Photo Courtesy EverythingGP Staff

By Tanner Smith

Sports

The Grande Prairie Storm added a new Director of Personnel

Aug 27, 2022 | 10:44 AM

The Grande Prairie Storm has made some changes on and off the ice for their first normal season of hockey after a ‘strange’ two years.

Losing their captain, Nathaniel Bierd, and adding a new Director of personnel, ex-NHL Head Coach Bill Peters, are only examples of two big differences, but one of them may have the biggest effect on all parts of the Storms organization.

Peters, says he’s excited for this opportunity to be back in Grande Prairie after being away from Northern Alberta for some time and wants to use his opportunity here to help the team win and strengthen the community as well.

“I know coming out of covid, there was a lot of restrictions where you couldn’t get involved in the community very much and it was hard on everybody, so it’s up to us to get our team out in the community, get involved with minor hockey get involved with some of the associations in this area, we drove around to try and get a lay of the land with Sexsmith and La Glace and everywhere else.”

With the Storm having a big focus on volunteering and getting involved with community minor hockey programs in the area, it opens a door to another one of Peter’s plans, which is starting the process of having a large crop of high-level local hockey players that can compete for the storm for years to come.

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Peters says he believes developing players in the area from a young age will be crucial to getting more talent on the Storm’s roster, and won’t be stopping the development process once they join the Storm.

“Success for me, in my role, is making sure we move players to the next level, and that’s with player recruitment and player advancement, we got to do a good job of making sure these guys eligible to go on and play in the NCAA, U-Sports in Canada or maybe overseas where ever it may be, we want to make sure they’re maxing out their potential and continue to get better at a young age.”

Peters added he looks forward to working with these guys to get to them where they want to be, adding “you’re still allowed to get better at their age.”

He says it’s nice to finally be at camp and starting to put names to faces, but he is also very excited to be back up in Grande Prairie with the City starting to return to normal after the pandemic and fans starting to get excited about junior hockey again.

“I was up here during one of the NHL lockouts and did some work with Brett Stephenson and some of the young kids, and some of those kids are still here at 20 to 19 years old, you see the growth in the region and the City of Grande Prairie, you see the changes they made here in the arena with the boards and the glass and everyone’s excited with the new scoreboard coming in, lots of good things happening up in this area and I know now that we’re through with all the covid restrictions, I think everyone is excited about getting back in the rink and watching some hockey.” Said Peters.

He has been an NHL coach for 3 teams, two Head Coaching jobs with the Calgary Flames and Carolina Hurricanes, and one Assistant Coach job with the Detroit Redwings.

The Storm’s main camp has already begun and will have their Brian Nash inter-squad game on Sunday, August 28 at 2:30 pm, and a home pre-season game v.s. the Sherwood Park Crusaders on Tuesday.