The Oceanside Generals Junior Hockey Club made it official Sunday with the announcement they will be bringing back Brent Demerais as head coach and GM for the 2013/2014 VIJHL season.
“As a board of directors, we had set some goals when the decision was made last season to hire a new coach,” club president Sylvain Giroux said in a news release, adding “we are happy to say that these goals were all attained with Brent as the head coach. Now for next season, we sat down with Brent and set some new objectives. We feel we can achieve these objectives and keep growing as an organization in this community with Brent at the helm.”
Contacted Monday, Demerais said he’s happy to be back.
Back also for another campaign is assistant coach Rob Gaudreault.
“I’m excited about the season coming up already — me and Robby are right into it; we’re already recruiting players, getting an early start on this next year. We know we have a good core of returning players, we know what holes we have to fill and we know we’re looking for a certain type of players.”
Demerais, from Port Alberni, joined the Generals last season prior to the start of the season and took over a team that was already picked.
“It was a learning experience for us too,” he said, adding that at this point he expects to have around 10 -11 guys coming back but some of those players will be trying out for BCHL teams before the Generals camp.
Demerais said he’s hoping local forwards Travis Flug, James Sneddon and Matt Biagioni are all core players he’ll bring back, while looking to bring in players to develop and help move them to the next level.
“You’re probably going to see a lot more younger guys on the squad this year, so I’ll be looking to the older guys for leadership.”
Either way, year two “should be a little bit easier to get the kind of team together that me and Robby want to have; a team that works hard every night and to be better than last year.”
Demeriais said he’s also looking forward to continue working with the Generals’ Hockey Club board of directors.
“Really looking forward to it,” he said. “They’re great.”