Brian Idalski has mixed emotions about leaving SCSU for PWHL Vancouver

Yes, Brian Idalski is excited about being the first head coach of the PWHL Vancouver franchise. The team announced his hiring on Monday, June 23.

But Idalski got a bit choked up when he was asked on Friday, June 27, about what it was like leaving being the head coach of the

St. Cloud State

women’s hockey team. Idalski held that position for the last three seasons.

“I think that’s the hard part that people don’t see,” Idalski said. “There’s never a good time to move on. It doesn’t matter if you’re successful, not successful. It’s never easy especially when you create so many positive relationships and you care and invest as much as we have into the program and players.

“There’s a lot of mixed emotions with the whole endeavor. Competitive people want to be at the highest levels and compete at the highest levels. I am that. But, I still feel like that there are some things that are unfinished and it’s hard to walk away from some pretty awesome kids, people that you really care about.”

Idalski was in the unique situation where he was interviewed by both Vancouver and Seattle, the other PWHL expansion team.

“I never even sent them a resume,” he said. “I got contacted on the same day by Seattle and Vancouver, asking if I’d be interested in having a conversation. That’s how that went. I never really saw any kind of formal application process. I kind of thought that they knew what they were doing and who they had because there was such a lag from the GM announcements to the draft. I assumed they already had their people.”

There was another nuance to the interviews.

“It was such an interesting situation because they’re owned by the same person,” Idalski said. “At one point, a league official had a conversation with me and they asked which one? (I said), ‘How can I even answer that? I don’t have an offer from both of them and you want me to tell you which one I like better? If they don’t offer me the job, what’s that going to do for the other one?’ They said, ‘Oh, that’s fair.'”

After he was hired by Vancouver, Idalski got on a Zoom call with all of his players to let them know.

“People who couldn’t make it, they let me know and I could follow up with them,” Idalski said. “I told them the situation, a timeline and how some things had worked out. I assured them that St. Cloud was going to do the right thing and get a good coach in here quickly because I’d been working on that. Even though I wasn’t at liberty to say, I told them it was going to be done quickly and this will be soon.

“I answered any questions that anyone had and told them if they had any more, I could talk with them privately. I’d be happy to talk and I’ll be in and around for awhile.”

To make his situation even more chaotic, Idalski and his family were in the process of moving into an apartment in St. Joseph. So he had to get in touch with the apartment manager to tell them that they were leaving.

“Pretty hectic trying to live in 2-3 different worlds at the same time and make sure everything is taken care of,” he said. “You’re interviewing and negotiating at the same point. You’re communicating with the athletic director and making sure the staff is aware of what’s going on and what could potentially happen.”

Clint Austin / Duluth Media Group

After he got hired, Idalski was asked to attend the PWHL Draft on Tuesday, June 24, in Ottawa. Idalski got to see former SCSU forward

Emma Gentry

(Toronto, 11th overall),

defenseman Dayle Ross (New York, 25th)

and goalie

Sanni Ahola

(Ottawa, 37th) all get drafted in person.

“That was awesome,” Idalski said. “They’re going to be great players in the league and it will be cool to see them and have a front row seat for that.”

While all of this was going on, Idalski was having conversations with Mira Jalusuo about applying to be his replacement. Jalusuo spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach for the Minnesota Frost after spending the 2022-23 season as an assistant coach for Idalski.

“That was one of my first calls. I was interviewing and telling her, ‘you need to take this,'” Idalski said. “She’s driven. What she’s accomplished with the Frost in the PWHL winning two championships as an assistant. This is the next step in her coaching experience.

“I don’t know if you could walk into a better situation in terms of being more familiar with how things work, what the culture is. She’ll definitely put her take on a few things and be more organized and better with paperwork than I am. It’s a great setup for her. It’s teed up for her to take the next step and she’s ready.”

Idalski sees a lot of similarities in his coaching style with Jalusuo’s.

“Mira and I are wired pretty similarly,” Idalski said. “We don’t have a problem speaking directly, frankly, holding people accountable. That’s why I’m super excited about maintaining the staff. It’s going to be a pretty seamless transition.

“She was front and center and a big part of creating the culture that we have. I have no doubts that she’s going to take them the next steps and finish a lot of things that we haven’t accomplished yet like making it to the NCAA tournament and finishing in the top four (in the WCHA). All these things we wanted to do from Day 1.”

The assistant coaches for St. Cloud State last season included Jinelle Siergiej, Noora Räty and Emily Ach.