After leading Brock to an appearance at the U SPORTS National Championships while serving as interim head coach, Marty Williamson will remain at the helm of the Badgers men\u2019s hockey team.<\/p>\n
Turning down offers to return to the bench of a major junior hockey team, Williamson has accepted a three-year contract to coach the Brock Badgers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe interim thing was a really good learning experience for me and I absolutely loved it,\u201d Williamson said. \u201cI had more fun this year than I\u2019ve had in a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Named interim head coach last August, Williamson had previously spent six seasons as coach and general manager of the Ontario Hockey League\u2019s Niagara IceDogs. During his tenure there, he led the team to six-straight playoff appearances and two OHL conference championships. Prior to that, Williamson coached the Barrie Colts for six seasons.<\/p>\n
After arriving at Brock, he led the Badgers to a 14-14 regular season record, which was followed by a strong playoff run that included six more wins and a berth in the U SPORTS University Cup National Championships in Fredericton. A first-round loss there ended the season, but Williamson was rewarded with the OUA West and Brock University Coach of the Year titles.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis level of professionalism and his experience as a coach makes him a perfect fit for what we\u2019re building here,\u201d said Brock Sports Director Neil Lumsden. \u201cHe was put in a tough situation with a very short amount of time to take over a team that wasn\u2019t his, but he made the most of it and his team responded to him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Williamson had been linked to at least one Ontario Hockey League job opening, but he said the opportunity at Brock was exactly what he was looking for.<\/p>\n
\u201cI enjoyed the dual aspect of coaching the team and then being part of the University,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s a great atmosphere here. It was really a no-brainer. As long as they wanted me, I wanted to be here.\u201d<\/p>\n
With 11 players graduating, the 2018-19 Badgers men\u2019s hockey team will look far different than it did last year, but Williamson said there\u2019s now an expectation for success.<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, we had to replace a number of important pieces, but I think we\u2019ve done a good job of that. I see a similar scenario to last year where there was a growing period and then we kept getting better. There might be some growing pains, but I think we can defend our OUA West title and get back to nationals again,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lumsden is also confident that Williamson can guide the team back to that level again.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy expectation is the younger guys from the previous team will step up and be those leaders on the ice and character guys in the dressing room,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t see any reason why we can\u2019t be as good or better than last year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Badgers will kick off the 2018-19 season with the annual Steel Blade Classic game at the Meridian Centre on Friday, Sept. 21.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After leading Brock to an appearance at the U SPORTS National Championships while serving as interim head coach, Marty Williamson will remain at the helm of the Badgers men\u2019s hockey team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":46163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3319,1,4,58],"tags":[256,2737,4437,5658],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52088"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52089,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52088\/revisions\/52089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}