He’s also the third do it in as many years, following Lake Erie Monsters video coach Darryl Seward of Lewisporte in 2016 and centre Zach O’Brien of St. John’s in 2015 while skating for the Manchester Monarchs.
The three join Brian Gibbons of St. John’s (1970-71 Springfield Kings), Don Howse of Grand Falls (1975-76 and 1976-77 Nova Scotia Voyageurs), Jason Morgan of C.B.S. (2000-01 Saint John Flames), John Slaney of St. John’s (2004-05 Philadelphia Phantoms) and Colin Greening of St. John’s (2010-11 Binghamton Senators), who all won as players, and Glenn Stanford of St. John’s, who was president of the Hamilton Bulldogs when that team won it all in 2007.
Cleary wants to bring the Calder Cup back to Newfoundland sometime this summer, but laughingly cited a potential problem.
“The tradition is that the guys drive it to each other in kind of like a relay and I don’t know if anyone is going to drive it to Newfoundland,” he said. “There are no other east coasters on the team.
“But I’m going to try to get it home for my hockey school.”
