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North Stars hire Nate Bedford as head coach

Aug 16, 2016 | 2:00 PM

The Battlefords North Stars have a new man behind the bench.

Nate Bedford will be joining the North Stars on Thursday Aug. 18 as the new head coach and general manager and will officially take over hockey operations, with camp beginning August 28.

“First and foremost I think I have (a) strong work ethic, it’s something that I pride myself on,” Bedford said. “I’m not the smartest coach in the world, that’s for sure, but I’m definitely going to be one of the hardest working.”

Bedford comes from Fort McMurray where he was the coach of the Keyano College hockey team and joined the Huskies coaching staff in 2012 as an assistant before taking over as head coach in 2014. Bedford stayed with the Huskies until funding for the team was cut by the college in a cost-saving measure and the hockey program was shut down following the 2015-16 season.

Bedford said administrators gave the team a 24-hour notice before the cut. Then he and his family lost their house in the Fort McMurray fire.

“You put your heart and soul into a hockey program for four years and you don’t even get the opportunity to try to fix a problem. So obviously you’re down about that and then a week later our house that we had put our blood, sweat and tears into burns down. It’s been a tough summer but it builds character and shows how resilient our family is,” he said.

Bedford will be joined by his wife Katy and their young son Rockwell, who will also make the move to the Battlefords.

Despite joining the team late in the offseason, Bedford said the previous success of the North Stars will allow him to take his time on making any player decisions.

I want to “find out what the identity of our team is and see if it matches the type of way I want to play. Obviously I’m not going to come in and make a million trades; there’s a recipe there that has been successful. We might have to tweak but we’re going to take our time,” he said.

North Stars president Troy Slywka said in speaking with Bedford, the organization felt he will be a good fit.

We “just had a good feeling with talking and in the interview process. (Bedford) has a lot of experience and he’s a hard worker so we’re looking forward to seeing what he’s going to bring to the North Star organization,” Slywka said. “(Bedford’s) going to bring a good solid work ethic, he’s going to bring good preparation to the North Stars so we’re going to be as prepared as we were with Kevin (Hasselberg). He’s a hard worker and just looking forward to him getting underway.”

The North Stars first pre-season game is Sept. 3 against the Bonnyville Pontiacs of the AJHL and the first regular season game is Sept. 16 against the Kindersley Klippers.

 

Matt Kelly is battlefordsNOW’s town municipal affairs and community reporter. He can be reached at mkelly@jpbg.ca or tweet him @mattjkelly2.