Ryan to coach women’s team to 2026
HERNING, Denmark — Troy Ryan will coach the Canadian women’s hockey team at the next Winter Olympic Games.
The 50-year-old from Spryfield, N.S., and Hockey Canada have agreed to an unprecedented four-year extension, which keeps Ryan behind Canada’s bench until Milan and Cortina, Italy, in 2026.
Ryan steered Canada to both an Olympic gold medal in Beijing in February and a world championship in 2021 after taking over midway through the 2019-20 season for Perry Pearn.
“We want to play for him. We want to do that extra mile for him,” Canadian captain Marie-Philip Poulin told The Canadian Press. “When a coach has that pulse of the team, I think it’s pretty special.
Ryan and the Canadian women opened the 2022 world championship Thursday against Finland in Herning, Denmark.
Ryan’s extension makes him the longesttenured head coach of a national women’s team. Melody Davidson coached Canada multiple times from 1997 to 2010 – and to Olympic gold in both 2006 and 2010 – but not continuously as others rotated through the job during that span.
Canada reclaimed Olympic gold in Beijing after losing in a shootout to the United States in 2018, and captured its first world title in nearly a decade last yearunder Ryan.
He spent his first full season at the helm on Zoom calls with players because the COVID19 pandemic wiped out international competition and halted training camps.
“What he has been able to do with this team in the span of two years, two of the years being the pandemic, but one of them being literally virtual calls, a season that was very disruptive for him, to be able to turn that group around, to be able to perform as well as we did at the Olympic Games is extremely impressive,” said Hockey Canada director of hockey operations Gina Kingsbury.
Since taking over his post, Ryan’s record as a head coach is 27-2-2 in international women’s hockey, including 12-2-2 versus archrival U.S. He believes his lengthy mandate provides stability for the national program.
“I’m trying to build something that is even better than it already is,” Ryan said.
As general manager of the national team at the time, Davidson brought Ryan on board as an assistant coach to Laura Schuler for the 2017 world championship and 2018 Olympic Games.
Another world championship just six months after February’s Olympic final – the first women’s championship held in an Olympic year – plus this month’s 142-player summer camp in Calgary that doubled as his selection camp gave Ryan a head start on the next Olympic quadrennial.
Kingsbury said Ryan agreed to an extension shortly after the Winter Games in Beijing.
Ryan will coach Canada in a seven-game Rivalry Series with the U.S. this winter, as well as the 2023 world championship in Canada in a location yet to be named.
The U.S. will host the 2024 world championship.