Knight Monster head coach Alex Loh speaks on building a winning team
Katelyn Welsh / Tahoe Daily Tribune
STATELINE, Nev. – Alex Loh couldn’t resist the opportunity to build a team from scratch. That’s one reason why he says he took the job with Tahoe’s Knight Monsters. He doesn’t plan on just building any team though. “We want to put a winning product on the ice,” he told fans at the mascot, jersey and affiliation unveil Tuesday night, July 16, at Bally’s Lake Tahoe.
For him, a winning team starts with the players.
“That’s what I’ve been doing pretty much since I got the job, day one, back in June.,” he says, talking to players and convincing them Tahoe is a special place to play.
For some players, he hasn’t had to do much convincing. “A lot of guys knew that already,” he says some even reached out to him directly and expressed a desire to play in Tahoe. “It doesn’t go unnoticed the beautiful lake out there.” That, and the new building with top rated facilities, is how he’s selling the opportunity to players.
Potential for a winning hockey team, the coach says, can be seen with the signing of their first player, Anthony Collins.
“I think you are quickly going to see how he becomes a fan favorite,” Loh told the crowd Tuesday. The forward played last season for the Savannah Ghost Pirates, the same team Loh coached for two seasons.
In the Knight Monsters signing announcement video, Collins says he’s honored to be the first player in franchise history. “My family and I are excited to get into town and meet all of you and get involved in the community, and” he says, “I’m ready to make Tahoe Blue Events Center a top place to play.”
Over the last week, the team announced four more Knight Monsters, defensemen Brennan Kapcheck and Nate Kallen, as well as forwards Blake Christensen, Adam Robbins, and Chris Dodero.
The Knight Monsters announced their NHL affiliation with the Vegas Golden Knights and AHL affiliation with the Henderson Silver Knights Tuesday night as well.
Knight affiliation isn’t new to Coach Loh or Collins since before the switch to the Knight Monsters, the Savannah Ghost Pirates were the Knight’s feeder team. Continuing that relationship with the Knights was the other reason Loh made the move to Tahoe’s ECHL team.
“I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of that organization the last couple of years with my time in Savannah, so I know how seriously they take the ECHL and how much it is a part of what they do between the American league and the NHL.”
Coach Loh says having a pre-existing relationship with the Knight’s organization will likely prove beneficial. “I think we’ve built a level of trust that they feel comfortable sending guys to Tahoe,” Loh says, “they just know that things are going to be done the right way here.”
Building a new team is always a challenge, Loh says. “It’s an unknown, right?”
Established teams, he explains, have had the opportunity to define their brand and determine how they do things. “But for us, we’re starting from scratch.”
A challenge, yes. But it’s also an opportunity for the players. “You have to sell them on the opportunity to be the ones that set that building block and build that character of the organization.”
He believes the ECHL team will deliver the excitement fans are looking for. “I think they are going to be pleasantly surprised with how good the hockey really is, that we do have people graduate all the way up to the NHL.”
The coach has seen Nevadans embrace hockey in a remarkable way following the Golden Knights’ establishment around 2017. He says when you look at some NHL teams that are over 100 years old, then turn to the Golden Knights, “…a team that’s now six or seven years old, that they’re able to generate that much excitement just shows how passionate Nevadans are about sports.”
Once he has a full team stacked on the ice, he’ll be looking for two things: speed and structure. “Playing as fast as we possibly can to try and get in the offensive zone and score some goals as quickly as possible, but also being a structured hockey team,” he explains, “In my experience in the ECHL, those two things combined really led to successful hockey teams.”
The structure helps in league that sees a lot of turnover. “We can go through up to 50 players a year, so you want to have guys to be able to step in and be successful right away.” The structure allows new members who step on the ice to immediately know where their teammates are going to be.
The coach can’t wait to be a part of the community. “I see how strong it is already with the people who are already in this room,” he told the crowd the evening of July 16, “can’t wait to see another 3,000 of your friends on October 24.” That’s when they play their first game against the Jacksonville Icemen at the Tahoe Blue Events Center.
He and his family are already packing up boxes at their house in Savannah and are excited for what Tahoe has to offer. Although Savannah receives no snow, he grew up in Vermont and coached in New York for seven years and Maine for three, so it isn’t foreign to him. “Certainly familiar with snow,” he says, “Got to wrap our heads around it a little bit more, but we certainly know we’re going to get more than our fair share up here.”
He says the announcements aren’t over yet and more news is coming later this summer.
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