After the most successful season in team history, the Okanagan Rockets will be exercising continuity at both the management and coaching levels.
The B.C. Major Midget League club has announced that general manager David Michaud and head coach Makc O’Rourke will be returning for the the 2014 B.C. Major Midget League season.
Michaud, the club’s longest serving member will enter his fifth season as the clubs general manger.
With Michaud at the helm, the Rockets have posted a 93-44-23 record, good for a .653 winning percentage.
O’Rourke returns for his second season after guiding the Rockets to a 32-5-3 regular season, followed by the club’s second B.C championship title.
The Rockets then went on to win their first ever medal at the national midget hockey championship, a bronze at the Telus Cup in Moose Jaw.
“It’s a great day for our program to officially announce that Mack is returning to coach our club” said Michaud. “Mack clearly has established himself as one of the games bright young coaches, we are very fortunate to have someone of Mack’s calibre guide our program.
Asked if the duo had concerns about trying to duplicate their accomplishments of the previous season and Michaud’s answer was swift. “Not at all, we are both so focused on building on what we were able to accomplish last season. Mack and I both felt it was so much fun, let’s just do it again.”
While the staff will have a consistent feel to it, the same can’t be said about the Rockets’ roster. The Rockets are set to graduate somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 players with a chance of all 20 moving on.
“We are hopeful we will have a player or two return,” Michaud added. “They would be the leaders, and the players that help pass that torch to the new group. If we graduate all 20 players, then so be it. To me, that would be as special as the blue banner we got for winning the BCMML. At the end of the day, moving players on to junior hockey is our number one priority.”
