PWHL Vancouver: Coach Brian Idalski’s history includes Hammer time

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PWHL Vancouver coach Brian Idalski can obviously talk pro women’s hockey. He can also talk Dave (The Hammer) Schultz.

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Idalski, 54, added to what has to be one of the more unique resumes in the sport a few weeks back when he was named bench boss of the Vancouver expansion team that starts play based out of the Pacific Coliseum in the fall.

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Idalski was coach of Team China at the Beijing 2022 Olympics. He guided a Chinese team in a Russian pro women’s league for three seasons. He was bench boss of the University of North Dakota squad that helped produce American Olympians like twin sisters Jocelyne and Monique Lamoureux but folded in 2017 due to funding constraints at the school.

Before that, the Warren, Mich., native was a steady, stay-at-home defenceman who saw action in minor pro for five seasons. That included suiting up in 1996-97 for the Madison Monsters, a team in the Colonial Hockey League that was coached by Schultz, a winger for the Philadelphia Flyers in their Broad Street Bullies days.

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There have been four seasons in NHL history where a player has amassed 400 minutes or more in penalties. Schultz owns two of those, including a league record 472 minutes in 1974-75.

Schultz was at the helm for Idalski’s second year in Madison. Mark Johnson was the coach for the first campaign, and as a player he was a stylish, savvy centre who starred with the 1980 U.S. Olympic team and then went on see duty in 11 seasons in the NHL. For comparison’s sake, Johnson totalled a mere 269 minutes in the sin bin in his career.

“The Hammer? I enjoyed playing for him, but it was funny because that was such a different era,” said Idalski, who was heading up minor hockey camps at the North Shore Winter Club this past weekend. “Mark had brought in some Europeans and we were playing on an Olympic-sized sheet, so we were all over the place. Dave had a hard time with that. He was used to the Broad Street Bullies in the 1970s, up and down the wing, get it in deep and go.

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“He was a great human being. I really enjoyed playing for him as a person. But there are a fair number of stories coming out of that year that I still chuckle about.”

Idalski comes to PWHL Vancouver after spending the past three seasons guiding the St. Cloud State University Huskies. The St. Cloud, Minn., program had a 16-point jump in the overall standings in his first season in 2022-23, leading Idalski to win U.S. College Hockey Online (USCHO) coach of the year honours.

Part of the appeal with the new job is the roster that general manager Cara Gardner Morey has assembled. The forward crew includes national team stalwart Sarah Nurse along with homegrown talents Hannah Miller and Jenn Gardiner. The defence features reigning PWHL defender of the year finalists Claire Thompson and Sophie Jaques, and the netminding has two former starters in the loop in Kristen Campbell and Emerance Maschmeyer.

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The team looks like it will contend instantly and, as Idalski says, “The fact that I get the keys to something that has the opportunity to be special right away is really something — normally, you have to cut your teeth, pay your dues for a few years.”

Running an NCAA team has become a complicated proposition of late as well, with more frequent player movement due to looser transfer regulations and enticements like Name Image Likeness (NIL) sponsorship deals ruling the day.

“This is a best-on-best league, and how you show up, how you prepare, gives you have a chance to win and that’s on you,” Idalski said. “There’s a lot of things in college … it didn’t matter how much time I put or how hard I worked.”

All told, Idalski has coached 18 seasons in the NCAA, including 10 at North Dakota. They were a prominent program then, particularly when they had the Lamoureux sisters. The pair represented the U.S. at three Olympics, including Vancouver 2010.

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In 2017, North Dakota shut down the team as well as the men’s and women’s swimming squads in a bid to slice $1.3 million from the athletic budget.

“I wouldn’t wish that on anybody, especially with what we had built and what was around the corner for us,” Idalski said. “But, out of that, I can turn around and say that it was one of the best things that happened to me. I got to go to the Olympics, I got to coach overseas and live in China and Russia. Who gets to do those things?

“I probably would have stayed in North Dakota another 10 or 15 years. I may have ended my career there. But it forced me to grow. Dealing with that made me a better person.”

After North Dakota, Idalski went to the KRS Vanke Rays and guided the team from Shenzhen, China to two titles in three years in the Russian Zhenskaya Hockey League. That led to him being named bench boss of the Chinese team for Beijing 2022. China went 2-2-0 there.

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Highlights from that stretch for him — a kid who grew up in a Detroit suburb — included having breakfast with former Red Wings winger Slava Kozlov when their teams wound up staying at the same hotel, and watching former Red Wings centre Pavel Datsyuk play in a 5,000-seat arena.

“I loved it. I thought it was just an awesome experience,” Idalski said.

The PWHL has yet to announce its schedule for its upcoming third season, which now features eight teams with the additions of Vancouver and Seattle. Teams played 30-game seasons last year, beginning on Nov. 30. Check the PWHL Vancouver website for more information.

@Seveves

SEwen@postmedia.com

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