Growing up in Warren, MI, just outside Detroit, Brian Idalski first laced up skates at age five. A family friend’s son was playing, and young Brian tagged along. “I watched it, liked it and it took over,” he said during a recent phone call that found him in Northern Wisconsin. Hockey soon became everything, guiding him from buzzing youth rinks through a college career as a defenseman at Wisconsin–Stevens Point, to minor pro hockey, and eventually behind the bench. That passion has now brought him to Vancouver, where he begins a new chapter as the first head coach of the city’s expansion PWHL team.
As Vancouver GM Cara Gardner Morey said upon his hiring, “What stands out in Brian’s experience is his ability to build and transform the programs he is a part of.”
To be sure, Idalski is well known for building programs from the ground up. At Wisconsin–Stevens Point, he transformed a brand-new women’s program into a national contender in just a few seasons, reaching an NCAA Division III final and capturing conference titles. At the University of North Dakota, he guided a once-struggling team into a national presence, helping develop Olympians and All-Americans over a decade. Overseas, he won championships with Shenzhen KRS Vanke Rays in China and coached the Chinese women’s national team at the 2022 Olympics. Most recently, he led St. Cloud State University to a program-record season and earned USCHO National Coach of the Year honors in 2023.
Coaching was on the mind of the 54-year-old Idalski from a young age. “People told me I'd be a good coach when I was still in high school,” Idalski said. “Not my peers—everyone just thinks we’re going to play in the show. But adults told me that a lot. I don’t know if it’s because I had a good head or because I wasn’t athletic enough to make it as a player, but it was mentioned so early in my life.”
After college, he spent a few years playing in the minors—“doing it for the experience and to avoid real life for a minute,” he joked—before transitioning to coaching full time. His first big opportunity came somewhat by accident. After assisting with the men’s program at Stevens Point, he was suddenly handed the women’s team in just its second year.
“I hadn’t been a head coach at any level. I hadn’t coached women,” he admitted. “But it went super well. The players were great and I really enjoyed it.”
He remembers people asking when he’d switch back to the men’s side. “It used to bother me," he said. "I coached hockey. Gender was irrelevant to me. But I never get that question at all anymore.”
Over more than two decades, Idalski has grown from a young, hungry coach into a seasoned communicator with global experience. “Coaches talk about non-negotiables,” he said. “I’ve gotten better at making that more of an ‘us’ project than an ‘I’ project. I’m way better at communicating. Learning to communicate, coaching overseas—it has all been helpful in having me explain why we do what we do.”
His career has also given him perspective on just how far the women’s game has come. “That first year for me, I didn’t know what to expect. The year before I got there they couldn’t do a flow drill. It was like hockey school,” he said. “Fast forward and the men’s team is watching the Lamoureux twins practice at North Dakota. People are realizing these players are so good and so fast. The beauty of the game now is in the women’s game. If anything, the men’s game is now trying to match the women’s game.”
Idalski himself is in a transitional moment, preparing to move his life to Vancouver. But it’s also an energizing moment.