It’s a short walk from the dressing room to the coaches’ office.
Making the adjustment from player to coach is in fact a much longer journey and one new Okotoks Oilers assistant coach Kyle Schussler is glad to make eight seasons removed from patrolling the blueline for the green-and-gold.
“It has been a long time since I played here and it’s really special to be back and part of the organization again,” Schussler said of the appointment. “It was not really something you could ever foresee, but it worked out really well and I couldn’t be happier about it.”
Schussler, who also takes on the title of director of sponsorship, joins an all first-year coaching staff alongside freshly anointed bench boss and assistant general manager Tyler Deis.
The Manitoba product spent two seasons with the Oilers from 2006-08, winning the Alberta Junior Hockey League’s Stewy Stewart Award in his senior season before moving onto the NCAA Division I university ranks with the Ivy League’s Dartmouth Big Green.
“(Okotoks) is a place I’ve always come back to and called home,” he said. “And to continue to be a part of the organization that really helped me in my transition to Alberta is important to me and it will be nice to be in the community again.”
He returns to the community in which he caught the coaching bug.
Following a brief stint in the Central Hockey League, Schussler got his first taste of coaching when he helped out on the bench on younger brother Trent’s Okotoks Midget AA Oilers squad.
“I really took a liking to it and it kept me a part of the game,” he said. “Then I was really able to take off with it.”
From there, he worked at the prep school level in Ontario and moved onto Ohio University in the NCAA Division II ranks. While studying to earn his master’s degree in sports science, Schussler furthered his education on the bench as an assistant on the men’s hockey team.
“That was a great chance for me to work with guys at a little bit older level, higher level,” he said. “It was a great opportunity for me to learn and figure out some of the college hockey game and really prepare me for a position with the Oilers here.
“It has just been a great series of stepping stones for me.”
After working with both teenagers and college aged student athletes, the junior age group represents a new coaching challenge for the affable 28-year-old who listed communication with players as one of his strengths.
“I know Tyler is a great coach, has a lot of experience and he demands a lot from the players,” he said. “I think it will be a great fit for the two of us.”
