Press releases

Reports coming out of the Vancouver Jokers HC camp is that Robert Bouchard, the teams Operational manager is considering large changes to the teams direction.

Robert Bouchard had stated at the start of this season that the team was looking to focus on the off ice build up of the facilities and arena to help drive the teams profit margins into a stronger position. While team has focused this direction this season they have seen the on ice results suffer as the team currently stands 11th place in the league behind at least two teams they should be a head of in the standings.

The team is currently building two level 3 stands and have already built one level 1 stand but the focus was to increase the whole arena size to level 3 in two or three years. Still on plan as far was we can see.

But Bouchard has looked at the development rate of the players in the final few weeks and understand his team is not far off being in the top of the league if they were to start focusing back on development of the players again.

This doesn't mean his is going to break the bank to bring high paid coaches back into the fold but it means he seems to be looking at a middle ground option that will increase the development of the players without hurting the arena and facilities upgrade plan.

What does this mean? Well, it means he is currently shopping for coaches that have an 140-150 average between 70-80 coaching ability in both defence and offence as this will keep the cost of the coaches down to levels that the team can afford. This also means he wont have to break the bank to find coaches.

From our understanding he is currently looking but will not over pay for such coaches and in the long run might decide not to change plans if he cannot find the coaches that he is interested in at the price that he thinks is far.

It will be interesting to continue to watch how the team shapes up before the start of next season and the direction that the team continues to take in trying to develop a winning program.

---

---