MJHL NOTES: Winnipeg Monarchs bringing in brand new staff

The Winnipeg Monarchs are hoping this is the year they take the leap into competitiveness.

The team, which joined the Manitoba Junior Hockey League in 2020 under the nickname of “Freeze,” rebranded last season. Across their five full seasons in the league, they’ve never finished better than 12th in the league standings, with last year’s 11 wins a new franchise-best mark.

The Monarchs, which play out of the Hockey for All Centre in Winnipeg, have a brand new staff this season, with Riley Dudar taking over as head coach and general manager. Zach Franko, who led the program behind the bench in 2025/2026, is now with Swift Current in the Western Hockey League as an assistant coach.

“It was a crazy off-season, but I’m having a lot of fun so far doing it,” Dudar said after their season-opener against Niverville..

“I really enjoy our group so far.”

The team has been busy this off-season adding staff, including a director of goaltending development (Brant Hilton), assistant coaches (Brett Dudar and Ian Gowletz), assistant general managers (Dyne Gluting and Blake Bonni) and a director of physical and mental performance (AJ Zeglen).

“I was hired to turn this thing around and in order to do that you need great people,” Riley Dudar said.

“It’s not a quick turnaround, it’s a process. In order to execute that process you need fantastic people. I wanted a range of hockey abilities, guys that are full time in hockey, guys that have different views on hockey and a passion for the game. People that can work well together, that also means disagree on things.”

The Monarchs took a 2-0 lead on defending champions Niverville and looked in good shape to spoil the banner raising night for the Nighthawks, but faded as the game went along, eventually losing 5-2.

“The goals are for us to just have steady improvement all the time,” Melo said when asked what the goals of the Monarchs are this season.

“We’re looking for competitive kids who want to improve as hockey players and are hungry to get to that next level… We’re not really focused on the outcomes, we’re process focused and that’s what our goals are.”

Jonah Vanderhorst left the game after a fighting major with the game tied 2-2, adding onto earlier injuries in the game to put the Monarchs down some players through the third period.

“We’ve just got to focus on staying grounded, focus on the process and what we can control,” Dudar said.

“For the most part we didn’t have any quit which I’m happy to see. Just a couple key turnovers, that’s the difference in hockey games. Our guys are learning and they’re going to improve from this game. It’s a good benchmark game for us.”

Special teams moments were devastating to the Winnipeg squad, giving up two goals on the powerplay and just as a penalty expired to get the game tied, with another powerplay marker and a short-handed breakaway goal providing the go-ahead and insurance tally Niverville needed to clinch the game in the third.

The Monarchs were in tough the next night playing a Winnipeg Blues squad that hadn’t yet played a game and fell in overtime 5-4.

For more MJHL coverage, including stats, game recaps for Steinbach and Niverville and the upcoming schedule, be sure to check out the print edition of The Carillon, published every Thursday.