Rocky Thompson Hired In Oklahoma City

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The Oklahoma City Oil Barons have rounded out their coaching staff by hiring former Edmonton Oil King assistant coach Rocky Thompson to do the same job in OK City.

Thompson coached with the WHL team for 3 years before getting let go this past off season.

This will mark the 3rd time Thompson has been associated with the Oilers organization - they also own the WHL's Oil Kings - as he played for the Road Runners when the team operated their AHL franchise out of Edmonton in 2004.

Thompson told me tonight that head coach Todd Nelson wants him down in Oklahoma City right away to start putting together a game plan.

Nelson OK for OK City

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As widely reported yesterday from many outlets including right here at TPS, Todd Nelson has been named as the head coach of the Oklahoma City Barons. Also, as was written in this space back on July 5th, Gerry Fleming is indeed back with the team as the assistant coach.

Nelson is in the middle of the photo above patrolling the Atlanta bench last season.

Interestingly, the Edmonton Oilers also announced the bench staff for the 2010-11 season today which will pretty much drown out the minor league team's thunder.

Kelly Buchberger is back and, surprise surprise, Steve Smith has returned to the organization as well. That name alone will be a contentious one for much of Oilerville.

I'm a little surprised the Oilers and Barons would present these announcements on the same day - I would have thought, especially from the Edmonton end, that they'd want to help the Barons a bit with the publicity. Perhaps it won't matter in the end but would giving the Barons the media spotlight in Edmonton for one day be a bad thing?