Desjardins named head coach of Canadian Olympic team

Former WHL and CHL Coach of the Year Willie Desjardins will be the man behind the bench for Team Canada at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The Climax, Sask. product will serve as head coach of the Canadian National Men’s team this year. He will be joined behind the bench by associate coach Dave King and assistant coaches Scott Walker and Craig Woodcroft, Hockey Canada announced on Tuesday morning.

Desjardins made his WHL coaching debut with the Saskatoon Blades halfway through the 1997-98 season, replacing outgoing head coach Donn Clark.

Following that season, Desjardins took a four-year absence from the league, during which time he served as an assistant coach with Canada’s National Men’s team.

At the beginning of the 2002-03 season, he returned to the WHL as the head coach of the Medicine Hat Tigers to begin what would turn out to be a long and successful tenure in The Hat.

The Tigers never missed the playoffs in eight seasons with Desjardins at the helm, as he led the team to two WHL Championships, first in 2003-04 and again in 2006-07.

That year, Willie and the Tabbies went all the way to the Memorial Cup Final before being defeated 3-1 by the host Vancouver Giants. In recognition of his work with the Tigers that season, Desjardins was awarded the Dunc McCallum Memorial Trophy as WHL Coach of the Year and the CHL’s Brian Kilrea Coach of the Year Award.

Desjardins still holds the Tigers’ franchise record for most wins by a coach with 323.

He left the Tigers organization in 2010 to become an associate coach of the NHL’s Dallas Stars, where he remained for two seasons before becoming the head coach of the Stars’ AHL affiliate, the Texas Stars, where he led his team to their first Calder Cup championship in 2014.

Most recently, Desjardins served as the head coach of the Vancouver Canucks, a role he held from 2014 until April 2017.

Internationally, Desjardins was assistant coach of the 2009 IIHF World Junior Championship gold-medallists and led the team to World Juniors silver in 2010 as head coach. Desjardins was also an assistant coach with Canada’s National Men’s Team in 1998-99, including at the 1999 IIHF World Championship.