O’Leary looking forward to taking over Warriors on full-time basis

It isn’t very often a head coach takes over a team having already put together a rather impressive record as a bench boss with that very same club.

For new Moose Jaw Warriors head coach Mark O’Leary, that record only stands as one of the best winning percentages for a coach in team history.

O’Leary spent the last three seasons filling in for former head coach Tim Hunter as Hunter coached Team Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championship. Through that run O’Leary put together a record of 24-6-4-1, and while the veteran-laden squads he took over certainly helped with that mark, that experience of running the show is something he plans to draw on going forward.

“I’m really grateful for that, three different chances to take over and three different teams of guys with different skill sets,” O’Leary said during the press conference to announce his hiring. “[Assistant coach] Scott [King] and I were able to deal with a little bit of everything during that time, whether there were some things on the ice or off the ice, little things here and there. At the end of the day, that was a different animal because Tim was coming back eventually. This is a new opportunity but I’ll certainly draw from those experiences, for sure.”

O’Leary has been with the Warriors for the past eight seasons, having first joined the team as an assistant coach back in 2012-13. That chance came in part from Warriors general manager Alan Millar seeing a young up-and-coming player in the Ontario Hockey League with just the kind of qualities he was looking for.

“I was a manager in the OHL when Mark was a player, I don’t think Mark would be overly upset when I say he maybe wasn’t the most talented guy, but he worked his ass off,” Millar said. “And he showed that the way he played the game and the way he handled himself, there was a coach in the making there, which we got to know.

“I had a lot of respect for him taking that chance to come to Moose Jaw from Owen Sound, Ontario to essentially be a coaching intern and get his foot in the door and grow. And now he’s used that opportunity eight years later to move from assistant coach to associate coach, he’s done a really good job when Tim was away at the World Junior championships, and he’s certainly done enough to show that he can lead our team.”

Right from when he first arrived in Moose Jaw, O’Leary hoped to one day take over as head coach. As it turns out, that time is now.

“Deep down, that was my ultimate goal,” O’Leary said. “I think going back to even playing junior hockey I knew I wanted to be a head coach. That was the ultimate goal, but I trusted the process and be patient and let things happen as they may and when you’re ready you’ll get the opportunity and I like to think that time is right now.”

O’Leary isn’t planning wholesale changes to how the team plays this late in the Western Hockey League season, what with 33 games remaining in 2019-20.

“I don’t want to sit here and make promises in terms of what we’re going to change, the structure we have here from Tim, I don’t know if there’s a whole lot you’re going to change overnight,” O’Leary said. “The conversations I’ve had here with Scott, there will be small changes in terms of how we approach some systems, but I think first and foremost we have to understand it’s going to be a process here and we have to work on the habit themselves. If you can work on those things, the work habits, then the structure and details will take care of themselves.”

O’Leary will have an extra set of eyes and ears to lend a hand, too – his father, Brian O’Leary coached seven seasons in the OHL with the Owen Sound Platers and Attack, and also served two seasons as an assistant coach in the ECHL with the Phoenix Roadrunners.

“I grew up in this exact atmosphere, there wasn’t a day where I was leaving school and going back home, it was always right to the rink,’ O’Leary said. “I think that’s where I kind of fell in love with the whole process and he’s going to be a guy I’m going to continue to lean on quite a bit.”

The Warriors players themselves had an off day on Monday and will officially be informed of the change on Tuesday. Millar and O’Leary will me with the team’s captains in the morning, followed by the full team before practice.

Be sure to check back tomorrow for player reaction and more.