Spokane Chiefs Name a New Head Coach – Plus a Red Deer Opening

We saw two recent moves in the Western Hockey League.

A former WHL Coach of the Year has been named head coach to the Spokane Chiefs. Plus, a WHL Associate General Manager will move on to professional hockey - leaving an opening for a team in the Eastern Conference.

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Spokane Chiefs Name a new head coach

Former WHL Coach of the Year Brad Lauer was recently named the 16th full-time Head Coach in Spokane Chiefs history. Lauer spent four seasons as head coach with the Edmonton Oil Kings - helping them to win the WHL title in the 2021-22 season. He won WHL coach of the year honors just before the pandemic for the 2019-20 season.

 The 57-year-old Brad Lauer spent nine years of NHL coaching experience, most recently as an associate coach with the Winnipeg Jets.

Lauer played three years of junior hockey with the Regina Pats in the mid-80s. 

Brad Lauer was the head coach with one of the Kootenai Ice in Cranbrook BC…this franchise began in Edmonton in 1996, moving to Cranbrook, then on to a few seasons in Winnipeg, before settling here in Wenatchee last summer in 2023. 

So - in an odd, in-law sort of way, the Chief's new head coach Brad Lauer has a connection with our own Wenatchee Wild. 

Brad Lauer and the Spokane Chiefs will kick off the season on the road - taking on Mark Lamb’s Prince George Cougars on Friday night September 20th. 

Red Deer Rebels are looking for a new Associate General Manager

There’s some movement within Red Deer Rebel's upper management - as Brent Sutter, Red Deer’s president and General Manager just announced that his associate GM,  Shaun Sutter will be moving on -  to the pro ranks in a scouting capacity.

Shaun Sutter left Red Deer after spending over 10 years as Associate GM under his uncle Brent.

Shaun was an assistant coach for the Regina Pats in the 2000s…then named as director of scouting and the Associate GM and will now accept a soon-to-be-announced scouting position at the pro level. Longtime hockey fans will easily recognize the name…as Brent Sutter and brother Duane Sutter, both won Stanley Cups for the New York Islanders in 82 and 83.

The Sutter family saw six brothers play in the NHL. The Sutter family, originally from Viking, Alberta, Canada, Six brothers: Brent, Brian, Darryl, Duane, Rich, and Ron, reached the NHL in the late 1970s and early 1980s. A seventh brother named Gary is said by his brothers to have been the best hockey player of all the boys chose to stay at home to work on the family farm. Oh, to be a guest at any of the Sutter family homes, to hear hockey stories, during the holidays.