Kyle Hagel has joined the Seattle Thunderbirds coaching staff.<\/p>\n
Hagel will work with new head coach Matt O’Dette, who was promoted July 12, succeeding Steve Konowalchuk, who joined the Anaheim Ducks as an assistant coach on June 28.<\/p>\n
“We are excited to add Kyle to our coaching staff heading into next season,” said Seattle Thunderbirds general manager Russ Farwell. “He brings significant, hard earned experience as a professional hockey player and a real passion for the game. He is excited to get started and help young players learn what it takes to move on to professional hockey.”<\/p>\n
“My family and I are super excited to join the T-Birds,” Hagel said. “I owe a big thank you to Russ Farwell and Matt O’Dette for bringing me onboard. I am anxious to start working with our players to help them become 200-foot hockey players and quality young men. Most importantly, it’s super exciting to help build a team that believes in each other.”<\/p>\n
Hagel played 450 professional games as a forward and defenseman over nine seasons in the AHL and ECHL with the Fresno Falcons (ECHL 2008-09), Reading Royals (ECHL 2008-09), Rochester Americans (AHL 2008-09), Las Vegas Wranglers (ECHL 2009-10), Rockford IceHogs (AHL 2009-11), Peoria Rivermen (AHL 2011-12), Hamilton Bulldogs (AHL 2012-13), Portland Pirates (AHL 2013-14) and Charlotte Checkers (AHL 2014-17).<\/p>\n
“Kyle exemplifies the type of character we are looking for in the T-Birds organization,” O’Dette said. “He’s intelligent, hardworking and will be a huge asset to our coaching staff. His work ethic and passion for the game will make for a smooth transition into the coaching ranks.”<\/p>\n
The WHL champion T-Birds begin the 2017-18 Western Hockey League regular season against the Tri-City Americans on Saturday, Sept. 23 at 7:05 p.m. at the ShoWare Center.<\/p>\n
For ticket and team information, visit the T-Birds<\/a> site<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kyle Hagel has joined the Seattle Thunderbirds coaching staff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":29506,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-29505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29505"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29505"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=29505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}