THUNDER BAY, Ont. — The Kam River Fighting Walleye of the Superior International Junior Hockey League have announced the addition of Rylan Henley as assistant coach for their inaugural 2020-21 season.
“We are very excited to be adding a quality coach and person in Rylan Henley to our coaching staff,” said Fighting Walleye General Manager Kevin McCallum. “He fits our philosophy of surrounding the organization with passionate, energetic and hard-working people to help build us into an elite junior hockey program.”
Henley, who is originally from Longlac, Ontario, joins the Fighting Walleye after spending a season as an assistant coach with the local AAA Kings under-16 program.
Prior to that, he had a successful five-year junior career, which included two seasons in the SIJHL and a four-year stint in college hockey with NCAA Division III Concordia College.
Henley and Fighting Walleye head coach Matt Valley were teammates on the bantam and midget AAA Kings squads, as well as on the SIJHL North Stars in their final seasons of junior hockey, before competing against each other in college. “I’m so happy to have Henner on board. He brings extensive junior and college hockey playing pedigree to the table,” said Valley. “His in depth knowledge and passion for the defensive and penalty killing side of the game will be an asset to our staff.”
“I’m very excited to begin this new journey and build off of what coach Matt and I did this past season with the minor midgets. I feel like we had a perfect coaching relationship so it felt natural to jump on board with the Fighting Walleye” said Henley. “I’m really looking forward to meeting the recruits and starting to put some serious work in this fall. As well as contributing my hockey knowledge I am also looking forward to learning from an experienced coach in Doug Colbon.”
Following his college hockey career, Rylan moved to Toronto to attend Chiropractic school. He is now a licensed chiropractor in the city of Thunder Bay.
Henley and the rest of the Fighting Walleye coaching staff will have the opportunity to work with their new roster first-hand, when the all-clear is given by Hockey Canada, to resume hockey activities.