Today the Toronto Marlies made some front office moves and extended a player. Let’s start with the boring stuff.
First of all, the Toronto Marlies hired a Director of Hockey Operations: Mike Dixon. He previously held the job with the Florida Panthers, and spent nine years in the organisation. He has not updated his LinkedIn profile yet. He takes over for Brad Lynn who was promoted to Director of Team Operations with the Maple Leafs.
Next up is Will Sibley, who is the new Analyst with Hockey Operations. He used to be the Video Coach and Stats Guy for the OHL’s Kitchener Rangers. He runs goalie clinics in Waterloo and played one game for the OHL Mississauga St. Micheal’s Majors before going to university. The old video coach, friend of the blog Justin Bourne, is now writing at The Athletic. This is a good thing, as he was the best part of The Score’s hockey coverage before he left.
Marlies PR man and PPP access granter and discount code giver Colin McBride is moving up to the Maple Leafs as well, becoming a Media Relations Coordinator. Maybe he’ll remember us fondly and let ya boy seldo sit next to Steve Simmons at a Leafs game. I want to see Stevie’s facial expression, that’s all.
On the ice the Toronto Marlies re-signed Rich Clune for another year. He was on an AHL only deal last season and scored 10 points (3G, 7A) in 37 games for the Marlies.
Clune isn’t being brought in just for his play, or his 87 penalty minutes, but he’s with the Marlies as a mentor for the younger players. Everyone around the Marlies speaks incredibly highly of Clune and the influence he’s had over the organization. In the below link you can see through his social media the younger players like Nylander and Kapanen looked up to him.
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Toronto Marlies bring back Rich Clune
Clune is as close to a player-coach as we’ll see these days and when he finally hangs up his skates, he’ll simply move from a locker room stall to an office down the hall.
