newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS — Lance West stepped from behind the camera and into a full-time coaching role with the Alaska Nanooks hockey team on Friday.

West, the Nanooks’ video coordinator last season, and Brian Meisner, who was on the coaching staff at the University of Connecticut in 2007-08, were named as the assistant coaches to Dallas Ferguson, who’s entering his first season as the head coach of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association program after serving the past four as an assistant coach.

Ferguson will be working with two guys with more than 30 seasons of combined playing and coaching experience from the high school to the NCAA Division I level.

“My dad always told me if you want to be successful, surround yourself with good people,’’ Ferguson, a Nanooks defenseman from 1992-96, said Friday in a University of Alaska Fairbanks press release. “Today I have done that.

“Both of these guys have great character and passion for the game of hockey, and they are going to be great assets to our program, university and community. I am very excited to have Lance and Brian join my staff.’’

West was also a Nanooks volunteer assistant coach last season and worked as the facility manager at UAF’s Student Recreation Center.

Before coming to Fairbanks, he was an assistant coach for seven seasons (2000-07) for the University of Alabama-Huntsville, his alma mater. He helped guide the Chargers to two College Hockey America regular-season championships, four conference tournament appearances and a berth in the NCAA Division I Tournament in his final season of 2006-07.

He was also a volunteer assistant for UAH from 1995-98, when the Chargers captured two NCAA Division II national titles (1996 and 1998). West is the program’s 20th all-time leading scorer, compiling 43 goals and 65 assists for 108 points in 106 games as a center from 1991-95.

Meisner, a multi-faceted coach, is scheduled to be reacquainted with Connecticut, which along with the Nanooks will be playing in the regular-season opening Kendall Classic on Oct. 10-11 in Anchorage. The tournament’s other teams are Northeastern and host Alaska Anchorage.

Before going to UConn, Meisner was head coach and general manager of the Wichita Falls (Texas) Wildcats of the North American Hockey League for 10 seasons. One of his players was incoming Nanooks freshman center Adam Cardwell, who led the league in scoring last season.

Meisner was a major contributor to the revitalization of the program in 2004 after it folded under previous ownership. He registered a 148-112-26 record with the Wildcats while developing more than 20 players who moved on to D-I programs and more than twice as many who headed to D-III schools.

Meisner earned two America West Hockey Coach of the Year honors while leading the Butte (Mont.) Irish in 2001-02 and serving as coach and general manager of the Wichita Falls Rustlers from 2002-04. The Irish recorded a league expansion record 43 wins under his direction.

The Cloquet, Minn., native began his junior coaching career as an assistant coach and GM for the Waterloo (Iowa) Blackhawks of the United States Hockey League. He recruited more than 50 players who moved on to D-I careers. One of them, Andrew Alberts, played for Providence College and is now a defenseman for the National Hockey League’s Boston Bruins.

Albert also coached for a season at Duluth Central High School in Duluth, Minn. During the 1990’s in the northeast Minnesota city, he was a center and later an assistant coach at the College of St. Scholastica, a D-III program.

“When researching Brian, there were consistent descriptions of him, regardless of whom I spoke with,’’ Ferguson said. “He is a very loyal person and a great teacher of the game of hockey.’’

Since 2005, Meisner has coached the Rocky Mountain District in USA Hockey Select Festivals and he mentored the Central District in the festivals from 1998-99.