Finalists announced for 2021-22 Coach of the Year Award

By David Brien May 24, 2022

The Quebec Major Junior Hockey League today announced the three finalists for this year’s Ron-Lapointe Trophy. The 2021-22 Coach of the Year finalists are Jim Hulton of the Charlottetown Islanders, Stéphane Julien of the Sherbrooke Phœnix and Patrick Roy of the Quebec Remparts. The three nominees were also in contention for the Maurice-Filion Award, which is handed out to the General Manager of the Year.

The award is named after Ron Lapointe, who coached the Montreal Juniors, Quebec Remparts and Shawinigan Cataractes before graduating to the National Hockey League. While he was head coach of the Quebec Nordiques, he was forced to resign halfway through the 1988-89 season because of a kidney tumour. He died at the age of 42 after a three-year battle with cancer.

Recipient of the 2020-21 Ron-Lapointe Trophy, Jim Hulton led his powerful Islanders team to another great season. The 53-year-old from Kingston, ON was behind the bench for a seventh consecutive season and led his team to a 103-point campaign (48-13-7-0), just behind the regular season champion Quebec Remparts (104 points). The Isles finished the season third in goals scored (283) and second in goals allowed (179). Hulton’s special teams also played a significant role in the team’s success; the power play (26.2%) was ranked fifth in the league, while the penalty kill was the most efficient in the QMJHL (84.3%).

Stéphane Julien was awarded the Ron-Lapointe Trophy following his exceptional 2019-20 season. This year’s squad wasn’t expected to have much success following a disappointing 16th place finish in 2020-21, but the Shawinigan native led the Phoenix to a first-place finish in the Western Conference thanks to a 46-17-2-5 record. His team scored 274 goals (fifth in the league) and allowed 202 goals (sixth in the QMJHL). The team’s power play was also very efficient at 28.2%, good for third place in the Q.

Patrick Roy earns this nomination following an outstanding campaign in which the Remparts won the Jean-Rougeau Trophy as regular season champions with a stellar record of 51-15-2-0. The 56-year-old bench boss led Quebec to a third regular season championship in the franchise’s modern day history. The Remparts ended the campaign with 302 goals scored (second in the QMJHL) and earned the Robert-Lebel Trophy as the team with the lowest goals against average (2.56 – 175 goals against).