Eagles hire Bill McDougall as assistant coach for 2024-2025
August 29, 2024 – The Cape Breton Eagles announced today the hiring of New Waterford’s Bill McDougall as assistant coach for the 2024-2025 season.
McDougall, 58, has been acting as a special instructor for this year’s training camp at Centre 200 and will now assume a new role as part of the club’s coaching staff.
A former Calder Cup champion with the Cape Breton Oilers, McDougall will act as the club’s “eye in the sky” this season, working games from the press box area and reporting what he’s seeing from above to the rest of the coaching staff.
Club general manager Sylvain Couturier said “Bill knows so much about the sport and how to win, thats why we brought him in for training camp. His input has been so valuable to us the last few weeks, and he has fit in so well with our staff that we felt it was a smart decision to have him be more involved.”
McDougall first began helping out with the Eagles last spring during the 2023-2024 playoff season. Since then, the relationship between he and the team’s hockey operations has strengthened.
“It has been so much fun being back involved with a team,” McDougall said. “This is such a great time to join because it seems like everything is lining up for these guys. I am excited to know that I can help out in any way that I can. Plus, working alongside these guys on the coaching staff has been a great experience, they are all so different from each other and bring a different element to the team that I think really works.”
During his playing career, McDougall achieved an impressive list of accomplishments, including being named the American Hockey League’s playoff MVP during his Calder Cup winning run with the Cape Breton Oilers in 1993. Just three years earlier, McDougall was named the East Coast Hockey League’s most valuable player as well as the rookie of the year after scoring 148 points in 57 games with the Erie Panthers. Between 1990 and 1994, he played 28 games in the National Hockey League with the Detroit Red Wings, Edmonton Oilers and the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“Every time I walk into Centre 200, all I can think of is that last game when we won. It’s the same dressing room, it’s something you never forget…it’s going to be awesome reliving those memories in a way. I just wanna raise another banner at Centre 200.”
