Alan Letang named Canada’s world junior hockey coach for 2024

Hockey Canada has announced that Alan Letang will serve as Canada’s coach at the 2024 World Junior Hockey Championship, taking place in Sweden from Dec. 26 to Jan. 5.

Gilles Bouchard, Shaun Clouston and Scott Walker will serve as assistant coaches.

The announcement serves as a promotion for Letang, who was the team’s assistant coach in 2020 and 2023. Canada won gold both times. Recently, Letang coached Canada to gold at the Hlinka Gretzky Cup before starting his third season with the OHL’s Sarnia Sting.

Before joining the Sting, Letang served as Owen Sound’s coach midway through 2018-19 after spending two full years as an assistant. Letang was drafted 203rd overall by the Montreal Canadiens in the eighth round in 1993. He’d go on to make his NHL debut with Dallas during the 1999-00 season having short stints with Calgary and the New York Islanders. He spent the final 11 years of his career playing in Europe, most notably with Medvescak Zagreb in Croatia.

Internationally, Letang represented Canada during exhibition contests throughout the 1998-99 season. He also represented Canada at the 1998 Spengler Cup and 2006 Deutschland Cup, before eventually changing over and joining Croatia for two Division IB World Championship events at the end of his career. Letang’s highlight was winning best defenseman at the 2014 DIB tournament en route to a silver medal. After retiring from the game, he had a couple of stints with Croatia in management and coaching capacities before returning back to Ontario in 2016.

Hockey Canada also announced that Lethbridge Hurricanes GM and Pete Anholt and former NHLer Brent Seabrook will join the team in management positions. Anholt has never represented Hockey Canada in international competition, while Seabrook won gold at the 2005 world juniors. The three-time Stanley Cup champion also helped Canada win gold at the 2010 Olympics, and won other medals at various levels with Canada in national team action. The Tampa Bay Lightning holds Seabrook’s NHL rights, but he hasn’t played since the 2019-20 season due to injury.

Canada has won gold a record 20 times in tournament history, including the past two years and four times since 2018.