coach and advisor Mike Sirant, who retired last spring after more than 30 years of running the men’s hockey program. Sirant helped Zacharias get up to speed on some of the administrative and budgeting tasks required of a head coach.

Zacharias, a high-scoring forward in the Bisons program who had served as captain of the team during her fifth and final season in 2019-20, was eager to accept the new role, however temporary it might be.

“I’ve always enjoyed (hockey) more than just playing,” said Zacharias, who served as one of Rempel’s assistants since the end of her playing career. “I’ve always been more of a student of the game and love watching hockey, so I’ve considered coaching as an option. And then once I started assistant coaching here, I thought, ‘Regardless, just this degree will be beneficial for me in terms of like managing relationships with players if I do choose the coaching path.’ I think that having this degree is still going to be beneficial.

“I used to be very future oriented but I just felt that this opportunity doesn’t really come along every day,” she added. “And so I’m in a position in my life where I’m able to kind of pounce on something without having to worry about things too far into the future.”

Zacharias said running a club that still has eight former teammates on the roster has been a good fit. After a 0-4 start in the conference with Rempel at the helm, the Bisons have gone 3-3 and are 3-7 overall and tied for sixth in Canada West heading into a two-game series on Thursday and Friday against the visiting Regina Cougars.

“It’s a familiar face for them, someone that they hopefully trust and respect from the past three years of being there,” said Zacharias. “It’s very humbling. I’m only 26 so it’s not like I had experience, but I played on the team, I was a leader on the team and so I’ve been able to kind of gain that respect from the players from that piece. And I think there’s also a relatability factor for a lot of them — knowing that hasn’t been that long and I understand what they’re going through.”

Interestingly, the Cougars are led by veteran bench boss Sarah Hodges, who is the only other female hockey head coach out of the nine conference schools.

“I have a lot of respect for (Hodges) — she’s been doing it for so long,” said Zacharias. “It’s definitely a different dynamic but I think for our team, it’s great. (Having a female coach is) something different for them and maybe a different perspective.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca