Springfield, MA - The Springfield Falcons, proud members of the American Hockey League, announced today that Jeff Truitt has been named head coach of the Falcons by their National Hockey League affiliate, the Edmonton Oilers. Truitt is the 10th head coach in Falcons franchise history.
"We are extremely excited to have Jeff lead our team on the ice starting this coming season," said Falcons president and general manager Bruce Landon. "Jeff did a tremendous job as an assistant coach in Springfield last year and he will be a coach that is very familiar with the Oilers organization heading into the 2008-09 campaign."
Truitt will be entering his second season as a member of the Falcons' coaching staff after serving as an assistant coach with Springfield last year. Truitt entered the pro coaching ranks following an outstanding junior coaching career with the Kelowna Rockets of the Western Hockey League. The 43-year-old native of Rosetown, Saskatchewan left Kelowna after seven seasons as a member of the team's coaching staff, including three seasons as head coach. Truitt joined the Rockets in 2000-01 and served four seasons (2000-01 to 2003-04) as an assistant coach with former Oiler Marc Habscheid before becoming the head coach in 2004-05.
In his three seasons as the Rockets' head coach, Truitt compiled a 113-76-18-9 (W-L-OTL-SOL) record, winning one WHL championship and advancing to the Memorial Cup tournament in 2005. During the 2004-05 season, Truitt guided the Rockets to a 45-13-12-2 (.722) record and a second place finish in the league's British Columbia Division, before going 16-8 in the post-season to win the WHL championship. With the victory, Truitt and the Rockets advanced to their third consecutive Memorial Cup tournament.
During his seven seasons on the Rockets' coaching staff, Truitt helped guide Kelowna to two WHL championships (2003, 2005), two WHL regular season titles (2003, 2004), three consecutive trips to the Memorial Cup tournament (2003, 2004, 2005) and one Memorial Cup championship (2004).
Prior to joining Kelowna, Truitt served as an assistant coach with the WHL's Lethbridge Hurricanes (1994-95 to 1996-97) and was the head coach of the Camrose Kodiaks for their first three seasons (1997-98 to 1999-2000) in the Alberta Junior Hockey League. While with Camrose, he was co-coach of the AJHL All-Star Selects, finishing second at the 2000 Viking Cup tournament.
Truitt also has international coaching experience with Team Canada. He served as video coach for the silver medal winning 2004 Canadian National Junior Team, was an assistant coach with Canada's gold medal winning Under-18 Team in August 2006 in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and most recently, he was an assistant coach with Canada's World Under-18 team that placed fourth at the 2007 world tournament in Finland.
