By Tanner Schafer
Thunder Bay, ON – The SIJHL Coach of the Year is Carson Johnstone of the Sioux Lookout Bombers. Johnstone did a great job guiding the second year club to a 2nd place finish in the regular season. The Bombers improved by 11 points from last season to this year, the biggest improvement by any team. Sioux Lookout also jumped up 1 place in the standings from their 3rd place finish in 2022-23. Johnstone’s club got the job done with strong defense all year long giving up the fewest goals in the league. The Bombers also had the fewest penalty minutes in route to having the 2nd best penalty kill in the league at an 84.5% clip. Although only the regular season was taken into account the Bombers have started the playoffs hot and are on the cusp of a 2nd straight sweep after being bounced in the 1st round last year. In this postseason the Bombers have continued to show why Carson Johnstone is the SIJHL Coach of the Year.
Honorable Mention for this award goes to Jesse Messier of Kam River and Lee Stone of Red Lake