The Major Midget Kootenay Ice named Cam Basarab as their new head coach on Friday.
Basarab replaces Ice coach Kris Boyce who joined the team after its move from Nelson to Trail and the J. L. Crowe High Performance Academy in 2016. In the program’s first year, Boyce led the Ice to its first playoff appearance since its inception in 2006.
Basarab joins the Ice following one season with the Campbell River Storm of the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League and two seasons as the assistant video coach of the Western Hockey League’s Lethbridge Hurricanes.
Basarab has previous coaching experience with the Lethbridge Midget Hurricanes and the Coaldale Copperheads in Alberta’s Heritage Junior Hockey League (HJHL).
“We’re very, very happy,” said Ice General Manager Les Cleverly. “He was able to participate in our spring camp, he was present at that, doing some evaluations. He had expressed interest before, so it was good to have him here to get the lay of the land. We hadn’t made any decisions at that point, because we still had a bunch of applications.”
Assisting Basarab behind the bench will be returning assistant coach Kyle Hope and newcomer, but familiar Trail face, Darrell Boisvert as assistant coach/mentor.
Kootenay committed 11 players following their spring camp last month, and Basarab will be with the Ice recruiting staff in Langley at the end of the month for the Major Midget Prospects Camp.
The Ice also send a thank you to former coaches Kris Boyce, Dyne Parker and Mason Spear for their hard work and commitment.
The MML was established in 2004 to provide elite level 15, 16 and 17-year-old players an opportunity to play within their own age group at a high level and be developed for the next level of hockey. These teams have an opportunity each year to compete for the TELUS Cup, Canada’s National Midget Championship.