Boudreau, Woods Named Head Coaches

Published on November 23, 2007 under ECHL (ECHL) News Release

The Washington Capitals of the National Hockey League announced that they have named former Mississippi head coach Bruce Boudreau as the team's interim head coach.

It has also been announced that former Sea Wolves head coach Bob Woods has been promoted from assistant coach to interim head coach for the Hershey Bears of the American Hockey League, replacing Boudreau.

The South Carolina Stingrays are the ECHL affiliate of the Capitals of the NHL and the Bears of the AHL. The ECHL has affiliations with 26 of the 30 teams in the National Hockey League marking 11th consecutive season that the league has had affiliations with at least 20 teams in the NHL

Boudreau becomes the 15th coach with an ECHL background working behind an NHL bench. He is the second head coach joining former Wheeling coach Peter Laviolette who is head coach of the Carolina Hurricanes. The AHL has 10 former ECHL coaches who are head coaches and 14 others who are assistant coaches.

Boudreau led Mississippi to the 1999 Kelly Cup Championship and in three seasons with the Sea Wolves was 109-75-26. The 52 year old has coached Hershey of the American Hockey League the last three seasons going 103-45-11-16 while leading the team to the Eastern Conference championship and the Calder Cup finals in each of his first two years and winning the Calder Cup in 2006.

Woods was 169-94-25 in the regular season and led Mississippi to the Kelly Cup Playoffs all four years he was behind the bench. The Sea Wolves reached the conference finals in Woods first season in 2002 and returned to the conference finals in 2003.

Woods was an ECHL All-Star selection four times and retired as the ECHL all-time leader with 599 games played. He was named to the Second Team Defense on the ECHL 15th Anniversary Team in 2003, and was named Second Team Defense on The Hockey News' 50th Anniversary All-ECHL Team in 1997.

Woods spent three seasons as player/assistant coach with Mississippi from 1998-2001 and in 1999 helped Mississippi capture the Kelly Cup Championship. He scored 176 points (60g-116a) in 209 games with the Sea Wolves, who retired his uniform number 8 on October 13, 2002.

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