A new face will be leading the Odessa Jackalopes for the 2021-22 season.
The team announced Scott Deur as the team’s new head coach and general manager of hockey operations Friday.
He replaces Jason Fortier, who accepted an assistant coaching at the University of Maine Wednesday.
Deur, 32, arrives after spending the last six years as an assistant coach with the Fairbanks Ice Dogs in the Midwest Division of the North American Hockey League.
“We knew that someone like him who had been an assistant there, he has been through the trenches and learned quite a bit,” team president Rick Matchett said. “He’s been able to scout and bring the right players in to help the team succeed and that’s what you need in a head coach.
“He just knows what it means to win and we’re excited to get him.”
Deur has previous ties to Texas, having played for the Texas Tornado in 2010, before playing Division III hockey at The University of Saint Mary’s of Minnesota.
During his time in Fairbanks, the Ice Dogs won the Midwest Division Championship four times and he was on staff when the team won the Robertson Cup in 2016.
Being a part of a winning culture is something that Matchett said was something that he was looking for when bringing in a new coach.
This will be the first head coaching job for Deur.
“Scott hasn’t had the opportunity to be a head coach so he wants to get into that and cut his teeth here and I think that he’ll do well,” Matchett said. “His personality is such that he likes to win and has found ways to win in places that he’s been and I think that’s going to help us find the right players that can fit into the program that he wants to run.”
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