SPOKANE CHIEFS: Chiefs Name Burt Assistant Coach
The Spokane Chiefs have announced that Scott Burt has been hired as Assistant Coach. Burt was an assistant for the Alaska Aces for the past four years, the first two serving as a Player/Assistant, and helped the organization win a Kelly Cup Championship in the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL) in 2011.
“The WHL is about developing players but it does a great job in developing coaches as well and that is what attracted me to the position,” Burt said
“Scott was impressive through the process,” Chiefs General Manager Tim Speltz said.
“He is confident, outgoing and a good communicator. He is also not long removed as a player and I expect him to relate to our players and be a great asset for them.”
As a player, Burt was a member of four different teams in the WHL from 1994-98 before starting a 13-year professional playing career including an eight year stretch with the Idaho Steelheads in Boise. Burt’s WHL career began in 1994 as a 17-year-old with the Seattle Thunderbirds during Don Nachbaur’s first year as head coach.
“He was pretty intense but as long as you worked hard you played. What I took from him was that hard work is going to take you a long way. When I played we went to work every single day and that is why we were successful for Don.”
“I’m very excited to have Scott join our staff,” Nachbaur said.
“He is a hard working guy who will bring plenty of passion and new fresh ideas. I have full confidence the players will benefit from his experience and enjoy working with him.”
Burt also played for Swift Current, Red Deer and Edmonton, where he scored a career high 35 goals and 67 points in 53 games in 1997-98 as a 20-year-old.
Professionally, Burt appeared in 739 regular season games for six different teams, scoring 203 goals, 463 points and 1,316 penalty minutes. He has also played 137 playoff games, reaching the finals in six different seasons and capturing Kelly Cup Championships with Idaho in 2004 and 2007 and Alaska in 2011. He led his team to the playoffs in 12 out of his 13 professional seasons and in 2011 he became the first player in league history to win the Kelly Cup three different times as a player.
