Former Axemen MacDonald to Coach Athol Murray College of Notre Dame

UPEI PANTHERS LOSE ASSISTANT TO NOTRE DAME

Story courtesy ofΒ hockeyscene.com CHARLOTTETOWN, PEI, July 20, 2012

Kris MacdonaldMidget and junior hockey programs are accustomed to losing top players to the Athol Murray College of Notre Dame in Saskatchewan and it’s Hounds and Argos hockey teams. Now a university men’s hockey team has lost a coach to the hockey factory.
University of Prince Edward Island Panthers assistant coach Kris MacDonald has accepted an offer to work with the midget hockey teams and teach at the co-educational, Catholic, college preparatory boarding school for students in Grades 9-12.

“It is unbelievable. I get to do what I want to do most, coach and teach”, the 26 year-old native of Vernon, PEI told hockeyscene.com in a telephone interview. “I will be coaching and teaching physical education. As I understand it, I will be an assistant with a couple of the midget teams.”

After completing four seasons as a left winger in Atlantic University Sport men’s hockey, three of them with the Acadia University Axemen and one with the UPEI Panthers, MacDonald served as an assistant to Forbes MacPherson with the Panthers last season while he completed his Bachelor of Education degree.
Apparently Connor Cameron, a coach with the Rouyn-Noranda Huskies of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League and son of Ottawa Senators assistant coach Dave Cameron, had highly recommended MacDonald to Notre Dame.

“The offer from a highly respected school like this is the next step in my career that I hope will lead to an opportunity to coach at the major junior level some day”, MacDonald said

Panthers head coach Forbes MacPherson congratulated Notre Dame for hiring MacDonald.

“You are getting a great-young hockey mind and even better person”, MacPherson wrote in the message.

MacDonald also played with Summerside Western Capitals of the Maritime Junior Hockey League and the PEI Rocket and Acadie-Bathurst Titan of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League over a span of four seasons from 2003-07.