In his twelve seasons of coaching junior A hockey, Jason Tatarnic has been to the finals of his league six times, won three championships, and appeared in an RBC Cup Final. He's had success quickly in both Woodstock and Chilliwack, and he's eager to get started on building the Estevan Bruins up to that level of success. 

Tatarnic, a former SJHL player himself with the Notre Dame Hounds, was named the new head coach and GM of the Bruins on Wednesday, May 6. He has spent the past two seasons working with Hockey Pathways, a player consulting firm he founded, but decided Estevan was the right place to get back into coaching. 

"I was excited," Tatarnic said of being hired by the Bruins. "Estevan has a long tradition, they have an excellent legacy there. It's a fantastic rink, one of the best in Canada at this level. I watched them play last year on video and I kind of followed the team. I saw where they were building and the direction they were going, so I knew I was coming to a good situation that way."

Tatarnic did his research on the team, the community, and the board and liked what he saw, so much so that he said the Centennial Cup, which Estevan will be hosting in 2022, didn't really enter his thinking. Nonetheless, the Bruins know they'll be there in 2022 and they know they have a coach who knows a thing or two about winning. 

"One thing that was clear about Jason, he had in both of his previous stops immediate and lasting success," said team President George Sereggela. "His references were outstanding, he had some roots in Saskatchewan begin a Notre Dame alum and having coached and played in the league. Those factors were important. He's highly respected by his peers, by former players, and by his past employers."

Sereggela says he felt, looking at Tatarnic's track record, that his past success is an indicator he can be a winning coach again. For Tatarnic, there's no magic formula for winning, but it is something he's done a lot of. 

"I always tell people winning is really hard," he said. "You don't really understand how hard it is to win until you win a championship. You're chasing that, and when you finally do it sets in that this is really hard to do. If winning was easy, every team would be doing it. But there's only one team that can win the league championship, there's only one team that can win the ANAVET, and there's only one team that can win a Centennial Cup." 

Tatarnic has reached out to several Bruins players already and said he will be reaching out to those other players before the end of the week. His goal, as it has been in other centers, is to develop good players and good people. 

"We're going to be people longer than we're hockey players," he said. "That's just a fact, it happens to everyone. It happened to Wayne Gretzky, it happened to me, and it's going to happen to the players that play in Estevan. So you better learn to be a good person because you're going to be a member of a community."

"When you look at the players I've coached in the past," he added, "we really concentrated on that. It's not all about hockey. We want them to understand education is important." 

Tatarnic is still living in Chilliwack as of this writing and will be traveling to Estevan with his family when he can.