Canada’s National Junior Team assistant coach Dennis Williams pats defenceman Daemon Hunt on the helmet during a training camp practice in Calgary, Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2022.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
CALGARY – Dennis Williams, who helped Canada win the gold medal at the 2022 world junior hockey championship as an assistant coach, will lead the staff for the upcoming 2023 tournament.
Hockey Canada announced its coaching staff for the tournament in Halifax and Moncton, N.B., on Wednesday. Joining Williams on Canada’s bench will assistants coaches Stéphane Julien, Brent Kisio and Alan Letang.
Goaltending consultant Kelly Guard and video coach James Emery are also on Williams’s staff.
Williams, the head coach and general manager of the Western Hockey League’s Everett Silvertips, was part of Dave Cameron’s staff for Canada’s team that won a rare summer tournament in Edmonton with a 3-2 win over Finland in the Aug. 20 gold-medal game.
He won a silver medal as an assistant with Canada’s summer under-18 team at the 2019 Hlinka Gretzky Cup and served as head coach of Canada Black at the 2018 World Under-17 Hockey Challenge.
The 2022 championship was postponed from its normal time due to an outbreak of the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus.
Canada’s junior team will hold a training camp Dec. 9-12 in Moncton before selecting a final roster for the world junior championship.
The tournament stared Dec. 26 and runs through Jan. 5.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2022.
