The Kootenay International Junior Hockey League (KIJHL) has announced Dave Hnatiuk of the Grand Forks Border Bruins has been awarded the Coach of the Year Award.
“I have worked in a lot of different organizations, institutions, big businesses and I have never seen anybody work as hard with such discipline and dedication to their craft as Dave,” says Border Bruins owner Dr. Mark Szynkaruk.
“I’m very proud. It was inevitable based on the work that he leads from the top and the financial backing behind the club now. I’m really glad it culminated in such a successful season this year.”
Szynkaruk said the work Hnatiiuk has put in this season is the same since he arrived in Grand Forks four years ago.
“The hockey club is like a flywheel,” he says.
“It takes a long time to put the work into getting it up to speed. Now that it is up to speed, it’s bearing the fruits of its own dividends. It validates our whole mission statement in terms of the quality that we wanted to bring to junior hockey. It validates the approach that as owners, with my wife, had about investing in the highest caliber coach in terms of his professional expertise and character you could get your hands on.”
In his fourth season with the Border Bruins, Hnatiuk guided the team to its third straight winning season, and a regular season championship – earning their first President’s Cup win. The Border Bruins led the KIJHL with 224 goals and have the league’s top two point producers in Levi Astill (90 points in 44 games) and Tyler Burke (72 points in 44 games). They had the league’s best power-play at 26.1 per cent (52-for-199) and the third best penalty-kill at 87.1 per cent (24-for-186).
Hnatiuk also coached team KIJHL at the British Columbia Hockey Conference Prospects Game for a third time.
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