While at first glance it may have appeared like a case of opportunism, the General Manager of the KIJHL‘s Kamloops Storm says this week’s unexpected exit of the team’s head coach from the organization less than 20 games into the 2024/25 season was a decision based around personal issues, rather than professional ones.

The club announced late Thursday afternoon that Storm head coach Jan Ludvig, a former NHL player and scout, had left the team to be “closer to his family” in his native Czech Republic.

However, it came to light the next day that the 63 year old Ludvig has taken on a role as an assistant coach with HC Dynamo Pardubice in the Czech Extraliga, which is that country’s top-tier professional hockey league.

According to professional hockey tracking website Elite Prospects, Ludvig began his new assistant coaching role on November 14th, raising questions about whether he left his role in Kamloops part-way through his 3rd season as the Storm’s head coach for a more lucrative opportunity.

However, Storm GM Matt Kolle — while not providing any specifics — says Ludvig’s move was not a ‘hockey decision.’

“He has some things going on personally in his family life that everyone of us is going to have to go through. For him, the time is now. He needs to be around family, and that means that he had to step down as far as his position with us,” said Kolle when asked about the reason for Ludvig’s decision to leave the organization. “He needed to return to Czech. A guy still has to feed his family. I think this how this has all played out.”

Kolle says the Kamloops Storm understands and respects Ludvig’s decision to tender his resignation, which he says landed on his desk November 4th.

Ludvig did remain behind the bench for the Storm through the team’s games on Friday and Sunday, with the players earning a victory at home for their coach in his last game behind the bench.

“They really enjoyed having Jan… I know the players have. This was year three [of Ludvig coaching the Storm],” said Kolle.  “Every player that’s been involved with us has really enjoyed their time with Jan. He’s shown the players that he really cares. He really wants them to develop.”

Ludvig’s return to professional hockey in the Czech Republic takes his over four-decade career between Europe and North America full-circle.

Ludvig and compatriots arrive in Canada amid hockey upheaval back home

After appearing in just three games in the 1980/81 season with TJ Litvinov in the then-Czechoslovak First Ice Hockey League, a 19 year old Jan Ludvig followed the lead of his Litvinov team Captain, late Czech hockey great Ivan Hlinka, and ended up in British Columbia.

Hlinka, along with Czech defenseman Jiri Bubla, would end up joining the Vancouver Canucks to begin the 1981/82 season, after the Czechoslovak government decided in 1981 to allow some of the country’s hockey talent to legally emigrate and play in the NHL.

The policy switch was a face-saving move, after the Communist-run government was embarrassed a year earlier by the defection of Peter Stastny, the 1980 Czechoslovak Player of the Year, who — along with his brother Anton — took advantage of a hockey tournament in politically-neutral Austria to bolt from their club team.

The two brothers, who made a difficult decision at the time to leave behind their eldest brother and line-mate Marian, fled Innsbruck and made a six-hour drive to Vienna and the Canadian Embassy.

From there, the two Stastny brothers and Peter’s pregnant wife were able to keep Czechoslovakian agents in Vienna at bay through the help of local police, as well as through political assistance from Canada’s Defense and Immigration Ministers, securing a flight out and officially defecting to Canada, where previously-agreed-to contracts to play for the Quebec Nordiques were waiting for both brothers.

Back in Czechoslovakia and facing retribution for his brother’s defections, Marian Stastny was cut from his pro hockey team, banned from the Czechoslovakian national team, while also having his law license revoked.

While this left he and his family under financial and political strain, the eldest Stastny brother would eventually get out from under the Czechoslovakian regime the following year.

Able to convince Czechoslovakian authorities that he and his family would return, Marion Stastny and his family would navigate three border check-points, crossing through Hungary into Yugoslavia, where he would secure travel papers for Austria, eventually allowing he and his family to defect.

Marian would also end up in Quebec City to reunite with his brothers on an all-Stastny line which would end up with a combined 300 points by the end of the 1981/82 season.

While the Stastny brothers were dominating the NHL, Ivan Hlinka and Jiri Bubla had also made their NHL debuts in Vancouver for the 1981/82 season, but not without some challenges of their own.

The Canucks were eventually able to secure the rights to sign the pair, but not before a special Czechoslovakian Draft established by the NHL for them was nullified due to a lack of formal ties with the Czechoslovak Ice Hockey Federation.

That draft saw Winnipeg originally win the Hlinka sweepstakes, while Bubla was chosen by Colorado.

Ultimately an agreement was reached to bring an end to the bureaucratic mess, with Vancouver agreeing to transfer one player each to the Jets and Rockies as compensation, which allowed Hlinka and Bubla to suit up for the Canucks — ultimately helping open the door for a subsequent wave of talented Czech players into the NHL.

As all this intrigue was taking place in the background, a still 19 year old Jan Ludvig also found his way out of an increasingly authoritarian Czechoslovakia — taking a slightly different route than Hlinka and Bubla did in BC — settling about 350 kilometers to the northeast of them in Kamloops.

A soon-to-be 20 year old Ludvig was still able to qualify for Junior Hockey, and joined the Kamloops Junior Oilers for the 1981/82 season, where he collected an impressive 65 points in 37 games for the WHL team, including 31 goals.

Ludvig was able to parlay that success through his one season in the WHL into a professional tryout — and ultimately a contract — with the New Jersey Devils.

He would ultimately play in more NHL games than both the legendary Ivan Hlinka and Jiri Bubla, spending five seasons with the Devils, hitting a career-high 54 points — including 22 goals — over a full, 74 game season in just his 2nd year in the league.

But after his breakout, 1983/84 season, Ludvig’s offensive output would start to decline.

He would play one more full, 74 game season, through the 1984/85 campaign before his ice time began to decline, only dressing for just over half of New Jersey’s games the following two seasons.

Ludvig would eventually be traded to the Buffalo Sabres, where he would only see a total of 26 games over two seasons in upstate New York before the 27 year old would call it a career — on the ice — in the National Hockey League.

After playing in 314 NHL games, scoring 54 goals and adding 87 assists in his seven seasons, Ludvig returned back to Czechoslovakia early 1989.

There he would maintain a low profile in the hockey world for the next few years as Czechoslovakia went through its political turmoil and eventual split in late 1992.

However, Ludvig and the National Hockey League would reunite 1994, with New Jersey putting him on their payroll once again — this time as a professional scout.

Ludvig would stay in the scouting ranks of the Devils for over 20 years, before eventually taking the first steps into the world of coaching in 2017 after signing on as a part-time development coach with the Bili Tygri, or White Tigers, a team in the top-tier Czech Extraliga in his home town of Liberec.

As his transition into coaching was taking place, Ludvig would part ways with the Devils organization in 2018, taking up a scouting role with the Boston Bruins through the 2020/21 hockey season.

During all of this, Jan and his wife did find their way back to Kamloops, where their son John would grow up and eventually start developing as a hockey player like his father, but on the other side of the puck as a defenseman.

A ‘late bloomer,’ John went unselected in the WHL Bantam Draft as a 14 year old, which eventual lead the Ludvig’s into a relationship with the Kamloops Storm.

John cracked the Kamloops Storm line-up in the 2016/17 season, playing 17 games on the Junior B squad before eventually being protected and signed by the WHL’s Portland Winterhawks, where he would grow into his game and become an NHL prospect.

While John was going through the process of becoming Florida’s 3rd round NHL Draft pick in 2019, then being picked up off waivers by Pittsburgh to start out his NHL career, and then landing in Colorado with the Avalanche this year, his father was maintaining ties with the Storm.

The relationship would eventually see him take over as the head coach of the then-Junior B Kamloops Storm for the start of the 2022/23 season.

Storm taps assistant coach to lead team into 2025 

While admitting that he didn’t see any outward signs that he was about to lose his head coach less than 20 games into the regular season, Storm GM Matt Kolle says he feels the team is in steady hands under Andrew Fisher, who has been promoted from assistant to head coach for the remainder of the 2024/25 season.

“Andrew’s just going to continue on with the program in hand,” said Kolle.  “But of course, he’s going to put his touch on it now. Maybe some changes or things that he wants to see a little bit different, are things that he’s going to implement.”

Fisher takes over a Kamloops Storm team which has not only lost its head coach, but is also facing the likelihood of significant roster changes after this season is over, depending on which direction Storm moves — either up or down.

To help fill the gap left behind after the BC Hockey League cut ties with Hockey Canada in 2023, the KIJHL will be splitting after the 2024/25 playoffs wrap up.

Some of the organizations will be asked form part of a new Junior A-1 league.

Franchises selected out of the KIJHL will join other teams plucked out of the Lower Mainland/Sunshine Coast-based Pacific Junior Hockey League, as well as the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League, to form the new Junior A-1 league under the umbrella of BC Hockey, with expectations the league would then apply for Canadian Junior Hockey League status.

The franchises which don’t qualify for the new Junior A-1 league will be asked to remain in the KIJHL, which will revert back to Junior B, similar to what the league had been before it was given Junior A-2 status at the start of last season.

With all the potential changes ahead, Kolle was asked whether he plans to stick with Fisher behind the bench past this season.

“Andrew has been with us and me for seven years now. He’s worked with four different coaches. Year by year, his involvement has gotten more and more,” said Kolle. “I would say his and Jan’s relationship was 50-50. He’s been heavily involved already.”

Kolle says he has been trying to remain focused on the Storm’s development, particularly with the changes at the head coaching position.

However, he also admits there’s a lot of anticipation within the league.

“We obviously don’t want to look past this year. We want to enjoy the moment. Sometimes I think we forget that. Let’s go out there and win a championship right now with what we’re doing,” said Kolle. “That said…I think everybody’s eager to find out the results… who will be moving to Junior A-tier-1, and who will be going back to Junior B. I think everybody’s eager to get that answer. We’ve been waiting a long time.”

A vetting process involving BC Hockey, the Canadian Junior Hockey League and the WHL has been underway this season through a so-called Junior Hockey Task Group.

That task force is said to be done is reviews cross the KIJHL, PJHL and VIJHL, with suggestions the final decisions pending on which teams will be asked to start next year in Junior A.

It comes as unconfirmed reports suggest the BCHL, which absorbed five teams from the Alberta Junior Hockey league to close out its 2023/24 season, may be trying to court BC-based teams to come under its umbrella for the 2024/25 season.