It’s “pa-pah-waw-noh.” Say it over and over, and then say it three times real fast.
Once it’s mastered – Papaioannou – add his first name, simply Ryan. Then repeat.
Again, three times, real fast.
And then realize Ryan Papaioannou is the new head coach of the Wheeling Nailers. That’s right, now more Derek Army, the man who first came to Wheeling in 2014 as a dreaming player and who left Wheeling this past summer to his dream of coaching in the NHL.
Papaioannou was named the organization’s 21st head coach in mid-August after serving as the head coach and general manager of the Brooks Bandits for 16 seasons. His team played in the Alberta Junior Hockey League and the British Columbia Hockey League, and he won a lot.
Papaioannou compiled an astonishing 907-217-48 record in 1,172 career games as the head coach of the Bandits. According to The Hockey News, his team “earned at least 50 wins in a season six times, topped by a 57-3-0 mark during the 2018-19 campaign. That year, Papaioannou’s Bandits finished the regular season with a 33-game winning streak.”
On a personal level, anyway, that streak is on the line this evening as the Nailers center-up against Cincinnati at 7:35 p.m., but he knows coaching in the ECHL is far different than leading young men between the ages of 16 and 20 in Juniors.
“The game of hockey is the game of hockey,” Papaioannou said, “but the people and the players are coming from different places. Our guys (in Wheeling) are a lot further along in their lives than the kids playing in the juniors, and they have real relationships and they have wives and children and those kinds of things. They have more things to manage in their lives.
“That’s why you just need to be honest with them,” he said. “You need to tell them what you need from them, and then they need to go out there and play the game they know how.”
He’s a native of Calgary, Alberta, was in the net when he played the game, and now he, his wife, Jordana, and their two sons, Ambrose (10) and Calix (5), have moved to the Friendly City.
“I spent about a month between Pittsburgh and Wilkes-Barre, and now I’ve had about 10 solid days here in Wheeling. So far, things have gone well,” Papaioannou said. “Things are great and things are different, too, and finally getting to spend time with the team and to affect change in terms of mindset and gameplan, has been very good. It’s been nice for a change.
“We begin our season (this evening), and I think our guys are ready to play meaningful games,” he said. “For some of our guys, they’ve been in pre-season mode for a while, and it’s been a long road for them. The guys are really excited to get the season started.”
Boys to Men
It’s dissimilar here in Wheeling.
Junior hockey provides a critical development stage for aspiring players, and there are levels of play that feature competitive leagues, lots of learning and development, and there are eyes everywhere searching for the next “great one.”
The ECHL is similar, yet unlike anything Papaioannou has encountered.
“I think 16 to 20 is a little bit of a different bracket where those guys are out there and after it every day and night. Once you establish a work ethic with those kids, I think it’s pretty much there for the year,” Papaioannou explained. “I think we’re in that frame of mind right now here where we’re trying to establish what we need from these guys day-to-day.
“Here in the pros, it’s a shorter workday and we’re getting used to that difference from where we were in the juniors, but we’ve adjusted the structure to get the guys in and out quicker,” he said. “We’ve been working hard to get ready, and we’ll keep working to get better and better as the season goes.”
The Nailers franchise is the equivalent of the “Double A” affiliate to the Pittsburgh Penguins, and Wilkes-Barre/Scranton of the AHL is “Triple A” and is one step away from the show. Many of Wheeling’s players bounce up and down between the two levels each and every season.
“We have to build up everyone because there will be players who go up and down and we’ll have to be ready to play no matter what,” Papaioannou said. “When we lose guys because they go up to Wilkes, everyone else has to be prepared to carry the mail.
“The preseason has been great for us because we’re getting everyone on the same page,” he said. “Now, it’s time to get to work and play those meaningful games.”
‘It’s Hard to Win’
He still wants to win. A lot.
The ECHL is known as a “development league,” and time and again Army was heralded by Pittsburgh’s officials for his instruction and his ability to prepare his players for the AHL.
Papaioannou understands his assignment. Completely. That’s why, at the end of the team’s final workout on Thursday before leaving for Cincinnati, he stayed on the ice for an extra 20 minutes with defenseman Tommy Budnick.
“I’d love to say I was the last guy on the ice every day, but that’d be a lie,” he admitted. “But when I have a chance to work with one of the guys one-on-one, I take it because it’s constructive and it’s relationship building. I know I need to be out there with these guys as much as possible.
“These guys want to get better every day, and they want to win,” he said. “They’re out here working hard to get to the next level, and we’re here to make that happen for as many of these players as possible.”
The Wheeling Thunderbirds landed in Wheeling in 1992 and are now known as the Nailers and as the longest tenured franchise of the ECHL. The organization also holds the league record for the number of players who have climbed hockey’s ultimate ladder to the top.
Today, that number sits at 69 former Nailers/Thunderbirds who reached the NHL, with 62 doing so as players and seven as either coaches, trainers, equipment managers, broadcasters, or officials, according to wheelingnailers.com.
So, yes, individual success looms large.
But.
“Developing these young men is definitely part of the job here in Wheeling and in the ECHL, but I’d rather concentrate on winning all of the time, so there’s a balance there,” Papaioannou insisted. “If you are doing the job with the guys on this team and everyone is improving all of the time, there’s no reason you can’t win at the same time.
“In this league, I don’t see it as a one-sided thing,” the first-year head coach insisted. “It’s not just development, and it’s not just winning because it needs to be about both. I don’t get up every morning excited about just development unless there’s that winning component to it. It’s hard to win, and you have to learn how to do that, too.”
(Fans can catch this evening’s season opener at: https://www.flohockey.tv/teams/6787912-wheeling-nailers)
