PALM DESERT, CA \u2013 When Coachella Valley head coach Derek Laxdal was filling out his coaching staff for his first Firebirds season, he set up a call in the summer of 2024 with the promising young head coach of the Western Hockey League Saskatoon Blades, Brennan Sonne. Along with talking power play tactics and how to develop players at the professional level, the two hockey men traded fish stories. Literally.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great connection,\u201d said Laxdal about that first phone call. \u201cI thought, this guy is a lot like me, a younger version of me. He\u2019s an outdoors guy. He\u2019s a family guy. I was up north fishing in Manitoba, sitting at a picnic table by the side of a lake, going through my systems of play with him. He sent photos of walleye he had caught.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laxdal and Sonne are part of a Firebirds coaching staff readying for the franchise\u2019s fourth straight appearance in the American Hockey League\u2019s Calder Cup Playoffs, the last two with Laxdal as boss and Sonne overseeing the forwards and the power play.<\/p>\n
Sonne as an outdoors guy? Check. Walleye are Sonne\u2019s favorite fish to eat and they are plentiful in northern Saskatchewan, from where he was returning while on the phone with Laxdal.<\/p>\n
Family guy? Check and check.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy in-laws live here [in Coachella Valley],\u201d said Sonne (pronounced \u201cSONN-ee\u201d). \u201cWe only had Lowen [older daughter] at the time. She was really colicky. It was difficult for my wife, Kaleigh, us being from British Columbia and me coaching and living in Saskatoon. It\u2019s not easy raising a colicky baby alone. We had great help from neighbors and friends. But having grandparents nearby was a different thing. I told my agent, if anything comes up in Coachella Valley, I\u2019ll be a stick boy, anything. I knew family-wise how much it would mean.\u201d<\/p>\n
Full stop. Sonne, who played for WHL Everett over three seasons and then served as an assistant coach with the Silvertips after his playing days for the University of British Columbia, was on a roll as head coach for Saskatoon. He posted a regular season record of 136-54-14 over three seasons, leading the Blades to the playoffs each year and winning five postseason series overall. His agent likely had other feelers from hockey franchises, but Sonne only had eyes on Coachella Valley.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think most of us dads would all do the same thing,\u201d said Sonne, now proud papa of two young daughters. \u201cI was raised like that. My dad took professional opportunities in places where his sons would have more opportunity hockey-wise. I think it’s just what being a dad is. You adapt career for your family, not the other way around. That’s what you always have to do \u2013 what’s best for your kids. That’s our main duty in life as dads.\u201d<\/p>\n
Firebirds Focused on Home-Ice Advantage in Playoffs<\/p>\n
Sonne and Coachella Valley are looking to clinch home-ice advantage for the first round of divisional playoffs that start April 26. The team has two games remaining, Saturday at San Diego and Sunday at home versus Abbotsford (BC). Securing one point of the possible four \u00a0at stake in those games would clinch home-ice advantage in a best-of-three series with the first game on the road and Games 2 and 3 (latter if necessary) at home. The final seeding will be determined once all Sunday games are complete.<\/p>\n
Sonne brings intensity along with his humanity to the workdays down in the southern California desert. The work of the Firebirds coaching staff links directly to the Kraken as a bevy of young forwards have made NHL debuts and earned spots on the Seattle roster. While former CVF head coach Dan Bylsma and his coaches are due development credit for the likes of defenseman Ryker Evans and center Shane Wright, Laxdal and his group, including Sonne, have been hands-on with Kraken forwards Ryan Winterton, Jacob Melanson, Jani Nyman and Ben Meyers, plus 21-year-old Oscar Fisker Molgaard\u2019s recent rise to play 13 NHL games.<\/p>\n
Fisker Molgaard, who returned to the CVF roster Wednesday along with Melanson with both contributing primary assists in a key home victory that night, said Sonne is both upbeat and demanding.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s obviously skilled,\u201d said Fisker Molgaard about the coach everyone calls \u201cSonner.\u201d \u201cHe always comes to the rink with a smile on his face. He wants us to get better every day. We’ve done a ton of video meetings, but he also allows us a lot of freedom to go out there and play and have some fun with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PALM DESERT, CA \u2013 When Coachella Valley head coach Derek Laxdal was filling out his coaching staff for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[5,4188,4,2686,234,5318],"class_list":{"0":"post-556122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-seattle-kraken","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-kraken","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-seattle","12":"tag-seattle-kraken","13":"tag-seattlekraken"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116432319574657030","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}