The Prince George Cougars have locked the services of their coaching staff, agreeing to multi-year contract extensions for head coach Mark Lamb, associate coach Jim Playfair and assistant coach Carter Rigby.
The WHL club also announced Thursday that athletic therapist Dave Adolph and equipment manager Dane Engelhardt have signed multi-year extensions.
The Cougars have also promoted Calgary-based scout Leland Mack to become their director of scouting. He replaces Bob Simmonds, who will now serve as the team’s director of player personnel.
Lamb, 60, is about to begin his seventh season as Cougars head coach. The WHL coach of the year in 2023-24 ranks second on the Cougars Prince George franchise list with 183 regular season wins (Ed Dempsey had 214). Lamb was hired as the Cats’ general manager in 2018 and took on the coaching duties the following year. The Ponteix, Sask., native was named the league’s executive of the year in 2024.
Playfair, 61, will be back for his third season. The native of Fort St. James is a veteran of more than 15 seasons as a coach in the NHL, including one season (2006-07) as head coach of the Calgary Flames.
Rigby, 31, a former WHL forward with the Kelowna Rockets from Penticton, is heading into his fourth season with the Cats.
Adolph will be a second-year member of the Cougars staff this season. The Prince George native is a former director of high performance at Engage Sport North, where he oversaw the strength and conditioning programs for the UNBC Timberwolves varsity soccer and basketball teams, Canadian Sport School athletes, and the Indigenous Athlete Training Program.
Engelhardt, from Regina, will return for his fifth season, having held a similar position with the Regina Pats and Calgary Hitmen.
Mack, a Calgary native, has served as a Cougar scout since 2019 and prior to that was with the Seattle Thunderbirds scouting staff. He’s been head coach of Edge School’s 15U Prep team the past three seasons and also coached with the Northern Alberta Xtreme and with the Burnaby Winter Club.
Simmonds has been the Cougars head scout since June 2014, having first joined the scouting staff in 2007. He lives in Edmonton.
