Pursuit is a sports feature series highlighting athletes, coaches, and staff and significant sporting events from North Bay and the surrounding area.
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The Powassan Voodoos and the North Bay U18 AAA Trappers have made a trade...sort of.
While the two local clubs have been able to complement each other with the personnel on the ice over the past few years, this upcoming season will see a switch in personnel behind the bench.
Long-time Voodoos Assistant Coach Josh Dale will take the lead as the main man behind the bench with the North Bay U18 AAA Trappers. Going the other way and taking his talents south is Vitali Yachmenev, who will replace Dale on the Voodoos bench as an Assistant Coach alongside current Head Coach Peter Goulet.
It’s two moves that are not directly related in any kind of formal transactional swap but co-related to each other as both coaches were looking at filling the respective vacant positions.
Dale will bring 200+ wins at the Junior A level across seven seasons with the Voodoos.
"I am looking forward to it, we have a lot of talent out there with 36 boys signed up for tryouts and I am excited to get that team put together and get going with the season,” Dale told Baytoday in May.
The 45-year-old Dale also got a taste of being in the role of head coach during this past season when, for five games in December, he took over the reins with Goulet and associate coach Josh Hardiman coaching Team Canada East in Truro, Nova Scotia at the 2023 World Junior A Challenge.
On the other side, former NHLer Yachmenev brings with him the experience of not only playing at the highest professional level, spending eight seasons with the Los Angeles Kings and Nashville Predators, but also spending seven years as a coach in the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia, before coming back to North America where he’s coached across different levels, including spending a portion of the 2018 season as an associate coach with the Voodoos.
Yachmenev talked about his experience with the Trappers saying, “Last year was fun for me, something new, I had not worked with kids before.”
He split those head coaching duties with Guy Blanchard and the Trappers finished fifth overall in the Great North U18 League.
Yachmenev was a star scoring threat during his Major Junior playing days which were spent in North Bay with the Centennials. He scored 61 goals during the Cents 1994 OHL championship season (just one shy of the all-time North Bay major junior mark of 62, set by Nick Kypreos in 1985-86) and was named OHL and CHL Rookie of the Year. A year later he added 53 goals for an impressive 114 goals and 219 points in two seasons in the OHL.
“But I have been with the Voodoos before so I am looking forward to giving my experience and knowledge to the players and helping them progress and take the next step,” says Yachmenev, whose son Thomas played three seasons with the Voodoos.
At 49 years old Yachmenev says you are always learning and growing as a coach and is looking forward to working with Goulet.
“You always learn as a coach and that learning never really stops. Coaching is always a learning process but I think I can bring my experience of playing at different levels, the OHL here and the NHL and then playing overseas,” says Yachmenev.
“I have played the North American and European style of hockey, and I’ll try to give that knowledge to the kids and improve their skills so I can help them take the next step.”
The next step for the Voodoos will be looking at their prospects during their summer camp on July 6 and 7 – taking place at Pete Palangio Arena in North Bay.
Meantime, the next steps for Dale will be learning everything that surrounds the role of head coach while preparing his roster for the upcoming season.
“One thing I told the boys before the tryouts is that I am not only looking for great hockey players, but I am looking for great people too. I want great young men on my team that want to be here, want to learn, and want to get better,” says Dale. “We want to succeed and put together a championship roster. We also want to develop them and make sure they are great human beings at the end of the season."
The two coaches acknowledge that while they are going to be working for different teams this season, the working relationship between the two clubs will only strengthen.
“I am still working with Voodoos head coach Peter Goulet and he is guiding me as I look at players and I will be helping him with Voodoos prospects," says Dale, noting several Trappers have gone on to play a role in helping the Voodoos have success in the NOJHL
"It is a great relationship, once a Voodoo always a Voodoo and it is friends for life."
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