Turcotte moving on

Darren Turcotte’s short tenure as head coach of the Abitibi Eskimos is over.

The Iroquois falls franchise announced Friday that local hockey icon Paul Gagne will return to the team as head coach and general manager effective immediately. The Eskimos website states that Turcotte will pursue other coaching opportunities.

Turcotte took over the helm of the NOJHL team back in February and had the daunting task of guiding a team with only 13 regular season wins up against the three time defending NOJHL champs from his hometown in the first round of the playoffs.

”I think I learned a lot,” Turcotte said reflecting his time with the Abitibi Eskimos after his club was eliminated in the quarterfinals by the Skyhawks.

“It was a good group of kids and I just wanted to come in and teach them work ethic.”

Turcotte’s NHL career started in 1988 with the New York Rangers and ended in 1999 with the Nashville Predators. During that time the speedy forward scored 195 goals playing for 6 different teams.

Injuries cut the former NHL all-star's career short but soon after hanging up his skates Turcotte got involved in youth hockey in Nashville and became the founder and head coach of Nashville’s first ever Midget Triple A program.

Turcotte was forced to re-locate all of his players after the arena he was working out of was sold and the Triple A program that he started was gone and that’s why the North Bay native jumped on the Abitibi opportunity.

“I started working in the high school league,” Turcotte told RinkratTV at an exhibition game in 2002 where his Nashville team played the North Bay Trappers.

“I worked as a commissioner down there and I realized that there were some players that were better than a lot of the players in the area, basically I started the program was so that I could give these better players an opportunity to at least an opportunity to get to the next level, whether it be collegiate, or at least the junior level.”

Turcotte could potentially stay in the NOJHL as there is a coaching vacancy down Highway 17 in Blind River.

With Turcotte’s connection to the U.S. he might be an ideal replacement considering former head coach Jim Capy was well known in the league for recruiting talent from south of the border.

Now however, Turcotte will just play the waiting game.

“I just want to spend some time with my wife and my kids here in North Bay for about a week and then after that I’m just going to wait for the phone to ring,” he said.