HERSHEY, Pa. — When you're the American Hockey League Coach of the Year, the National Hockey League will come calling. Spencer Carbery answered and impressed the Toronto Maple Leafs enough for the team to offer him a job as their assistant coach. Carbery accepted the offer and now the Bears head coaching search begins.
He's 39 years old and one of the rising young coaches in hockey. Carbery earned the AHL award after guiding the Bears to the league's top regular season record during a pandemic-shortened season.
"I knew we only had him for a certain amount of time, especially what he's done over the past three years, " admitted Bears Vice-President of Hockey Operations Bryan Helmer. "He comes into the organization and has almost taken them to another level. That's strictly on his coaching and his staff, they've done an incredible job. And then to have the year he had this year and be named coach of the year, it was a matter of time before teams started calling and they did. Yeah we are going to miss him. He did an incredible job but he has set someone else up to come in and take over a good team."
Carbery is a native of British Columbia and now joins one of the storied franchises in hockey history back in his home country of Canada.
"It's a big deal," said Helmer. Sheldon Keith is a smart guy, he's seen what Spencer did here and what he did in South Carolina too. He's got that winning pedigree. He knows he was reaching out for the right guy in my opinion. I think Spencer probably blew him out of the water with his interview."
The Capitals organization and Helmer now begin the search for his replacement.