ENFIELD: Ryan Legere is stepping down as head coach of the East Hants Junior Penguins to focus on making the on-ice product better.

Legere announced his resignation from the team following their final home game of the season, a 6-5 shootout win over the Brookfield Elks Feb. 19, at the East Hants Sportsplex, in Lantz.

He talked about his reasoning and his take on the team’s first season after a year’s leave of absence following the team’s awards banquet Feb. 27, at Shooters Sports Bar. Legere admitted having the responsibilities of both head coach and owner was a little too much.

“It doesn’t mean years from now you won’t see me behind the bench, but for the foreseeable future, it’s not in my plans,” Legere said.

By stepping down, it will allow him to focus more on the operations side of things, including bringing in the best product for the fans entertainment.

“My reasons for stepping back is just that I wanted to work in a different role with general manager Joe Cole in building a really good team,” he added. “It’s hard to do that as a head coach because as a head coach you need to be worried about the x’s and o’s. Now I don’t have to worry about that and can sit down and bring in the best hockey product we can.”

However, the decision, which was made sometime ago, wasn’t as simple as it may sound

“It was a tough decision,” Legere said. “At end of the day what it came down to was I’m 27 years-old and for the last 16 months I’ve lived, breathed and ate East Hants hockey. I love that, but at the same time I have to have a life too.

“On a Friday night, if you lose a game you should not be happy, you should be frustrated. I had a lot of weekends where I had plans to do other things, but I couldn’t go do because I was losing games. As a coach when you’re losing games, the worlds terrible. As an owner when you’re losing games, it’s not a good thing but you can still go on with your life and have fun. I took the losses to heart.”

Legere said there are three or four candidates the team has there eye on to come in and fill the head coach position, but he wouldn’t go into details. He said the team’s fans can expect to hear something very shortly.

“We have to interview them,” he added. “We’re going to find a new head coach within the next couple of weeks. We have some ideas right now but we want to wait until the appropriate time to talk to them.”

East Hants finished the season in last place in the Fred Fox Division with a 10-18-6 (won-loss-overtime loss) record.

Legere explained the team did well for one that had its 23 player roster just put together in September.

“A lot of the other teams only have to bring in five or six players, we needed to get 23,” he said. “When you do that you can’t be expected to have as much depth as the other teams. That’s why we ended up with such a younger group. Having said that, it also lays the foundation for the future where our expectations for the guys are higher. Looking ahead its’ probably the best thing that could have happened from an organizational point of view.

“The season we had it was frustrating, but looking at it now we have laid the foundation for a bright future.”

With the amount of losses the team suffered, it meant for some restless nights and weekends, Legere said.

“There were definitely a lot of ups and downs,” he said. “Many times this year I wasn’t sleeping a wink. I was wondering what we could do, who we would put in where. We seemed to win in chunks and when that happened it was great. Those were the highs and the lows were when no matter how hard we worked we just couldn’t get the points. To have the amount of one goal losses we had this year was frustrating because those games could have gone either way. We worked our butts off. There were a lot of games where I think we should have got points but we didn’t. Ultimately, that’s why we didn’t make the playoffs.”

He was thrilled with the amount of support the team received from the fans and community businesses that were ready to come on board and support the endeavour.

“They’ve been amazing,” he said. “We’re nothing but appreciative and thankful for the community support from our fans and sponsors. Our fans are second to none. Right now a lot of people talk about the Cumberland fans. In a couple years they will be talking about the East Hants fans. I can’t say enough good things about them. The team wouldn’t have been back without the support form the fans so they should be the ones who are thanked.”

The local generosity continued at its awards banquet where East Hants players took the majority of the hardware home. Among the winners were Matt Anthony, of Shubenacadie, and Justin Campbell, of East Gore, who were named co-most valuable player; the coaches leadership award went to Evan Dickie, of Enfield, and captain Tyson Aalders; goaltender Andrew Sidey won rookie of the year; Brad Smith took home top defenceman honours and the team’s hard hat award went to Shayne Sullivan, of Enfield.

phealey@enfieldweeklypress.com