McCaig takes next step in Flin Flon

Cole McCaig was at a gym in Brandon when he unexpectedly received a call from his friend and former boss, Mike Reagan.

The two had worked together with the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League’s Flin Flon Bombers for seven years prior to McCaig spending the last season with the BCHL’s Brooks Bandits as an assistant coach.

During the call on July 31, Reagan told him he had accepted a job as an assistant coach with the Western Hockey League’s Kelowna Rockets, and Flin Flon would be needing a new general manager and head coach.

“He asked where that would leave me,” McCaig said. “He asked if I was interested in coming back to Flin Flon and taking over. Obviously Mike isn’t the president of the team, so he had to talk to the president (Tim Babcock) and the board had to have an emergency meeting because they didn’t know about the Kelowna thing until Friday as well.

“They met on Sunday afternoon, and in the meantime, I had a couple of conversations with the president and was offered the job Sunday night.

“I left for Flin Flon on Monday morning at 7 a.m.”

He had been planning to head back to Brooks on Sunday.

“It’s crazy how life works sometimes,” said McCaig, adding that he knew when Reagan left he would probably be on a short list of potential hires. “Did I think it was going to happen a year after leaving? Absolutely not. I think things happen for a reason.”

McCaig was born and raised in Flin Flon until his parents Rick and Carol moved to Brandon in 2000 when Cole was seven.

He played one year of minor hockey in Flin Flon before they left, and then skated in the Brandon minor hockey system. Even when he wasn’t playing, McCaig spent a lot of the time at the rink with his father, who scouted for the Western Hockey League’s Everett Silvertips and Calgary Hitmen for a combined nine seasons.

After playing with the under-18 AAA Brandon Wheat Kings, he later joined the Bombers as a player for two-and-a-half seasons from 2011 to 2014.

CAREER BEGINS

Following his graduation in 2018 from Marian University in Indianapolis, Ind., McCaig contacted Reagan to see if he could use him as a reference on his resumé.

Instead, Reagan offered him a job, and after exploring his options, McCaig joined the Bombers for the 2018-19 season. The job entailed working as marketing director, and staying with the physical therapist so the team could cover his living expenses.

He would be paid just $5,000 by the team for the winter, so saddled with student debt, he took on a part-time job with Arctic Beverages in the afternoons and refereed in the evening.

That changed in his second year when the full-time assistant coach left for another job and McCaig slid into his role.

Reagan continued to develop his young protege, handing him new responsibilities every year. In his fourth season, he was named assistant general manager, while also handling all the travel, arranging community appearances for the players, finding them jobs, scouting, helping with league paperwork plus doing skills sessions and video.

Reagan and McCaig worked closely together, and the Brandonite said Reagan has put him a position to succeed moving forward as an invaluable mentor. Importantly, Reagan allowed him to add things that were new to the program and to show some initiative.

“I owe Mike everything when it comes to my career,” McCaig said. “Mike brought me on. They had a full-time assistant coach in Flin Flon before bringing me on so I was a volunteer coach. Every year, Mike seemed to put more on my plate, whether it was hockey-related things, or at this level you deal with a lot of things that have nothing to do with hockey operations.”

Reagan is another Flin Flon product who played for the Bombers. He had been with the team as a coach since the 2006-07 campaign, taking them to the final six times. When an opening came up in Brooks last summer, McCaig applied and Bandits head coach and general manager Ryan Papaioannou offered him the job. McCaig accepted, but the coaching merry-go-round quickly led Papaioannou to the ECHL’s Wheeling Nailers in the Pittsburgh Penguins organization. Assistant coach Dakota Mason was then promoted into the top job in Brooks.

“It was huge for my development as a coach, there’s no question about it,” McCaig said of his time with the Bandits. “I was in Flin Flon for seven years in the same role and in the same organization and working with the same people. Probably in certain areas as a coach you feel like you’re plateauing a little bit and rooted in comfort.

“It becomes rinse and repeat and that’s nice at a certain point in life for sure, but when you’re my age and still really career-driven and ambitious, I felt like it was probably time for me to venture off.

“You couldn’t go to a better program to do that than the Brooks Bandits. It was a great opportunity for me to work with probably the best program in junior hockey outside of major junior and work with a different staff. The coaching philosophy was different, the style of play was different.”

Oddly enough, both teams emerged as champions, with Flin Flon winning their first SJHL crown since 1993 while Brooks captured its second BCHL title in the last two years.

“I feel way more confident in this position coming from Brooks rather than maybe spending last season in Flin Flon and then getting that internal promotion,” McCaig said. “It was definitely a year of growth.”

McCaig said his coworkers in Brooks took the news of his departure really well, and were happy he was getting a chance to move forward.

NEW JOB

When he arrived in Flin Flon, McCaig’s first priority was talking to all the returning and signed players. He hosted a Zoom call on Monday evening before the news was announced the next day, Aug. 4.

That continued in the coming days as he tried to build relationships with guys he hadn’t previously worked with.

“I just picked their brain on ‘OK, what do you like about the program? What are some areas we can be 10 to 15 per cent better in?’” McCaig said. “The Bombers have been a successful program for a long time. I’m not coming in thinking I need to make a bunch of significant changes. I do think there are some areas we can probably sharpen up in.”

He was also speaking to agents and advisors, and other general managers around the league.

“Because I was starting the job so late, from the GM’s side of things, I really had to catch up when it comes to putting together a list of trade targets, guys who are going to be away at major junior camps and contacting them so maybe we can be an option B if things don’t work out,” McCaig said. “The first week or two weeks it was a lot of that stuff.”

Now that the initial rush has passed, he’s putting together his coach and strength-and-conditioning plans. Another of McCaig’s first jobs was to hire an assistant coach, and he reached back to his Brandon roots for a former Bombers player in 25-year-old Rylan Thiessen.

“I’ve always respected Rylan,” McCaig said. “I had the opportunity to coach him in Flin Flon. He’s really mature for his age, really good leadership skills, he went to school (Brock University) for sports management so he checked off everything that we as a staff were looking for. If you can bring as many alumni on board as possible — that’s what the Brandon Wheat Kings do too — … Rylan has been in the players’s shoes and knows exactly what they’re feeling on a daily basis.

“He’s played at a fairly high level so he is coming in with some credibility too. I’m extremely excited about having him on board with us.”

As a staff, they may have some heartache ahead, however.

It’s not just the WHL grappling with the reality of the changes that allowed major junior players to play Division I college hockey. It also allowed Junior A players to make the jump to the WHL, and with older WHL players heading to NCAA teams, they suddenly became a highly prized commodity in the WHL.

A year ago, the Brandon Wheat Kings invited Winkler Flyers defenceman Max Lavoie to camp and he became an important part of their blue-line all season.

McCaig admitted there is a new level of uncertainty at the Junior A level.

“When you’re in that situation, it’s important that you’re planning without those players,” McCaig said. “You can’t be caught with your pants down. We’re in a situation where we have a few older players going away for Western League camps, and for us as a staff, we’re preparing as if they’re not coming back.

“We wouldn’t be doing our jobs very well if we were just planning on them being back here. It does require a lot more work, but this job is not easy if you don’t have a strong work ethic. You won’t last in this industry.

“It is what it is. There is nothing we can change about it. We need to adapt to the times or else we’re going to left behind and as an organization, we won’t have much success on the ice.”

Players report to Flin Flon on Aug. 30, with fitness testing, some skating and team-building activities to follow. The actual main camp begins on Sept. 4, with an exhibition game scheduled on Sept. 6 against the Manitoba Junior Hockey League’s Northern Manitoba Blizzard.

The Bombers enter the season as defending champion and in their 100th year as an organization, so it’s a big year for the club. Their new general manager and head coach has some experience in late staff changes after going through it in Brooks a year ago, and is sure he’s ready.

After all, he patiently bided his time for his new job, and after eight years of development, McCaig is certain he’s made the right decision.

“I was literally able to observe and witness this situation that I’m in right now,” McCaig said. “There were some growing pains early on, no question about it, we really had to figure thing out in the first half, but we ended up finding a way to win a championship as probably the youngest staff in the BCHL. I’ve been through this, not as a head coach, but as an assistant coach and I have a great support staff around me.

“I feel confident. I’ll probably feel some pressure closer to puck drop.”

» pbergson@brandonsun.com