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Announced only a few moments ago, Doug Christiansen was named the new coach of the Indy Fuel. The Indy Fuel were founded in 2013 of the ECHL and has been growing ever since. Christiansen joins Jeff and Big Joe on The Fan Morning Show to talk about his new opportunity and where he expects the popularity of the Fuel to go.
What was so appealing about coming to Indianapolis?
“Well first and foremost, it’s a sleeping giant. It’s a hockey town and there is no reason that a city with all the resources and the investments of Jim Hallett can’t be a consistent winner. And a strong fanbase as you guys touched on, makes it very enticing.”
How do you balance coaching your team for success while also developing these guys to be picked up by the Chicago Blackhawks?
“That’s a great question and that is one of the hardest things to do. But I believe we can win and develop players, I don’t think it is mutually exclusive. I think that over the course of a season if you are continually developing your players, by the end of the year at the business end of the season they are going to be better and by extension your team is going to be better. That doesn’t mean that at different points in times that guys are going to go up and you hope your guys go up and stay. That’s what it’s all about. They have an opportunity to double or triple their salary and at the end of the day not to many people have that. So you have young, motivated, hard-working people and we wanting to be pushing them. That hopefully makes for exciting nights for fans to come to the building because they see people who are committed and energized to winning and improving their own skill set so it’s not hard to motivate them and for me the hard part is to see them go because they don’t always come back when you’d like them to. You just have to rely on the next guy stepping up.”
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