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Islanders Name Capuano Bridgeport Head Coach

April 30, 2007 - ECHL (ECHL) News Release


PRINCETON, N.J. - The New York Islanders of the National Hockey League announced that they have promoted former ECHL coach and executive Jack Capuano to head coach of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers of the American Hockey League.

"I am honored and excited about this opportunity that Charles Wang, Howard Saffan and Garth Snow have entrusted in me," said Capuano. "I look forward to working with the future of the organization to develop a winning team in Bridgeport that will contribute to the success of the Islanders."

Capuano spent six seasons as senior vice president of hockey operations with the Pee Dee Pride and eight seasons overall with the organization. He joined the organization as head coach and director of hockey operations for the Knoxville Cherokee's final 16 games of 1996-97, having begun the season as an assistant coach with Tallahassee of the ECHL. Capuano was head coach for the first two seasons in Florence and in 1998-99 led the Pride to a 51-15-4 record and the Brabham Cup, the trophy awarded each season to the regular-season point champion in the ECHL. The Pride won the Southeast Division while setting team records for wins (51), home wins (29) and points (106). Capuano stepped back behind the bench as interim head coach in 2000-01 going 9-5-1 to improve his coaching record to 101-53-7.

"Jack Capuano is the ideal coach for the dual challenge of developing Islander prospects and bringing a winning team to Bridgeport," said Islanders general manager Garth Snow. "Jack really impressed me in his one season as an Islanders assistant and how well he worked last season in Bridgeport with young players like Blake Comeau and Frans Nielsen. More than anything, Jack is a teacher."

Capuano played four years of professional hockey and appeared in five games in the National Hockey League with Toronto, Boston and Vancouver. He was also a first team All-American and served as captain for the University of Maine where he won the Hockey East Championship and appeared in the Frozen Four in 1986.

The Premier 'AA' Hockey League, the ECHL had affiliations with 24 of the 27 teams in the AHL in 2006-07 marking the sixth season in a row that the ECHL had affiliations with 20 or more teams in the AHL.

In each of the last two seasons there have been more than 225 players who have played in both the ECHL and the AHL and there were over 800 call-ups involving more than 500 players. In the last five seasons the ECHL has had more call-ups to the AHL than all other professional leagues combined with over 2,000 call-ups involving more than 1,000 players since 2002-03.

In addition to Capuano, there are 10 other former ECHL coaches who are head coaches in the AHL - Dave Allison of Iowa, David Baseggio of Peoria, Bruce Boudreau of Hershey, Scott Gordon of Providence, Mike Haviland of Norfolk, Greg Ireland of Grand Rapids, Kurt Kleinendorst of Lowell, Claude Noel of Milwaukee, Kjell Samuelsson of Philadelphia and Roy Sommer of Worcester.

Haviland became the sixth former ECHL coach to be named AHL Coach of the Year in 2006-07. The AHL Coach of the Year award was won by ECHL coaches four years in a row from 2001-04 with Claude Noel (2004), Geoff Ward (2003), Bruce Cassidy (2002) and Don Granato (2001). The first former ECHL coach to win the award was former Wheeling and current Carolina Hurricanes head coach Peter Laviolette in 1999.

There are nine assistant coaches in the AHL with ECHL experience - Scott Allen of Omaha, Dan Bylsma of Wilkes-Barre/Scranton, David Cunniff of Worcester, J.J. Daigneault of Hartford, Kevin Dean of Lowell, Ted Dent of Norfolk, Gord Dineen of San Antonio, Matt Shaw of Houston and Bob Woods of Hershey - while Scott White is director of hockey operations for Iowa.

The CCM Vector/AHL Player of the Week award was won 14 times by a former ECHL player in 2006-07 while a former ECHL goaltender was named the Rbk X-Pulse/AHL Goaltender of the Month the last five months of the season.

Six former ECHL players were on the All-AHL Teams in 2006-07 with former Charlotte goaltender Jason LaBarbera, who also won Goaltender of the Year; former Mississippi defenseman Sheldon Brookbank, who also was named Defenseman of the Year; and former Greenville center Martin St. Pierre being named to the First Team while former Roanoke and Wheeling left wing Jason Jaffray and former Florida center Keith Aucoin were named to the Second Team. Former Long Beach goaltender Jaroslav Halak was named to the AHL All-Rookie team and former Atlantic City and Trenton coach Mike Haviland was voted as the AHL Coach of the Year.

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The opinions expressed in this release are those of the organization issuing it, and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts or opinions of OurSports Central or its staff.


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