The Red Deer College Queens hockey team finally has a new head coach.
College alumnus Kelly Coulter takes over from Bob Rutz who took the Queens to the ACAC final last season where they were defeated by the NAIT Ooks.
Coulter has spent the last 18 years in Grande Prairie coaching at several different levels, including as an assistant coach with the Alberta Junior Hockey League’s Storm.
He will be leaving his position at Grande Prairie Regional College in the office administration department, knowing they were facing cut backs.
This move helps to amalgamate his coaching duties and professional duties.
“I’ve coached my entire teaching career at the college, so it’s always been on the side,” said Coulter. “It’s nice to have part of my portfolio with my teach. They both go hand-in-hand ... I’m just ecstatic to do it.”
For RDC athletic director Keith Hansen, this represents one of his final actions in his position. The long time AD is stepping down in July but he wanted to have this coaching position filled before he left.
He believes Coulter is a good fit with the department and their goals.
“I think he’s going to be absolutely outstanding,” said Hansen. “He’s a real character individual, he’s real ethical, he’s got a very good coaching resume and he’s been involved in junior hockey, not only as a coach but as an educational person. He’s super passionate about hockey and education and student athletes.”
One of the big reasons RDC moved on from Rutz is they wanted an on campus coach to be running the Queens and Coulter’s appointment fills that role. For the first time in the school’s history, they will have on-campus coaches for all six of their major sports teams — men’s and women’s hockey, basketball and volleyball.
While Coulter’s role is still being defined at the college he will be in the kinesiology department. He has spent the last several years teaching office administration at GPRC.
He started coaching 15 years ago at the peewee AA level in Grande Prairie before moving on to coach the midget AAA team. In 2006 he joined the Storm as an assistant coach and was names the director of hockey operations of the Grande Peace Athletic Club in 2010. While with the Storm he served as educational liaison coordinator.
Coulter has not coached women before — outside of his involvement as a badminton and track and field coach in his high school teaching days — but believes he will be able to make the transition.
“Most of my teaching career in post secondary has been spent in the office admin program, so that’s teaching women all day .... and in the evening I would coaching boys or men,” said Coulter. “I’ve had a lot of experience for 15 years being able to shift back and forth.”
He says he prefers more of an aggressive style of play, though he does preach taking care of the defensive end first.
“You have to score goals to win, but if you give up seven, you’re not going to win too many games,” said Coulter.
The Queens are also going to get back several players they did not expect to have return under Rutz, including Casey Nicholson, Jessica Anderson, Jade Petrie, Ashley Graf, Emily Swier, Kaely McMurtry and Rikki Leonard.
Coulter is not sure what his assistant coaching situation will be, though he does want to talk with Rutz’s staff — Wes Makofka, Laura Salomons and Colin Stebner — before he makes any moves
Getting back to Red Deer is something the Beach Corner native — east of Stony Plain — wanted to do.
He began his education at RDC before moving on to the University of Alberta to finish his bachelor of education and then earned a masters degree in educational technology from the University of Southern Queensland in Australia.
He will be bringing with him his wife and two daughters aged four and seven.
“My family is really excited,” said Coulter.
“Were looking forward to the challenges and new opportunity and hopefully we can make a contribution to Red Deer like we did with GPRC and Grand Prairie in our time here.”