The Deal With Geoff Ward

[Moneyhands23]

Pack your Shirt

[DeluxeMoustache]

/thread

Best wishes, Wardo

[Jetfire]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

/thread

Best wishes, Wardo

I feel bad for him and absolutely wish him the best. Treliving should have never made him head coach. Great assistant coach, terrible head coach. You see it all the time. Thank you Ward, wish it worked better.

[Lil Pedro]

Hope he lands on his feet in another organization, but this was 100000% the correct move. Totally over his head.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by Jetfire

I feel bad for him and absolutely wish him the best. Treliving should have never made him head coach. Great assistant coach, terrible head coach. You see it all the time. Thank you Ward, wish it worked better.

Sure thing. Assistant coaches are good cops

You have to be really good to be a nice guy head coach, not a rookie

[GranteedEV]

Thanks for your time here Geoff. I appreciate some things you did. I can't name them, because I don't remember them, but every now and then they did happen. Later.

[nik-]

Originally Posted by Toonage

Dasvidaniya

fixed

[Mathgod]

Much like Gulutzan, Ward is a great person and is well spoken in front of the media. But he wasn't the right fit for this team.

Happy trails Geoff, all the best to you in your future endeavors!

[jg13]

Geoff should absolutely get hired as an assistant. He was in charge of the Devils PP the year Hall won the Hart.

Best of luck.

[Buff]

Geoff is an assistant coach. He had his chance at head coach and it was short lived. After more than a dozen years as assistant you would have thought he would have been given a chance or been talked about as a next head coach so much more often.

He'll be back with an NHL team in an assistant role. He was good in that spot.

[Manhattanboy]

Good luck Ward. All coaches get fired. Goes with the territory.

All the best man.

[JurassicTunga12]

Sucks to see good people lose their job. I hope Ward can find another gig shortly with a team. I wish him all the best moving forward.

[Calgary4LIfe]

A tonne of coaches don't have things go their way the first time out. I have always wished Hartley, Gulutzan and now Ward well. It is a business, and a tough one.



I don't think that this was the right team for Ward to cut his teeth on, as I really do believe that this team were not well coached for far too long, and it was a big ask for a rookie coach to have the experience to fix it.


I think Ward is a great person. The players seemed to really love him. I wish the Flames were a New Jersey Devils when Brent Sutter got his first NHL gig - things were smooth. The culture was there. There were only nuances to manage. Brent was suddenly thought of as one of the game's best coaches - even Team Canada had him in contention for Babcock for the Olympic gig IIRC. (and just look at Babcock for the same example, IMO).


I think given the history in Calgary with the core, this team needed a more experienced hand. I don't buy that the players didn't listen, or that they were running the asylum. I just don't think they were a well-coached team for years, and there are lots of issues to fix.


Hope he lands on his feet somewhere. I also hope he looks back at Calgary and sees the changes - good and bad - and can adapt these into his toolbox. There will be changes here, and I am sure Ward is smart enough to see the differences in the systems and playstyle, and learn. I am sure he had some positive ideas that just weren't able to be executed here.



Wish him luck, and I hope he lands on his feet sooner rather than later, and he loses 5 straight times in Game sevens in consecutive Stanley Cup Finals to the Flames

[Erick Estrada]

Ward seemed like a good guy. It's unfortunate it had to come to this but it was pretty clear it wasn't working out for him as head coach of the Flames. I'm sure he will be a better assistant for this experience going forward and I wish him good luck with his next stop.

[ForeverFlameFan]

I would just like to say that I liked Ward’s time here as an associate coach behind Peters. He just wasn’t the right fit for us.

He still has some flaws and still unfit to be a head coach, but I think with the right group he COULD be an NHL coach in the future. With our core going through 4 other coaches, it was best that we parted ways and went back to someone that we know can whip our core into shape.

Best of luck. Geoff. Hope you get picked up and are behind a bench pronto in whatever capacity.

[Bonded]

See it happen in real life, person gets promoted cause their boss vacates and they flounder. Would be surprised if he doesn't land somewhere in the NHL unless he wants to retire

[SuperMatt18]

I do feel bad for Ward. He seems like a good guy and it's not his fault the GM hired him for a position that he wasn't going to have success in with the style and system he wanted to play.

So good luck and I do hope that you do get a chance as an associate coach somewhere else in the NHL again.

My guess is Julien and Him will probably land somewhere together next offseason.

[Firebot]

Ward was hired simply due to being at the right place at the right time, not because he was qualified for the job. It wasn't the right time for him to become an NHL coach, and that's not on him. He may be in the future, and is a good guy.

If Dallas Eakins can get a head coaching job again, anyone can.

[-TC-]

I think he's a decent guy, a good coach and was in the wrong place at the wrong time, with the wrong group.

He'll land on his feet.

[Max Cow Disease]

I feel somewhat bad for Ward in this situation. I wonder if the notion of keeping him on as an assistant was discussed at all? He was minding his own business as an assistant last year when everything came off the rails with Peters suddenly, was thrust in to the top job, and just couldn’t quite make it work (add the pandemic in with all of that as well). Now, he’s out on the street.

Seems like a somewhat abnormal trajectory by which he’s found himself unemployed - I too hope he can find a decent gig.