Gainey joins Blazers' staff

From The Daily News of Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2007 . . .

By GREGG DRINNAN
Daily News Sports Editor
What was unofficial for a lot of last season now is official.
Steve Gainey has been added to the coaching staff of the WHL’s Kamloops Blazers.
Gainey, 28, is a native of Montreal and the son of Bob Gainey, the general manager of the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens. Steve spent four seasons (1995-99) playing for the Blazers before going on to a seven-season professional career.
Gainey last played in 2005-06 when he got into 20 games with the AHL’s Phoenix Coyotes and 56 with their AHL affiliate, the San Antonio Rampage.
As last summer bled into autumn, Gainey skated with the Blazers and waited for the phone to ring. When all remained quiet on that front, he chose to stay here and help the Blazers’ coaching staff.
“It was a long winter for me, not playing hockey and some family affairs . . . it was nice to have something to do,” said Gainey, who lost his sister, Laura, 25, when she was swept off the deck of the tall ship Picton Castle by a rogue wave on Dec. 9. “I’m glad I could be around the hockey team. And I am really looking forward to this season.”
While Gainey realizes his role will be pretty much what it was last season, he promises to be a bit more vocal now that’s on the coaching staff.
“I’ll be doing pretty similar things, but now the comfort zone will be such that I can get a little more involved with the players on a personal level and speak what’s on my mind a little more,” Gainey explained.
Dean Clark, the Blazers’ general manager and head coach, said Gainey will work practices and serve as an “eye in the sky” during home games.
“He was around last season and has been around this year,” Clark said. “We thought we would make it official and break up some of the news of everything else that’s going on in our world.”
Gainey will work on a part-time basis, alongside Clark, Shane Zulyniak, the assistant general manager/assistant coach, and assistant coach Andrew Milne.
“Steve’s not a full-time guy,” Clark said. “He is a guy who is going to coach at practices and be an eye in the sky, which is similar to what he did last season. It’s just that now it’s a formalized situation.
“He knows the game, too, and he fits really well into our (coaching) group.”
Gainey will be on the ice Thursday at the Interior Savings Centre as the Blazers’ rookie camp opens.

Ed Patterson, another former Blazers player, has ended his playing career and signed on as head coach of the junior B Kamloops Storm which plays in the Kootenay International Junior Hockey League.
Patterson, 34, replaces Bryant Perrier, who resigned earlier this month to join the BCHL’s Alberni Valley Bulldogs as an assistant coach.
Patterson, who is from Calgary, split a four-season WHL career between the Seattle Thunderbirds, Swift Current Broncos and Kamloops Blazers. He played 93 games with the Blazers, totalling 91 points and 254 penalty minutes, from 1990-92.
A seventh-round selection by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the NHL’s 1991 draft, Patterson went on to play 15 years as a professional. He got into 68 NHL games, all with the Penguins, for whom he scored three goals and set up three others.
For the last six seasons, he has played overseas, spending one winter in Germany and the last five in Great Britain, most recently with the Cardiff Devils.
The Storm is to open training camp Aug. 30. The KIJHL season is scheduled to open Sept. 14.
The 42-year-old Perrier, who will work under general manager/head coach Alan Kerr with the Bulldogs, guided the Storm to a 30-18-4 record last season. That was good for first place in the Okanagan Shuswap Division. The Storm bowed out in the league semifinal, losing to the Fernie Ghostriders, who went on to win the playoff championship.