The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Ryan hopeful IIHF tourney will be held
Team Canada, Dalhousie bench boss stickhandling through pandemic
Troy Ryan is optimistic by nature and he’s hopeful that the once-postponed women’s world hockey championship in Nova Scotia will go ahead this April.
“Without having a crystal ball, I’m feeling optimistic,” Ryan, the head coach of Canada’s national women’s team, said in a recent phone interview from his home in Hubbards.
“We’re planning on there being a worlds in Halifax and that’s how we’re going about business on a day-to-day basis. That’s still our target. From a coaching staff and players’ point of view, it’s business as usual.”
The international tournament is scheduled for April 7 to 17 in Halifax and Truro, over a year after the 2020 women’s world championship — which was slated for March 31 to April 10 in the same communities — was postponed on March 7.
The tournament was one of the first international sporting events shelved because of the pandemic.
And the cancellations have continued as COVID-19 has maintained its grip on the sporting world.
The International Ice Hockey Federation recently cancelled 18 world championship tournaments slated for this coming spring. But it kept the 2021 women’s worlds, along with the upcoming world junior championship in Edmonton, the men’s world championship (May 21 in Belarus) and the men’s under-18 world championship (April 15-25 in Michigan) on the docket.
All 2020-21 tournaments in the lower division of men’s senior, women’s senior and men’s under-18 categories and all divisions of the women’s world under-18 championships were axed amid the continued coronavirus outbreak.
In all, 28 tournaments in the 2021 IIHF ice hockey world championship calendar have been cancelled.
“Anytime the event you’re involved in isn’t cancelled, that’s a positive for sure,” said Ryan, who expressed relief that the 2021 women’s world championship has remained intact. “I understand it’s a priority for the IIHF and a priority for Hockey Canada as well. They will do whatever they can within the health regulations and guidelines, to make sure it can go off.
“I’m positive it will. It seems fitting that the tournament was one of the initial big events that was shut down due to COVID. It was really early on during the pandemic. It will be a nice way to sort of turn the page and have the event in Halifax.
“If they’re able to pull off the world juniors, from a women’s worlds and national women’s team point of view, it will be a valuable learning process. We can learn about the things that go well and the things that don’t go well at the world juniors and make sure we can pull it off.”
While 2020 has presented immense challenges, it was a year in which the 48-year-old Ryan landed not one, but two head coaching positions.
In July, he was named head coach of the Dalhousie Tigers women’s team. He’s tasked with rebuilding a program which hasn’t had a winning season in 15 years while navigating through a cancelled 2020-21 Atlantic university season and COVID-19 health regulations.
To make up for the lost games in a lost season, Ryan estimated the Tigers have had 60 practices this fall.
“We were going in every day, early in the morning,” Ryan said. “To have that opportunity to go to the rink every day and improve our program is very important.
“We’re optimistic that the Dalhousie program can take some positive strides and steps forward. It’s no secret the program has struggled. You don’t fix the program overnight. We want to make sure the program, player-wise and staffwise, is headed in the right direction.”
Earlier in the year — Jan. 9 to be exact — Ryan took over the head coaching reins of the women’s national team following the dismissal of Perry Pearn.
It’s another in a long list of titles and positions the Spryfield-raised Ryan has held in the sport. A hard–nosed, gritty forward during his junior A and university playing days, Ryan spent about 15 years coaching at those levels while also assuming general manager duties with four different Maritime Junior Hockey League clubs.
He has checked off a number of boxes. But it was time to find something closer to home.
“When I started to evaluate not only this job (Dalhousie) but my career, the junior jobs and university jobs I had, I was packing up every year to move to Antigonish or Pictou County or Fredericton or Campbellton. Different small towns around the Maritimes,” Ryan said.
“The institution of Dalhousie is pretty big and it’s here in Halifax. To get an opportunity to work at a school like that in your hometown is pretty cool. Those jobs don’t come up all the time.”
Ryan was hired by the national women’s program as an assistant coach in 2016.
In November 2019 — during a pair of exhibition games against the United States in Pittsburgh — Hockey Canada turned to Ryan as head coach of the national team with Pearn as his assistant. Canada won both games.
Pearn, a former NHL assistant, returned as head coach the following month for the first two games of a five-game Rivalry Series against the U.S. Canada lost both games.
Before the series resumed in February in Victoria, Vancouver and Anaheim, Calif., Ryan was placed in charge of the national team, a move that took him by surprise and didn’t give him much time to prepare.
“When I first took over, there was no runway,” Ryan recalled. “I was off to Victoria, Vancouver and Anaheim and thrown right into it. But I enjoyed it.
“Now, I have a little bit of runway. This time has given me an opportunity to spend time with the staff and get to know them a little bit and share ideas with each other. We can take some time to properly prepare with technical packages and videos, stuff like that.
“The runway may be more than anyone would want,” he added referring to the pandemic shutdown.
But Ryan has spent that time wisely, preparing for this season and beyond with the 2022 Winter Olympics on the horizon.
“We’re not only planning for this year but looking ahead for 2022 and what the team could potentially look like,” said Ryan, who was an assistant with Canada’s silver medalwinning team at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.
“There are a lot of good things ahead.”
The 2021 women’s worlds, which will be held about 10 months prior to the Beijing Games, should serve as a barometer for the Canadian squad.
Canada’s rival the United States is the five-time defending champion at the women’s world championship. Canada, which last won a world title in 2012, earned a bronze medal in 2019, the first time it hadn’t reached the final of a world championship in 19 appearances.
The national team has pared its roster down to 47 players, which includes Nova Scotians Jillian Saulnier and Blayre Turnbull. The players, those who aren’t attending a U.S. college, are located in the national team’s three hubs of Montreal, Toronto and Calgary.
From afar, Ryan is in daily contact virtually with the players and staff.
“There's constant communication with either the athletes or people who are in charge of their hubs, and regular contact with their skills coaches to make sure their working on certain concepts and skills,” Ryan said. “Our strength and conditioning coach works with the different strength and conditioning coaches in the hubs to make sure they're following our program. We're on regular calls and Zoom calls where we discuss hockey concepts and video or different workouts and performance sessions.
“During this pandemic, we have learned to be a little more efficient. We're learning to make the most of the technology at our disposal. I have a feeling a lot of that will remain. We'll still have that inperson time but we'll be more efficient. Things like video can be done before arriving on site for a camp or a tournament.
“Those who hadn't figured that out, they're getting a crash course on it now.”