Turcotte joins the Skyhawks

Darren Turcotte (left) addresses the media at his first press conference as the North Bay Skyhawks head coach. Photo by Chris Dawson.

The North Bay Skyhawks made it official Wednesday afternoon as Guy Blanchard introduced Skyhawks new head coach Darren Turcotte to the media on Wednesday afternoon at Memorial Gardens.

Turcotte put on the ceremonial jersey to officially mark his beginning as the fourth head coach in North Bay Skyhawks history.

Turcotte's coaching experience includes creating Nashville's first ever Midget AAA program along with coaching in the U.S. National Development Program. The former NHLer finished last year as the head coach of the Abitibi Eskimos who lost in the opening round of the NOJHL playoffs to the North Bay Skyhawks.

Turcotte believes he will bring a more "Run and Gun" style of hockey to the Skyhawks organization. He describes himself as a very demanding coach who tries to be fair to his players.

"I've had the opportunity to play for a vast array of coaches from a guy like Roger Neilson who was quiet and broke the game down to a guy like Mike Keenan and what I've tried to do as a coach is be a combination of all the coaches that I have played for," Turcotte said about his style of coaching.

The new job gives Turcotte some stability that he hasn’t felt much of in the past year. Turcotte retired in 1999 from the Nashville Predators and basically formed a Midget Triple A program from scratch and after four years of bringing a Midget A team from 120th in the U.S.A. to number 39 (in four seasons) the former Centennial was told that the program that he created was folding. His final job was to find spots across the U.S. for the players that no longer had a team to play on. Turcotte then moved on to Abitibi in February and coached the Eskimos for a short time before being told longtime head coach Paul Gagne was returning to the position shortly after the team was eliminated from the playoffs.

“It has been a rollercoaster ride, to develop a midget program in Nashville and four years of basically 24/7 of recruiting what I was doing is I was trying to run a Jr. A program at the Midget level with having to plan road trips, and to have that taken away was a huge letdown,” said Turcotte.

Skyhawks G.M. Guy Blanchard is glad to have another hometown boy leading the Skyhawks but he admits he doesn’t expect Turcotte to be around for the long haul.

“My goal was to help make Kevin be a better coach and it’s my goal to help Darren become a better coach and whatever I can help him out with on and off the ice and with player and if he moves on that’s great I’m tickled for him and I’m hoping that everything works out for all of us,” said Blanchard.

Coach Butch?

Guy Blanchard stated that Turcotte will be in charge of choosing who will be the assistant coaches next fall, adding that last year’s assistants Todd Bradley and Steve McCharles could come back to join Turcotte. However, longtime minor hockey coach Don “Butch” Turcotte will not join his son behind the bench. Jokingly, Darren said his Dad will likely be coaching him from the stands anyhow.

All for Charity

After the press conference Turcotte removed his Skyhawks jersey with his name and number nine on the back. He signed the jersey which will be auctioned off for one of the Skyhawks charities.