Paul Thompson has coached a lot of hockey in Great Britain, and few moments in his career have elicited the kind of emotion he felt upon learning that one of his players, Liam Kirk, was drafted by the Coyotes in the seventh round of last week’s NHL draft.
Thompson, the head coach of the Sheffield Steelers in the Elite Ice Hockey League in the United Kingdom, has been grooming the British-born Kirk since Kirk was 15 years old.
When he found out that Kirk had become the first English-born and exclusively English-trained player to ever be selected in the draft, Thompson let out a “shriek” while attending an awards ceremony at his son’s hockey academy on Saturday.