COACHING CHANGE
The Glacier Kings made a surprise move last week, announcing Curtis Toneff as the new Head Coach and General Manager of the team, replacing Richard Kimber just after one month into the new season.
Toneff is no stranger to junior hockey, having played and coached multiple leagues across the country.
Toneff started his career with the Oceanside Generals, before bouncing around the BCHL, SJHL, MJHL, and AJHL, before ending his playing career with the Campbell River Storm.
He then was offered an assistant coaching position with the Storm for a season, then took an assistant coaching job with the Trail Smoke Eaters of the BCHL.
Toneff then head coached the Nanaimo Buccaneers for two seasons, assistant coached the Humboldt Broncos in the SJHL for two years, head coached the Merritt Centennials for two years, before returning to Nanaimo to be an assistant coach with the Clippers in the BCHL for a few months before resigning to coach youth hockey.
The Glacier Kings then called and offered him their head coaching position and Toneff took it and resigned from his position of head coach from a U15 rep team.
When asked about what can be expected from the team under his coaching style, Toneff said he likes his team to play fast and have his defense activated in the offensive zone.
“We are chipping away at practicing fast and being a little bit better conditioned and I think that will in turn make us play a little faster come Friday and Saturday nights.”
WEEK IN REVIEW
The Glacier Kings rattled off two straight wins last weekend over the Oceanside Generals, winning 2-1 in overtime at home on October 11, before defeating them again the next night in Oceanside 2-0.
They then went down to Nanaimo for an afternoon Thanksgiving Day contest against the Nanaimo Buccaneers dropping the content 7-1.
It was a good week of judgement for Toneff to evaluate the group he has and correct some of the mistakes that were made.
Toneff said Monday’s game against the Buccaneers was with a short bench and a couple of mental mistakes was the nail in the coffin.
“It’s a good thing for us to see if you lose focus and you start getting mesmerized by the puck, this league has gotten a lot better, and it can happen pretty quickly.”
FRIDAY OCTOBER 18 7:30 P.M. VS LAKE COWICHAN KRAKEN
The Glacier Kings return to a normal schedule of a Friday and Saturday night game this week, heading down the Island to Lake Cowichan to face the Kraken.
Lake Cowichan has struggled to start the year, with a last place record of 2-9-2-0 on the year.
Toneff said the team is better than what their record indicates and hopes his team will have a fast start to the game.
“Quick little bus ride down there and we got to get back feeling good about ourselves in the first five or 10 minutes and then build on our effort from there.”
The two teams have met once so far this season, with the Glacier Kings winning 2-1 on the road back on September 13.
SATURDAY OCTOBER 19 7:30 P.M. VS WESTSHORE WOLVES
Wrapping up the weekend, the Glacier Kings return home Saturday night to face Westshore for the second time this season.
The two teams met at the end of September in Comox with the Wolves taking a close game 6-5.
Westshore is continuing to battle for top spot in the South Division with Peninsula as they sit just two points back of them.
Toneff said he hopes his team can use the larger sheet of ice the Comox Valley Sports Centre has to their advantage.
“We do have a good group of veterans out there that can play physical and make it hard on opposition coming in and we have some big, long defenseman that even though their young they can establish a little bit of a presence out there.”
