The Surrey Eagles don’t begin their first-round playoff series with the Cowichan Valley Capitals until tomorrow, but they’ve already got one thing to celebrate.
On Monday afternoon, head coach Matt Erhart was named the BC Hockey League’s Coastal Conference winner of the Joe Tennant Memorial Trophy for coach of the year. Penticton Vees’ bench boss Fred Harbinson was the Interior Conference winner, after leading his team to a Junior ‘A’ hockey record 42 straight wins.
“It’s definitely a nice honour, but it’s really a team award,” Erhart said a day after the announcement. “I’ve got such a great staff here – Gary Nylund, Jason Rogers, Jim Babcock, our goalie coach, Rob Fuchs – and you don’t win these kinds of awards unless you have a great staff and good players who work hard every day.”
Erhart is in his second year as the Eagles’ head coach, and third with the organization – he spent one year as an assistant for former head coach Shane Kuss. Prior to that, he coached the BC Major Midget League Greater Vancouver Canadians.
And though he’d never been a Junior ‘A’ head coach prior to replacing Kuss, Erhart led the Eagles this year to the team’s best record since its BCHL championship season of 2004/05, finishing with a mark of 36-15-2-7.
Erhart had little time to enjoy the honour, however, as he was back to work Tuesday morning game-planning for the team’s upcoming series with Cowichan. Game 1 is slated for tomorrow, 7 p.m. at South Surrey Arena.
“It’s definitely going to be a tough, tough series,” Erhart said.
“As a coach, you go into every game expecting to win, but realistically, I think this is going to be a long series.”
Surrey and Cowichan finished just one point apart during the regular season – both won 36 games – and are nearly identical, give or take a goal, in most categories.
Where the Eagles have a slight edge, Erhart figured, was on special teams and, potentially, on defence and in goal.
But defending Cowichan’s top line of Brett Knowles, Devin Ganoon and Matt Brown – who finished 1,2, 3 in team scoring – is going to be a challenge, Erhart conceded.
“All three of those guys are 20-year-olds, and all of them have a lot of experience… it’s a very dangerous line for them,” Erhart said.
The team’s second line is anchored by former Eagle Richard Vanderhoek.
“Both teams have a lot of scoring depth on the top two lines,” Erhart said. “But every year, there’s a guy or two on a third line or a fourth line who steps up that maybe you don’t expect – that’s the beauty of the playoffs.
“It’s going to be a great series.”
