The Elmira Jackals front office and coaching staff
A minor-league club runs on a small staff. This is the office and bench as the Jackals listed it, hockey operations first.
Section one
Hockey operations
The bench and the hockey side
Hockey operations covered the roster, the bench and the room: the general manager who signed the players, the coaching staff who picked them, and the trainer and equipment manager who kept them on the ice.
At this level the split between those two jobs is thinner than it sounds. A general manager of hockey operations in the ECHL negotiates his own contracts, argues his own waiver claims and often drives the bus to Wheeling. The head coach picks the team and runs the practice; the assistant runs video, special teams and whatever else is left. There is no analytics department and no player personnel staff, because there is no budget for either.
The trainer and the equipment manager are the two roles a minor-league club cannot do without. One keeps a roster of twenty men fit across seventy-two games with a fraction of the medical support an NHL club takes for granted; the other maintains the skates, the sticks and the sweaters, travels with all of it, and is generally the first person at the rink and the last to leave it.
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Nate Cook | President and General Manager of Hockey Operations |
| Jared Abbott | Assistant General Manager of Hockey Operations |
| Jamie Russell | Head Coach |
| Glenn Thomaris | Assistant Coach |
| Tim Hession | Head Athletic Trainer |
| Jeremy Holloway | Equipment Manager |
Section two
Business operations
Sales, marketing and the box office
The business side sold the building. Corporate sales carried the sponsor list, the account executives handled season tickets and groups, and the box office, marketing and community relations covered everything that happened before the puck dropped.
That is where the money actually came from. Ticket revenue at a 3,784-seat rink does not cover a professional hockey team, so the account executives and the corporate sales director were selling boards, nights, programme pages and group outings to the hundred and twenty-seven businesses listed on the partners page. Community relations placed players in schools and at charity events, which is both a public good and the cheapest advertising a minor-league club has.
The list below is a single snapshot rather than a full record. Staff turnover at this level is high, and across seventeen seasons a good deal more than fourteen people worked for the club.
| Name | Role |
|---|---|
| Bob Cibulsky | Director of Corporate Sales |
| Matt Hufnagel | Senior Account Executive |
| Mike Strobel | Senior Account Executive |
| James Crane | Sales Executive |
| Jordan Myers | Director of Creative Marketing and Graphics |
| Penny Roman | Box Office Manager |
| Nikole Watts | Community Relations |
| Rick Bacmanski | Team Photographer |
Questions
About the front office
Common questions about the staff
How big was the Elmira Jackals front office?
Fourteen people on the list the club published — six on the hockey side and eight on the business side. That is typical for the ECHL, where a club runs on a staff smaller than a single department at an NHL team.
Who was the last head coach?
Jamie Russell appears as head coach on the staff list this record holds, with Glenn Thomaris as his assistant. Earlier seasons were run by Todd Brost, Steve Martinson, Pat Bingham and Dwight Mullins among others.
Did the coach pick the players?
Jointly. At this level the general manager of hockey operations and the head coach are effectively one decision, and NHL and AHL affiliates supplied a share of the roster on assignment regardless.
Is this list complete?
No. It is one snapshot from the club’s own site. Staff turnover in minor-league hockey is heavy and this covers a single season rather than seventeen.
What happened to the staff when the club folded?
That is not recorded in anything this archive holds. The building continued to operate and host events after the club stopped playing.