The Kamloops Blazers players were shocked about the dismissal of head coach Barry Smith, but agreed that a change was necessary to get their WHL season back on track.

Craig Bonner, the Blazers’ vice-president and general manager, fired Smith on Monday, a day after returning from an East Division road swing on which Kamloops was 1-5. The Blazers, who were 7-1-2-0 on Oct. 10, now are 8-7-2-0 after losing six of their last seven games.

Scott Ferguson, who was in his second season as assistant coach, has been named the interim head coach, while Geoff Smith, who was working as a part-time assistant, has been given “an enhanced role.”

For goaltender Justin Leclerc, news of the firing was a shock, but he feels it was necessary to get the Blazers rolling again.

“I was surprised it was the coach,” said Leclerc, who has faced more shots (444) than any other WHL goaltender this season. “Having said that, I really trust Craig Bonner, and his decision. I think this will be the best thing for the team moving forward.”

Barry Smith, a 48-year-old native of Stambaugh, Mich., was hired on July 3, 2008, in what was Bonner’s first move as the Blazers’ GM.

Smith, a former Vancouver Canucks assistant coach, signed a three-year contract that had a club option for a fourth year. He guided the team to a 33-33-2-4 record in 2008-09. That left the team sixth in the Western Conference, but Kamloops was swept out of the playoffs in the first round by the Kelowna Rockets.

Bonner said Smith’s dismissal had a lot to do with how the Blazers were playing lately — Kamloops had been outshot in each of the last seven games, and was allowing 44 shots per game.

“I don’t think myself or the ownership is satisfied with being an average team — we expect more of ourselves and more of the team,” said Bonner, who watched all six games on the East Division swing. “We didn’t see enough improvement and emotion and aggressiveness in our game and it became more and more evident that something had to be done.”

The Blazers will have a chance to get back on track at home — they play their next six games at Interior Savings Centre, starting Friday against the Chilliwack Bruins.

Ferguson, a 36-year-old Camrose, Alta., native, played parts of four seasons with the Blazers (1990-94) before going on to a 14-year professional career, during which he played 218 NHL games with the Edmonton Oilers, Anaheim Mighty Ducks and Minnesota Wild.

For the short-term, he is hoping to keep the players’ minds on hockey.

“Right now, players and the staff, we have to refocus here and get things going in the right direction,” said Ferguson, who will be working as a head coach for the first time. “We have to be accountable, but we have to refocus and get this thing turned around.”

And that’s the feeling of most of the Blazers players — they say the club has enough talent to make some noise this season, it just needs to start playing better.

“No one in this organization wants to be an average team,” said captain Tyler Shattock, a 19-year-old Salmon Arm native. “We want to be an upper-echelon team, and I think to the players, this gives us a vote of confidence that (management) believes in us.”

"It obviously wasn't working defensively," Boston Bruins winger Mark Recchi, one of the team's five owners, told The Daily News. "You hate to have to do it, but (Bonner) and (the owners) felt it was the only way we were going to get better.

"We have a good team . . . and mediocrity doesn't cut it now!"

Bonner said Ferguson will have the chance to run the team for a while. There aren’t many available coaches in Western Canada at this time — former Lethbridge Hurricanes head coach Michael Dyck, who is helping coach the U of Lethbridge Pronghorns, might be the only one.

“There are going to be some people coming out of the woodwork who are going to going to start to apply,” Bonner said. “I think it’s my job to look at all of that.”

Ferguson is the seventh former Kamloops player to become head coach of the Blazers — Marc Habscheid, Don Hay, Dean Evason, Mark Ferner, Dean Clark and Greg Hawgood all are former Kamloops juniors who moved on to coach the team. Bonner also is a former Blazers player.

The promotion of Ferguson means all five head coaches in the B.C. Division have direct ties to the Blazers — Habscheid (Chilliwack), Hay (Vancouver) and Clark (Prince George) are former Blazers head coaches, while Kelowna head coach Ryan Huska is a former player.

The players are hoping that the change will propel the team back to the win column, where it spent the first three weeks of the season.

“I think we have the players to do it,” Leclerc said. “I think it’s just a matter of getting everyone on the same page, getting everyone motivated and executing.”

mhunter@kamloopsnews.ca

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