News broke on Tuesday that longtime Caps’ pro scout and the team’s current director of minor league operations Jason Fitzsimmons – known throughout the hockey world as simply “Fitzy” – is a pending inductee of the ECHL Hall of Fame, class of 2024. Before moving into the Caps’ hockey operations department more than a decade and a half ago, Fitzsimmons spent four seasons playing in the ECHL, four seasons as an assistant coach in the League and five seasons as the head coach of the Caps’ affiliate in South Carolina.
A goaltender who was an 11th-round draft choice of the Vancouver Canucks in the 1991 NHL Entry Draft, Fitzsimmons won the Kelly Cup as a player in 1997, posting a 17-7 record to earn playoff MVP honors that spring. As an assistant coach under Rick Adduono in 2000-01, Fitzsimmons was able to hoist the Kelly Cup for a second time.
Beginning in 2002-03, the Regina, Sask. native began a five-year run as the Stingrays’ head coach. During that stretch, he brought Jared Bednar on as his assistant coach, and Bednar went on to succeed Fitzsimmons as the bench boss in Charleston. From there, Bednar became the first coach in history to win the Kelly, Calder and Stanley Cups.
Bednar hired Cail MacLean as his assistant coach in South Carolina, and MacLean is the guy who identified current Caps’ coach Spencer Carbery as a guy who had some coaching traits and characteristics. Essentially, Fitzsimmons planted the seeds in South Carolina that resulted in the growth of a remarkable coaching tree in Charleston.
Although he never coached about the ECHL, both Bednar and MacLean give credit to Fitzsimmons for actually planting the seeds of the Charleston coaching tree.
“I got a chance to be an assistant for Fitzy, and then taking over [as head coach],” says Bednar. “And then Cail MacLean after me, and Carbs after him. It started a progression of the player to assistant coach to head coach, and with all quality people there. All those coaches are doing well, and now Carbs is getting the chance to coach in the NHL. I think it’s fantastic.”
Beginning in 2007-08 when Bednar took over as head coach in Charleston, a string of four head coaches – Bednar, MacLean, Carbery and Warsofsky – served consecutively for the next 11 seasons for the Stingrays. All four are now coaching in the NHL; Bednar (Colorado) and Carbery are head coaches while MacLean and Warsofsky (San Jose) are both assistant coaches.
“It’s been great, and it started with Fitzy, Jason Fitzsimmons,” Bednar asserts. “He was our goalie [in South Carolina], and then went up to be the assistant coach and the head coach. He is a good friend of mine, and still to this day he lives down in Charleston and works for the Caps. He left and started getting into scouting and management with the Caps, and then came myself, Cail, Carbs and Warso.
“I think the biggest thing is the ownership group down in South Carolina and the culture that they wanted to build and the quality people that they wanted to bring in and the way they wanted things to run, it was really important to all of us. And each individual guy sort of identified the next guy that could come up and help as his assistant and be the successor. I think we were all looking for the same characteristics in the guy that would come help us as the head coach, and guys that would be able to take over and continue the tradition and the culture that we’ve built there over time, and it’s a great relationship.
“We have a text chain of ex-Stingray coaches, and we jump on every once in a while, and we pick each other’s brains. And then over the phone and on the road, if you end up in one of the other guys’ city, we try to get together for dinner, have a chat and see how things are going, and bounce ideas off each other. It’s a strong network of supportive people that are in similar situations and deal with the same things, so it helps us all professionally. And obviously they’re all great guys and good friends, so it’s nice to catch up with them and see how they’re doing and if you can help out in any way. It’s a strong connection and I’m ecstatic to be a part of it.”
“I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Jason Fitzsimmons, in my case,” says MacLean. “When you think about Jared Bednar, Jason brought him into the fold, and Jason was the one who recruited me to come down to play in South Carolina. For me, he is the roots of the whole tree. To look back more than a decade later and see how fortunate we’ve all been, we’re really proud of that and we’re really proud of our friends that we played with. We won and lost together, and there are a lot of really good men and women down there that we shared time with that are part of the success that we’ve been able to benefit from, through hockey. They put in the community down there.
“It’s really cool. It’s really a fantastic organization and a great place to live. It was a good chapter in our lives for sure.”
It’s also really cool to see a really good man get some well-deserved recognition. Congrats to Fitzy on his selection for induction into the ECHL Hall of Fame. He’ll be formally inducted in a noon ceremony on Jan. 15 in Savannah, Ga.
