July 20 / 07

The Trail Smoke Eaters are back on the coach carousel after Tim Kehier resigned Tuesday.

The coach and general manager accepted an offer Monday night with a Western Hockey League club in Swift Current, Sask., said club president Tom Gawryletz.

Kehier had just signed a two-year contract with the club in May, "but in hockey circles, if you're moving up to another league, a contract means nothing," Gawryletz said.

Kehier said it was an opportunity "as far as my development goes" that he couldn't pass up.

"It gives me an opportunity to go to where I want to go," he told the Times.

The Smokies board met Tuesday, put out some feelers and placed ads, Gawryletz said.

"We've already received three or four (applications) and expect to have six to eight people to talk to by the second week in August. Then we'll make a decision."

The Smokies training camp starts Aug. 22. Gawryletz said this was probably the worst timing to lose the coach.

"I don't know if there is ever good timing," he added.

The Smokies don't exactly have a stellar reputation when it comes to hanging onto coaches. In the 27 months before Kehler arrived, the club went through four coaches - 10 in its first 10 years in the BCHL.

But with Kehler, it was looking up. The 35-year-old Vancouver native joined the Smokies in October 2004.

The Smokies finished fourth that season with 30 wins and 69 points but lost in the first round to Penticton.

In 2005-06, the team was fifth with 25 wins and 58 points and was eliminated in the first round by Merritt.

This past season, the club collected 36 wins and 78 points, one point shy of the team's best-ever mark. Trail eliminated Merritt in seven games before losing to Vernon in the second round.

Before coming to Trail, Kehler was in his second year as assistant coach with the BCHL's Surrey Eagles. Prior to that, he was an assistant, then head coach of the North Delta Flyers of the Pacific International junior Hockey League.

He has been involved in the B.C. Hockey High Performance program for several years, and last year, was part of the Team Pacific coaching staff at the World U17 tournament in Regina.

In April, he was chosen as the assistant coach to Team Canada West for the World Junior A Hockey Challenge in Trail - a position that could be up in the air now.

"I've yet to have a conversation with the manager of that team," Kehier said. "I don't know how that will be impacted. I won't be coaching at the Junior A level any more. It was an honour to be named (as assistant coach) but I have to see what Hockey Canada thinks."