Kitchener’s Prang scores sweet gig

Corey Prang is moving up.

The 46-year-old has been promoted to head coach of the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Elmira Sugar Kings after three seasons as an assistant with the club.

“It’s a really exciting opportunity for me,” said Prang. “I’m looking forward to it.”

He replaces Scott McMillan, who left his post due to time commitment issues.

Prang was born and raised in Kitchener.

The former winger came up with the Kitchener Jr. Rangers, played for the junior-B Kitchener Dutchmen and skated with the Sugar Kings, where he was a member of the franchise’s first Sutherland Cup-winning squad in 1997.

After a couple of years on the senior hockey loop with the Cambridge Hornets, he shifted to coaching and held posts with the junior-C New Hamburg Firebirds and the Waterloo Wolves Under-18 Triple-A team before joining the Sugar Kings, where he worked under skipper Rob Collins and then McMillan. Collins is now an assistant coach with the Ontario Hockey League’s Guelph Storm.

Prang calls himself a players’ coach but says he’s still demanding and will hold players accountable.

Trust is the most important quality in his eyes.

“Players have to know where they stand and that they can trust you,” he said.

“That way they are going to hopefully buy in and do whatever it takes to help their team and themselves be successful.”

“He has developed a real strong rapport with the players and has been a big part of the success in the past few years, not only in terms of winning games but developing players,” said Joe Amlinger, director of hockey operations for the Sugar Kings.

Prang has been around hockey his whole life.

He was selected in the 10th round by the Sarnia Sting in the 1994 OHL draft and attended the same high school as members of the Kitchener Rangers.

“I went to Eastwood like most of the Rangers did back then,” he said. “I was good friends with a lot of them. We’d sit at the lunch table and talk hockey.”

He played one game for the Sting as an emergency call-up during the 1994-95 season against the Blueshirts at the Aud.

Elmira was a young team this past campaign but still finished a respectable fourth in the GOJHL’s Midwestern Conference before losing to the Kitchener-Waterloo Siskins in the second round of the playoffs.

“We’re pretty excited,” Prang said of the upcoming season. “We think we’re going to have a good core of returning guys and some new blood. The majority of our forward group should be back and they’re a year more experienced. We’re going to hopefully hit the ground running.”