Goatheads new head coach brings strong roots to role
· Yahoo Sports
RIO RANCHO — Zack Stortini wasn’t naive. Certainly not to the business of professional hockey.
Before the 2018-19 season came to an end, the right-winger, the one who made his livelihood as an enforcer protecting his team’s best player and punishing whoever was across the ice, knew his playing career was coming to an end.
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“More days behind you than ahead of you,” reminisced Stortini, the 40-year-old who was introduced Saturday as the first coach of the expansion New Mexico Goatheads, the East Coast Hockey League minor-league affiliate of the Colorado Avalanche at a fan event hosted by The Block in Rio Rancho.
Experience — 14 professional seasons of it — taught him that. From the parts of the six he spent in the NHL with the Edmonton Oilers and the Nashville Predators to the hodgepodge of American Hockey League stops that had him crisscrossing North America.
He spent time in Des Moines, Iowa; Milwaukee; Hamilton, Ontario; Springfield, Massachusetts; Oklahoma City; Norfolk, Virginia; Allentown, Pennsylvania; Birmingham, Alabama; San Jose; and Charlotte, North Carolina and countless other cities in between.
But it was that last season — in Charlotte — that set Stortini on the path to his first head coaching job at any level of hockey. Mike Vellucci, head coach of the Charlotte Checkers, and top assistant Ryan Warsofsky were the ones who pointed him in the right direction. Storini just needed to follow up if he was interested.
He was. A pointer or two here and there essentially became a job-shadowing situation when games and practice were not the top-two items on the agenda. Stortini absorbed as much as he could.
“Mike and Ryan were guys that allowed me to see what is entailed to be a coach,” Stortini said. “The countless hours and hard work, and what’s exactly involved in that type of profession, so forever grateful to that.”
The three celebrated with a Calder Cup, the AHL’s version of the Stanley Cup, and then went their separate ways.
Vellucci stepped down to join the Pittsburgh Penguins organization. He spent one year with their AHL affiliate before joining the NHL team as an assistant. He served in the same role with the Chicago Blackhawks this past season.
Warsofsky succeeded him in Charlotte and three seasons later was named the head coach for the NHL’s San Jose Sharks.
And Stortini? Well, he followed his new passion.
He retired after 257 NHL games and 603 more in the AHL and took a spot behind a bench. He spent 2019-22 with the Sudbury Wolves in the Ontario Hockey League before moving up to the AHL’s Tucson Roadrunners, the AHL affiliate for the Utah Mammoth. He spent the last four years there.
“I think there’s a lot of things that as a player translate into the coaching role, especially as a leader,” Stortini said. “I think that’s universal. Where it does matter, if you’re a player or a coach or whatever industry you’re in, is being willing to lead with that skillset and to be able to share that.”
It’s why Stortini decided to move down from the AHL to become a head coach in the ECHL after the Avalanche suggested his name to Goatheads’ general manager Jared Johnson.
The first thing the new coach said in his interview? It’s the job he wanted.
After all, it is a chance to run his own program, — Stortini along with the Avalanche will determine which players are brought in when free agency opens Tuesday — to call the shots. The possibility of impacting young players the way he was (and winning some games, too).
“It’s a tremendous amount of responsibility,” Stortini said. “And that’s what you want. … You want to be able to lead a team of young men, of professionals, to achieve their goals and dreams. There’s no better calling.”
David Glovach covers New Mexico United and other sports for the Journal. Reach him at [email protected] or via X @DavidGlovach.