Coaching Time - Sigard Petrenko

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SEATTLE - The Bears have had many players don their jersey. Many superstars, icons, and VHL legends have had the privilege of representing the Emerald City. Sigard Petrenko does not consider himself one of them. However, he has many great memories here. He won a continental cup with Seattle, was given the honour of being the captain for his last season, and the Seattle Bears faithful got used to seeing Sigard laying a hard hit on opponents. The official count says 1369 in 432 games played.

 

“They might have missed a couple,” he joked as he was interviewed in the Seattle Thunderbirds locker room.

 

Some eagle-eyed readers (okay, probably most of you to be completely honest) might have noticed the “Seattle Thunderbirds” portion of that last sentence. That is because Sigard is in the city of Kent taking up a job as an assistant coach for the Thunderbirds.

 

“After I retired from the VHL, I played for three seasons in the NHL for the Buffalo Sabres. I actually did pretty well; scored 20 goals in all three of those seasons. Eventually though, my body couldn’t keep up and I had to retire a bit early. It sucked but I ended up being really interested in coaching. It’s kind of weird considering I’m pretty young compared to some of these coaches but they trust me. I can teach some of these guys how to hit hard and that’s exactly what I plan on doing.