Historic week for SilverBacks

by Richard MacKenzie of the Salmon Arm Observer

“When I first took over the team in May, I decided that I would wait until I felt comfortable before putting my own identity on the team,” he said. “I needed to learn a lot of the aspects of the operation before taking over. In October, I was feeling pretty comfortable with those aspects so I decided to make the change and remove Garry as of Nov. 1.”

“I made the decision on Ty the day before making the move with Garry,” said Williams. “It was kind of a last minute thing. But, after reviewing the big picture and feeling comfortable with my role, I felt, for us as an organization, it was best if I was going to remove one, to remove both and make a clean sweep. This had nothing to do with personalities, it was simply business. Ty is a good person and a great coach and will be a great coach wherever he goes... I wish him all the best. This was just about me bringing in my own people and going from there.”

“My decision to hire Rylan had a lot to do with the fact he was here for three years,” he said. “When I was out in the community this summer doing meet-and-greet functions as well as corporate sponsor meetings, the name Rylan Ferster came up a lot, as did the name of Shawn Rogers, but never by me. You have to remember that I was brand new to the community and didn’t know either of these two men but, obviously, when you keep hearing the same names over and over, like I did, you realize that there is a lot of credibility that goes along with that.”

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