Bill Stewart (ice Hockey) - Coaching Career

Coaching Career

Stewart began his professional coaching career with the Muskegon Fury of the Colonial Hockey League in 1995. After one season with Muskegon, Stewart took the head coaching position with the Oshawa Generals of the OHL in 1996. Stewart got back into coaching professional hockey the following season with a stint in the American Hockey League and coaching the Saint John Flames to the Calder Cup Finals in 1998, losing to the Philadelphia Phantoms in six games. Stewart was named head coach of the New York Islanders on January 21, 1999 after Mike Milbury himself stepped down to concentrate solely on his GM duties. After one season with the Islanders Stewart was relieved of his coaching duties and was replaced by Butch Goring on April 30, 1999. In 1999 Stewart returned to the OHL to become the head coach of the Barrie Colts. The roster that year included the 4 Brampton Boys, one of whom, Ryan Barnes, faced charges of assault with a weapon after a stick-swinging incident during a game in October. Later in the season, three of the team's other players were charged with sexual assault. Finally, Stewart himself made headlines and was banned from entering the United States for twice smuggling a Ukrainian-born player over the Canada-U.S. border in the baggage compartment of the team bus. Stewart infamously walked out of the Halifax Metro Centre without conducting any interviews to the media, following Barrie's 6-2 loss to the Rimouski Océanic in the 2000 Memorial Cup championship game. Following the controversial season in Barrie, Stewart continued his coaching career in Germany and he made headlines during the DEL playoff finals in 2001 when he feigned fainting behind the Mannheim Eagles bench to buy his star player Jan Alston time to get his skates sharpened. On December 3, 2009, he agreed to take over as the Head Coach of Kölner Haie.