[PlayfulGenius]

Troy Ward was interviewed on the Team 1040 here in Vancouver... a couple of things jumped out at me...

1. He implied he preferred coaching under Brent Sutter, as he was allowed to coach to his own system... when Hartley took over, he had to coach Bob's system so the players were ready when called up... I know this isn't news, but it was interesting how he described it.

To be clear, he didn't say anything negative about Hartley or that approach.. he even said it made perfect sense for the organization to do it that way.

2. He spoke about how teams differ with their views and objectives of how to run their AHL teams... some want to Win, while others want to Develop, while still others prefer to balance the 2... I felt it was implied the reason he's no longer with the Flames is they're an org that wants to heavily favour Development, whereby Ward prefers to try to Win.

Perhaps some people that watched Abby closely can speak to whether he tended to play the vets over the youngsters or something like that.

He went on to describe how its tricky to advance your career in coaching because the coach can be judged quite differently by people outside the organization, as opposed to his internal management... Ex. A coach might be judged based on his W-L to outside observers, meanwhile, his internal mandate is to develop the young players, even at the cost of winning.

Ward chose to coach in the WHL because he gets to A) coach his own system B) will be judged almost entirely on whether they win.

I found it to be a good interview.