Hockey

Anchorage Wolverines hire Eagle River’s Nick Walters as next head coach

The Anchorage Wolverines will have a new head coach for a third straight year, and for the second year in a row, they’ve gone with a former local product after announcing that Eagle River’s Nick Walters has been hired to lead the team.

Walters will be replacing Anchorage’s Evan Trupp, who recently accepted an assistant coaching position with the Muskegon Lumberjacks, a Tier 1 junior hockey team in the United States Hockey League.

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Walters was on the Wolverines’ staff last year when they went 28-24-8 with Trupp at the helm. In the organization’s inaugural season in 2021-22, Trupp served as an assistant on the staff of Mike Aikens, who took the team all the way to the Robertson Cup finals before leaving to take an assistant position at St. Lawrence University last year.

Walters graduated from Chugiak High School and is excited to give back and help grow the passionate hockey community that he grew up with.

“I’m humbled that Keith (Morris, director of hockey operations) and the rest of management have put their trust in me to take over as head coach of the Anchorage Wolverines,” Walters said in a statement. “I’m excited for the opportunity to not only be a head coach, but be the head coach of the team that represents my hometown community. I think it’s a special opportunity and I’m looking forward to getting started this off-season to prepare for the upcoming year.”

He spent nearly a decade with the University of Alaska Anchorage as an assistant coach and director of operations for five years and as a volunteer, assisting with statistics and video operations for three years. Following that time, he served as the video coach for the 2022 U.S. Olympic Women’s Ice Hockey Team.

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Morris said the organization is “extremely pleased” to have Walters take the helm as head coach.

“He is an individual who worked for good coaches at the University of Alaska, Anchorage and showed commitment living on the road and out of a suitcase when he was part of the Women’s US Olympic team coaching staff,” Morris said in a statement. “We could not be happier to elevate him to the head coach after Evan moved on. We are in good hands.”

Josh Reed

Josh Reed is a sports reporter for the Anchorage Daily News. He's a graduate of West High School and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.

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