The new head coach and general manager for the Eagle Sky Estevan Bruins is looking at the postseason as an opportunity to better work with the team ahead of a new year. Drew Kocur is moving into the role, following him being the interim head coach and GM starting in January.
Kocur previously worked with the Bruins as an assistant coach starting in the spring of 2023, with previous experience as the head coach of the Pilot Butte Storm in back-to-back Prairie Junior Hockey League (PJHL) Finals, including a 2022-23 Jr. B provincial championship win.
For Kocur, moving into the position fully means he'll be starting the season with a bit of extra experience.
"Obviously, the interim tag is great and a lot of experience there, two and a half months there, and then now removing the tag, so to speak. Yeah, super excited and looking forward to the next season."
Kocur was an assistant coach under Jason Tatarnic, who led the team to a championship win during the 2021-22 season.
He'll take the lessons he learned from Tatarnic moving forward.
"Learned a lot, obviously, from Jason. I appreciate him. He's a good friend. Learned a lot. Yeah, I mean, can't say enough good things about him."
As the new season approaches
"Looking at our roster and guys that can come back, just got to evaluate everything and kind of see the direction, obviously get some more younger guys in here and kind of develop some youth guys for the following years."
After the team found out that Kocur would be the new head coach and GM, many of them reached out and voiced how they're looking forward to the upcoming training camp.
Now, Kocur wants to see some effort in their upcoming training camps as the team wants to rebound from their playoff-less season.
"We want to have a really good training camp and come back with the right attitude. We're going to come in, we're going to work hard, blue collar, have a really strong work ethic and looking forward to winning some games."
That started over this weekend as the Bruins met for a spring training camp this weekend, which Kocur says had some right steps for the team.
"It was great. Six teams, players from all over, really competitive, the pace was high. We did a lot of good things, and we had a lot of good players come to camp looking for a job. So that was great to see and, you know, we'll obviously re-evaluate going into August."
With no big moves in terms of trades or acquisitions coming up, Kocur is instead looking to make sure the team is good to come out of the gates strong this fall.