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Johnston back with AAA Stars as spring camp on horizon

Apr 19, 2018 | 5:00 PM

Norm Johnston will be back behind the bench of the Battlefords AAA Stars for the 2018-19 season, however, assistant coach Lee Ulmer will not.

The AAA Stars board made the decision to bring back Johnston not long after their season ended in February.

Despite missing the playoffs and being the second-most penalized team in the league, the board felt they and Johnston were on the same page on a number of different fronts.

“We just felt the stability and the plan he had laid out for our organization — some of the things he felt we needed to do going forward — fit well with what we thought,” AAA Stars chairperson Bruce Yockey said. “We talked about some of the things that we felt needed to be addressed and he totally agreed. Matter of fact, he probably named those things before we did.”

One of those things was certainly discpline.

Not only were the Stars second in the Saskatchewan Midget AAA Hockey League in penalty minutes in 2017-18 with 934, but Johnston himself was suspended by the league near the end of the season for an incident involving on-ice officials.

“[Penalties] hurt us. There’s no other way to say it: it did hurt us. But he also included himself in that,” Yockey said. “Something has got to change. I don’t know how we get it across to our players to curb that but it was just far too much. He knows it cost us games. We know it cost us games.”

“He wrote all our parents a letter, taking responsibility for [the suspension],” Yockey continued. “Saying in his mind he felt he was sticking up for his team and his players, but he understands he went a little too far. We can’t have a head coach that’s going to end up suspended like that.

Yockey reiterated that Johnston has changed his coaching approach from how he used to do things in the 1980s and 90s when he was in the SJHL with the Battlefords North Stars and Flin Flin Bombers.

“He’s become more of a teacher. He’s more apt to listening to the kids,” Yockey said. “He’s got a lot of knowledge and experience. He just wants to help kids here, in our area, in our program move onto the next level, and also to build a successful team and something that the Battlefords can be proud of. I think, really, the team he started with last year was kind of half and half. Half was players he had brought in and half you had coming back from someone else and we just thought we owed it to him to see where he can take us next year.”

Ulmer is not returning because he wants to pursue a head coaching position, according to Yockey.

“He just feels he’s served long enough as an assistant and he’d like to run his own program again,” Yockey said.

Stars spring camp is set for this weekend at the Civic Centre, running from Friday until Sunday.

Six total teams have registered for the camp, meaning each team will play five games over the course of the three days.

“As soon as the season ended, even before it, [Johnston] was busy putting a lot of hours scouting and recruiting.” Yockey said. “Like every other team in the league, certain kids and players want to know whose coaching and if it’s the person who has been recruiting them and talking to them, they want to know that before they tell you they’re coming.”

 

nathan.kanter@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @NathanKanter11