Willie Desjardins was named Canada’s Olympic men’s hockey coach on Tuesday, three months after the Vancouver Canucks fired him after three seasons.
Desjardins, 60, will coach the first Canadian Olympic team without NHL participation since the 1994 Lillehammer Winter Games.
Sean Burke, a 1988 and 1992 Canadian Olympic goalie, is the general manager.
With NHL players, Canada won the 2010 and 2014 Olympic titles. In PyeongChang, Canada can become the first nation to three-peat as Olympic men’s hockey champion since the Soviet Union in 1976.
It’s unknown how Canada will select its 25-man roster for PyeongChang, though it has a strong junior hockey system and NHL veterans available in the Russian KHL.