Managing a well-stocked farm

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/05/2015 (4131 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Geography and business were two major reasons for relocating their AHL team back to Winnipeg.

For the Jets and their fans, there’s a big bonus — the timing of the move couldn’t be better.

On his way back to Winnipeg as the head coach of the Manitoba Moose, Keith McCambridge has a renewed enthusiasm about the process that’s been entrusted to him.

Players such as Eric O’Dell, Patrice Cormier and John Albert have been recalled from the AHL team and have helped the NHL team.

Tutelage

But now the organization’s development cycle has yielded full-time Jets players in youngsters Ben Chiarot, Adam Lowry and Michael Hutchinson, all promoted after paying dues under McCambridge’s tutelage.

“At Christmas last winter when we were home, my kids and my wife and I went to a game there and seeing (Chiarot) and Adam Lowry and Michael Hutchinson, it brought a smile to my face,” McCambridge said Wednesday. “You spend so much time working on this in the AHL and just to see the finished product, on the ice and in the whole atmosphere, that as a coach in the AHL for awhile now, that was a moment that excited me.

“That’s what it’s all about in the AHL, to see a finished product like those guys on the ice first-hand. A special moment for me, reflecting on it.”

When McCambridge was promoted from Moose assistant to head coach of the St. John’s IceCaps when the Jets moved the team to Newfoundland in 2011, depth was not an organizational strength.

That limited early contributions from the farm.

The process, new for Jets 2.0, has finally been underway long enough to give McCambridge and the farm system time to make some difference.

“We had guys going up, Eric O’Dell and Patrice Cormier and Zach Redmond, who’s now in Colorado,” McCambridge said. “It was important for them and for us.

“This season, I saw the impact that Ben and Adam and Michael had, jumping in and contributing, so yes, when you’re working down here and trying to make sure these guys are learning and building confidence and you have prospects like that you can sink your teeth into and develop, once you see them play their first NHL game and even better, when they play regularly and become big pieces of the parent club, it definitely makes everything worthwhile down here.”

Organize

McCambridge, a Thompson native, has been packing up his office and helping to organize other matters for the move of hockey operations from the Mile One Centre in St. John’s back to Winnipeg.

He and his family won’t be in Winnipeg full-time until July but this is one move that’s been different than others, and that’s saying something about a coach who has worked at the far corners of the continent — Alaska to St. John’s.

“It’s rare in this business you move back to your home province,” McCambridge said. “I knew when I signed up for coaching, I would move. It just comes with the territory.

“We are going back home We’ve always kept our home in Winnipeg. It’s always been our home base for the kids, regardless where I’m coaching. It would be a lot harder to move if we were moving to a strange city.

“But we know Winnipeg. I’m looking forward to getting back.

“And watching the press conference on Monday, the pride in seeing the logo again and what it means and represents for everybody, that’s exciting. We’ve enjoyed our time here in St. John’s but a chance to come back home, to your home province, that’s something I’m really looking forward to.”

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca