Mike Vandekamp excited to return to Storm

Storm fans will remember Vandekamp from his four seasons spent with the team from 2007-2011.

The Fort St. John native led the franchise to its second AJHL championship in 2009 and finished his tenure with the Storm as one of the most successful coaches in team history amassing a record of 154-72-19.

Vandekamp says a big reason he picked the job was because of the familiarity with the organization and city.

“I’ve been there before, I know it was a while ago now and things have changed, and things are different but at the same time, it’s nice to be comfortable with the facilities, community and the strength of the board of directors that we have up there.”

“There’s a real strong trust factor there from my side. I think there’s a lot of work that needs to be done and I’m excited for the challenge.”

Vandekamp is leaving his position with the Cowichan Valley Capitals to join the Storm. He spent two seasons there and finished with a 52-51-10-3 record.

He says he was approached by the Storm in March and began talking to members on the board of directors. The job (previously held by Ryan Aasman on an interim basis following the dismissal of Matt Keillor back in December) became available and Vandekamp was willing to make the move.

“We had learned that Mike was potentially going to be available and we learned that Mike was very much interested in coming back to Grande Prairie,” explained Chris Millsap, the Vice President of the Storm. “We certainly considered a number of candidates, but he was certainly our prime target.”

Millsap also says that Vandekamp was a great coach when it came to finding players within the community.

“You look back to his final season with the team, he absolutely got the most out of his players, particularly local guys coming up through our minor hockey system. Looking at the direction we want to move this team into, he’s absolutely the perfect fit.”

Vandekamp joins a Storm team that has had trouble finding success since he left. Since 2011-2012 the Storm has only managed to put together two winning seasons and have only gotten out of the first round of the playoffs once.

Vandekamp adds that the game has changed a lot since he was last in GP, and says his team has got to play a quick style of hockey.

“The game has evolved, it’s grown, and it’s changed, and I believe I have too. I think people have an idea of what our team looked like in the late 2000’s and what a physical game that would be. I can certainly say that we’re going to put an emphasis on playing with pace and speed. It’s a fast game now and we want to be a fast and aggressive team.

“I think we need to put an emphasis on conditioning so that we can play at the pace we want to play at. We’re going to be strong defensively and hard to play against.”

Vandekamp explained that he likes going into the new gig with a fresh mindset.

“I don’t have a lot of familiarity with what we have as a group to build around. Sometimes you have to mold your team around the players that you have as well. It’s going to be a little bit of a work in progress, but I think if anything, we want to be hard to play against and a structured hard-working team.”

With the off-season in full swing, Vandekamp said that he hasn’t yet thought about who he would like to add as an Assistant Coach and wants to give those decisions some time.

He also mentions that he would like to get in touch with the players and talk to them so he can get a feel for what they’re like.

He adds a lot of the scouting and recruiting for the team this offseason will be done over the phone because of COVID-19.

by Shane Clausing

Mike Vandekamp excited to return to Storm

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