Spirit promote Moe Mantha to Interim Head Coach

Tuesday February 16, 2016

Saginaw, MI – The Spirit have promoted Northern Ontario Scout Moe Mantha to fill the vacant Head Coaching position on an interim basis, Spirit General Manager Dave Drinkill announced Tuesday. 

Mantha, 55, began his junior hockey playing career with the Toronto Marlboros in the OHA before the Winnipeg Jets made him their second round pick in the 1980 NHL Entry Draft. After a 12-year NHL career, Mantha began coaching in 1993 as an assistant with the Hershey Bears in the AHL. Stops in Columbus (ECHL), Baltimore (ECHL), and Cincinnati (AHL), led Mantha to his first job in juniors coaching the United States Top Development Program in 2000-01.

In 2003, Mantha was brought in to coach the Saginaw Spirit on an interim basis which led to a head coaching opportunity with the Windsor Spitfires. Mantha returned to Michigan in 2010 to coach and Co-Own the Michigan Warriors, a Tier II junior hockey team based out of Flint. The Warriors made it to the league finals twice in the four years Mantha was behind the bench. In 2015, Mantha was hired as the Saginaw Spirit’s Northern Ontario Scout while coaching the French River Rapids of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey League. 

“Moe Mantha has been our Northern Ontario scout and is coming in to coach the rest of the year,” said Drinkill.

“At the conclusion of the 2015-16 season, I will be doing an extensive search to find the next Head Coach of the Saginaw Spirit. I want to go through a thorough process making sure we have the right leader and teacher in place for our team to be successful on and off the ice moving forward.”

“Sometimes all a team needs when they are struggling is a new message by a new messenger and I have confidence that Moe will get the best out of our players down the stretch and into the playoffs.”

Spirit President and Managing Partner Craig Goslin said “ Moe Mantha comes from a hockey family.  He is a positive, high energy head coach with 20+ years of coaching experience.   We are grateful that he was able to adjust from his scouting position with us to fill the role behind the bench as our interim head coach.  Our obligation and commitment is to our player’s development both on and off the ice. We believe in our players and their ability to compete at a very high level.”

Mantha moves into the interim role after Greg Gilbert was relieved of his duties on Tuesday.

Gilbert coached parts of five seasons in Saginaw from 2011-16, compiling a 134-134-27 record in his 295 regular season games at the helm. 

For more information please visit saginawspirit.com.