Written by Chris Wassel | 30 May 2009

The Edmonton Oilers filled their head coaching needs this week by naming Pat Quinn to the position as you all know. The twist of course was that the announcement didn't stop there and the Oilers also introduced Tom Renney as an "associate" coach, creating what has been dubbed a coaching dream team here in the city of Edmonton. Myself I'm not calling this coaching staff anything until I see them coach, but that would have been the case no matter who the Oilers had hired. There are a few things that I do like about the Oilers choice however in this hire to start off the summer.

Pat Quinn, by himself, would have worried me. Lets face it, he has been out of the NHL for sometime now and the game, and the players playing it, seem to change from year to year. Some would argue that he proved he still has it with the fact he lead Canada's Junior team to gold this year, but while I admit it's something you put on your résumé, I'm not convinced coaching a stacked team really tells us much about where Quinn is really at. It doesn't matter in the end however, that's why Renney was hired. Renney will provide the patch work to any holes that Quinn has from being out of the NHL loop. The best part is that not only will Renney fill those holes, he will make sure they don't become an issue ever again. I would have been satisfied with Renney as coach all by himself, so my faith in his work behind Quinn is very high. In the end I hope, part of my even thinks, that this coaching combo deal that the Oilers have served up could be a very good decision by the team.

The other thing I liked about this hire, is the message it sends to the league, players, and fans. There is a hard cap on what any given team can spend on it's players. There is however no cap on what a team spends on coaches, scouts, the front office, or amenities for the players. The message sent by hiring two head coaches, and I'm going to bet paying them like two head coaches, says that money isn't an issue if it means that the right people are being put in place to get the Edmonton Oilers back to a team that can hold it's head high. That train of thought will continue when, I believe anyway, when the Oilers owner Daryl Katz, and the City of Edmonton, announce it's plan for a new arena. If the Oilers can't spend more on it's players through salary, they will insure they have state of the art surroundings to reward their players for being part of the Edmonton Oilers organization. You can see the overall plan taking shape already, the team will almost always spend to the cap, it's clear they will spend whatever money is needed to have the correct support staff in place, and the teams surroundings will be second to none. Changing the perception of playing in Edmonton is half the battle facing the Oilers, I think the club is meeting that challenge head on and that's pretty damn exciting.

Then again, this is just a damned opinion.

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