Keith McCambridge, who guided the Alaska Aces to Game 7 of this year's ECHL's Kelly Cup Finals, resigned Wednesday after two seasons as the hockey team's head coach.
McCambridge, 35, has accepted a coaching job with an American Hockey League team, Aces managing partner Terry Parks said. A search for his replacement has already begun.
"We have known about the potential for this for about two and a half weeks, so it's not a total surprise," said Parks, who said he learned late Wednesday morning that McCambridge was leaving.
"We don't have anybody committed (to be the next coach) but we've got a short list we'll be visiting with. We should have somebody hired within two weeks."
McCambridge's departure marks the second time in two years the Aces have lost their head coach to the AHL, which is a tier above the ECHL and a tier below the NHL. Davis Payne, who brought McCambridge to Anchorage as a player for the 2003-04 season, left the Aces after the 2006-07 season for an assistant coaching job in Peoria, Ill.
"It's a developmental league. Coaches move on," Parks said. "It's a bittersweet deal. I hate to see him go. He brought integrity to the organization. He was a man of his word. He was consistent and high-quality. He was a true scholar of the game, and he played it and coached it with his heart."
He was also a winner.
McCambridge led the Aces to a 45-24-3 regular-season record this season and was 41-26-5 the previous season.
His teams advanced to the playoffs both seasons, going all the way to Game 7 of the Finals this season and making it to the second round in 2007-08.
A defenseman who grew up in Manitoba, McCambridge spent 11 seasons playing professionally, mostly in the AHL and International Hockey League. He played his final three seasons with the Aces, and after helping the team win the 2006 Kelly Cup, he became a full-time assistant under Payne.
One season later, Payne moved to the AHL and McCambridge became the eighth man to coach the Aces since they became a professional franchise in 1995.
"It's never an easy task to find a head coach," Aces spokesman Jack Michaels said. "We've been very fortunate -- the last three have been absolute home runs. Hopefully we can get lucky again."
The Aces have had four coaches since Parks and a group of Anchorage businessmen bought the team out of bankruptcy before the 2002-03 season. Rod Davidson was fired as coach near the end of the first season after going 12-39-2 and was replaced by Perry Florio, who was 9-7-3 in the team's final 19 games.
Florio turned down an offer to come back for the next season, launching the search that produced Payne. When Payne moved to Peoria, the Aces didn't look for a coach -- they promoted McCambridge.
Parks thinks the search for McCambridge's replacement will be easier than the club's last search, because the franchise is much healthier -- on and off the ice -- today than it was when the new owners took over.
"The calls I'm making now, some of these guys would not have talked to me five or six years ago," he said. "They know Anchorage is a great place to go."
Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4309.
By BETH BRAGG
bbragg@adn.comBob Ford
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