Hamilton hires Pat Jarrett
Reigning Ontario Hockey League champion Hamilton Bulldogs have rounded out their coaching staff for the 2018-2019 season with the hiring of Sault Ste. Marie native Patrick Jarrett, Hockey News North has confirmed.
The 34-year old Jarrett recently retired from a 13-year professional playing career as a centre who suited up with teams in Austria and Germany.
He returns to the OHL as an assistant coach with Hamilton after having played in it for five full seasons, starring for both the Mississauga IceDogs and Owen Sound Attack. Mississauga had made him the first overall pick of the 2000 OHL draft from the Soo Thunderbirds of the Northern Ontario Jr. Hockey League.
Jarrett heads to Hamilton and the OHL as a third assistant coach on the staff of new bench boss David Matsos.
Vince Laise and Ron Wilson are the holdover assistants on the Hamilton staff under Matsos, who was the associate coach on the Bulldogs 2017-2018 OHL championship season.
Matsos, who was promoted to head coach of the Bulldogs when former bench boss John Gruden landed an assistant coach position with the New York Islanders of the National Hockey League earlier this summer, told Hockey News North that Jarrett will be a full-time member of the Hamilton coaching staff.
“He will do a lot of video and computer work for us and also help out on the ice during practice,” Matsos said of Jarrett. “It’s a new position that (Bulldogs general manager) Steve Staios created and we are happy to have a quality person like Pat join our staff.
“The OHL isn’t just a league for developing players but developing coaches as well and I have an obligation on my shoulders as the head coach to try to help Pat develop,” said the 44-year old Matsos, who will begin his ninth season on the bench in the OHL, having previously been an associate coach and head coach with the Sudbury Wolves and an assistant coach with the Windsor Spitfires.
Matsos noted that he and Staios chose Jarrett from a number of applicants for the Hamilton job.
“He is eager to get into coaching and he is a student of the game and he has the work ethic for this position,” Matsos said of Jarrett. “It’s not easy getting a coaching job in the OHL and Pat showed us a real desire to become a coach who wants to work at it.”
Ironically, Jarrett retired as a player at the end of the 2017-2018 season and at the same time as his older brother, 35-year old Cole Jarrett.
The older Jarrett had a standout four-year OHL playing career as a defenseman with the Plymouth Whalers before going on to play for 15 years in the NHL, the American Hockey League and at the pro level overseas. He finished up as the captain of the Belfast Giants of the British Elite Hockey League this past season and has since returned home to Sault Ste. Marie to be with his wife and their two children.
PHOTO: Patrick Jarrett, while playing pro hockey overseas.