The Olds Grizzlys announced a new ownership group and a new coaching staff earlier this week as the local AJHL franchise looks to turn things around.
The new bench boss is Tyson Soloski. The 32-year-old from Cochrane was most recently the Head Coach of the U18 Prep team at the Calgary International Hockey Academy (CIHA) in the CSSHL. He says “yeah I mean, couldn’t be more excited. It’s going to be a lot of fun. It’s probably like something I’ve always dreamt of doing is coaching at this level. I never really thought it was going to be a possibility until Moe and the ownership group reached out to me a little while back, yeah. Very, very excited to get started.”
Soloski was the Alberta Elite Hockey League’s U15 AAA Coach of the Year with the Airdrie Xtreme as they won the league title in 2023. As he moves up to the AJHL, Soloski wants the Grizzlys to play a fast style of hockey. He says “we want to put an emphasis on playing the right way. When I talk about playing the right way, it’s how we play without the puck. So we are going to be extremely structured without the puck and we are going to play a detailed hockey game but we want to play fast and we want to play in the offensive zone and we want to try to create a lot of offense and it will come from everyone and super excited to see what we can do here.”
Soloski played four seasons as a high scoring forward in the Heritage Junior Hockey League from 2010-2014 for his hometown Cochrane Generals. He finished his HJHL career with a 1.49 points per game average (215 total points in 144 regular season games). Soloski led the HJHL in assists with 52 in 37 games in 2012-2013.
Joining Soloski on the coaching staff is new Assistant Coach Dylan Olsen. The 34-year-old Olsen is a former Camrose Kodiak and former NHL defenceman with the Chicago Blackhawks and the Florida Panthers. He was an Assistant Coach with the CIHA’s U17 Prep team in 2024-2025. Returning for his second year as an Assistant Coach is Mitch Visser from Didsbury. Visser is an alumni member of the Black & Gold. He played over 60 regular season AJHL games for Olds. Visser also won a Heritage Junior Hockey League championship with his hometown team – the Mountain View Colts – in 2016 as part of his four seasons there (2015-2020).
Also on Wednesday at the SportsComplex, Moe Jamal was introduced the new Owner and General Manager. He comes to the Grizzlys from the Calgary International Hockey Academy where he worked alongside former National Hockey Leaguer and Stanley Cup champion Jay Beagle. Jamal says he will be the principal owner of the Grizzlys and they’ll have a minority sharing with Beagle.
Jamal points out that the one thing he can count on is that Tyson’s work ethic will be unmatched in the AJHL. Jamal says “he (Soloski) is an unbelievably hard worker. He works for the kids. He’s young. He relates to them. I’ve seen it myself for two years that players will go through a wall for him and it was very important for me to provide him an opportunity at the next level because I think he is a guy who is under the radar right now. I think the Town of Olds, I think the players are in for a treat with him.”
This weekend the Olds Grizzlys are running their U15 Spring Camp at the SportsComplex. It started on Friday and continues through until Sunday afternoon.
This past season the Grizzlys finished last in the South Division and second last overall in the AJHL with a record of 15-38-1-0. They were not one of the 8 teams to qualify for the playoffs in the 12 team league. The last time the Grizzlys won a playoff series was 2017 when they swept the Canmore Eagles in an opening round best-of-five match up. The 2024-2025 season for Olds had Brad Tobin as the Head Coach and Colten Hayes as one of the Assistant Coaches. Neither will be back with the team for their second year in the AJHL in those respective roles.
Listen to 96.5 The Ranch’s conversation with Tyson Soloski.
