Dana Dirks. (Twitter/Dana Dirks)

By Jeff D’Andrea

A hockey full circle

P.A.’s Dirks chosen by Kozun for asst. GM job with Hawks, decade after Dirks recruited him to Mintos

Apr 17, 2022 | 2:12 PM

While working with the Prince Albert Mintos, Dana Dirks made sure to recruit forward Nipawin’s Tad Kozun, giving the team a big and dynamic 17-year-old forward for their 2010-11 season.

Now, the tables have turned.

One of the first things Kozun did this offseason since taking over as the Nipawin Hawks’ general manager and head coach was to lock in Dirks as his right-hand man. Dirks joined forces with the forward he scouted and recruited over a decade ago to be his assistant general manager. The club made that official on Wednesday.

“That’s why we do this, right? You never know where the next job comes from and who it’s going to be with,” Dirks said. “You meet so many great people. I’ve been doing this for many years, so you meet so many great people. I can honestly say that I wouldn’t get back into a role like this, for sure, without it being with someone that I really wanted to put the effort in with.”

Dirks has been a staple in the Prince Albert hockey community, coaching and/or scouting up the minor and junior hockey ranks, including time with both the Mintos and the Prince Albert Raiders.

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Dirks joined the Raiders when close friend Ron Gunville joined the team and took over as the director of player personnel. Dirks left the team after the 2018-19 season following Gunville’s death. Dirks stayed out of working in hockey until joining the Hawks partway through this season on an interim basis, and locking in the assistant general manager role marks Dirks’ return to the hockey world.

“It was obviously a challenging season, and I just decided to take a little break from hockey after that year. It was a pretty emotional year. I’ve kept in touch with everybody, lots of text messages and obviously the Twitter stuff, and still going to games,” Dirks said about his connection with the Raiders. “And now full circle back with Tad, that was an exciting phone call to have and getting back to being around somebody who’s young, fresh, and has that passion and energy built up. It kind of gets you fired back up again. The whole situation made it impossible to say no.”

Dirks and Kozun have already had some good talks about how they want to build their teams moving forward. Dirks said they want “team-first” players that are motivated to keep moving up in the game of hockey.

“We want guys that are going to come in and buy into the team-first concept. We want to try and get Nipawin to be the premier place for people to play in the Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League, and we’re looking for those guys that really want to push for that next level, Division I scholarships, USports teams and lots of the great colleges in Canada,” Dirks said. “We really want to start to change the way people think about the SJHL in general, and we want it to become a place where everybody comes, works hard, and expects that we’re going to get them to that next level and get those scholarships.”

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Jeff.dandrea@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW