Brien Gemmell named head coach and assistant GM of Richmond Sockeyes<\/p>\n
Published 11:00 pm Wednesday, June 17, 2026<\/p>\n
Another year, another new chapter for Brien Gemmell.<\/p>\n
In three years, Gemmell has been with three different franchises in the Pacific Junior Hockey League (PJHL) and now the B.C. Hockey Conference (BCHC).<\/p>\n
Two years ago, he coached the White Rock Whalers to a very respectable 29-win season. Last year, he guided the expansion Cloverdale HC franchise to an amazing 24-18-0-2 regular season record\u2014good for 50 points. He oversaw the squad win their very first playoff series before losing in round two to the Whalers. Now, Gemmell will hang his hat with the Richmond Sockeyes as the head coach and assistant GM for the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to get back behind the bench and this opportunity arose,\u201d said Gemmell, the longtime athletic director at Lord Tweedsmuir Secondary School. \u201cI had a great time in Cloverdale and I\u2019m proud of what I could help the team accomplish there.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said when the Sockeyes job opened up, he let Cloverdale HC know he was interested in it immediately.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe opportunity to come and coach a team like the Richmond Sockeyes\u2014for the last few years of coaching that I may have left in me\u2014I couldn\u2019t pass it up,\u201d he told the Cloverdale Reporter. \u201cI\u2019m also excited at the opportunity to be part of the BCHC, to be able to have input, and be part of it as it grows into something new.\u201d<\/p>\n
After realignment, Gemmell felt the time was right to make the move.<\/p>\n
As part of that off-season realignment, the Sockeyes moved up to the new B.C. Junior \u201cA\u201d League, the BCHC, while Cloverdale remained in the PJHL as a Junior \u201cB\u201d team. In total, 22 teams moved up to the BCHC from both the PJHL and the KIJHL.<\/p>\n
A longtime A1 hockey coach in the Cloverdale Minor Hockey Association, Gemmell added that he\u2019s already working on recruiting and trying to get things ramped up for the upcoming season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m looking forward to being on the bench again,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re on the bench, you\u2019re engaging with the players in terms of what they\u2019re doing, you have that competitiveness you get just from coaching against other teams. It\u2019s exciting for me to be able to get behind the bench again, but also to get out on the ice for practices and be there with the players, it\u2019s really a lot of fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he\u2019s also looking forward to helping kids develop so they can move up to higher levels of hockey.<\/p>\n
Gemmell noted he\u2019s grateful for his time in Cloverdale, even if it was short.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thank Ronnie Paterson and Rob Rose for the opportunity to come over and GM the team in Cloverdale,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, I\u2019m looking forward to the next chapter of my life in junior hockey by going on to head coach the Richmond Sockeyes.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more info on the BCHC, visit bchchockey.ca.<\/a><\/p>\n For more info on Cloverdale HC and the PJHL, visit cloverdalehc.com<\/a> and pjhl.net.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brien Gemmell named head coach and assistant GM of Richmond Sockeyes Published 11:00 pm Wednesday, June 17, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744545,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,163792,87674],"class_list":["post-744544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-lower-mainland","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744544"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744544\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}