St. Clair Looks Ahead to Wilderness Hockey Season

Entering second season as NAHL head coach

CLOQUET, Minn.- After a successful opening season as head coach of the Minnesota Wilderness, Colten St. Clair is ready to collect more wins in the 2024-25 season.

The Wilderness won 30 of their 60 regular season games last season, which was just enough to clinch a playoff berth. While St. Clair says he was contacted by teams during the offseason, his plan was to stay with the Wilderness.

“I love the organization. They gave me a chance to be a first-time head coach and that’s obviously what I want in my personal development,” says St. Clair, who was previously the associate head coach of the USHL’s Sioux City Musketeers. “I think there’s some unfinished business from last year, and sure, some teams call you in the offseason and see what your plans are, but (I’m) just really excited to see what kind of personnel we have here player-wise.”

As for this upcoming season, St. Clair says he’s taken plenty of notes during his tenure on which areas he wants to see his team improve on the ice.

“There’s obviously some things you need to improve on from the year before, and there’s things also that you did really well that you just want to build on,” he says. “For me, it’s just going back with the staff and evaluating those things and what’s important to us, and obviously it’s going to be a new team this year, so some of the things that worked for us last year might not work for us this year.”

Coach St. Clair and the Wilderness front office are spending the week evaluating prospects at the team’s main camp on their home ice.