April 7, 2009

Todd Ewen was recently named the Saint Louis Billikens new head coach.

Ewen's pro career started when he was drafted by the Edmonton Oilers in 1984. Thereafter he joined the St. Louis Blues for a four year stint in 1987 and then moved on to Montreal where he won a Stanley Cup in 1993. After winning the Cup, Ewen served as an assistant captain for three seasons with the Anaheim Ducks before finishing his playing career in 1997 with the San Jose Sharks.

Ewen currently lives in St. Louis where he works with his wife on the "Ewen Team" for Remax Properties West. He has been actively coaching youth hockey where he served as the coaching director for the Chesterfield Falcons organization from 2004-2006. Since then Ewen has served as the head coach of the Lafayette High School Varsity Program.

The Saint Louis Billikens finished last season with a record of 10-21-1 where they competed in the Mid-America Collegiate Hockey Association with teams such as Mizzou, Missouri State, Iowa and Kansas. SLU finished in third place in the ten team league. Darren Helmkamp, who is stepping down as the head coach for personal reasons, will remain with the club as the General Manager and serve as an assistant coach. Helmkamp is excited about Ewen coming on board and noted, "We want to keep moving the program forward. Todd coming on as the head coach is definitely a move in that direction. I don't know of another ACHA program that has a former NHL Stanley Cup Champion as head coach."

With the team success in the win column last season and Ewen coming on board, the excitement is building. "We got a taste of winning this season and the guys want more," said Helmkamp. "We were within a few wins of winning the league and advancing to the regionals tournament. We've already seen a 50% increase in try-out numbers for next season and its only April."

Ewen shares Helmkamp's enthusiasm. "I'm honored to coach such a unique and historic university that has a rich hockey history. There is a huge opportunity to make Billikens hockey the place to get a great education and play high level hockey. We want to make all Saint Louis hockey players grow up wanting to play for the Billikens."

He was an asst. coach with them last year. Looks like he just swapped official positions with Helmkamp. No big deal.

How many games was Ewen on the bench last season? Wasn't he coaching a high school team?

GM Helmkamp needs to write the articles for the SLU website with a little more pride in program and less "spilt milk". Sounds like he has some hard on toward the St. Louis hockey community. He talks about how abused they've been (see below). Seems to me that they've done pretty well at the D1 and D2 club level no matter where they skated. But I guess if a "beautiful wood locker room" gets you a D2 championship well great, go for it. It hasn't worked for Missouri State. Wood locker room is that like a cedar closet or is it more like a hunting cabin, lol. Again, try to get a journalism major at SLU to write the articles for you Helmie. I do have to hand it to the GM and staff, they have found a way to get the players out to booze on Saturday nights earlier and during the weeks too, classic. Compare it to an NCAA practice schedule, really? Do you know what that kind of schedule looks like and what commitment comes with that? It doesn't include the off ice activities of club hockey teams and a 1:45 pm ice slot during the week for practice in St. Louis only means that they won't put you in better times after 3:00 pm because youth and high school teams start practicing. A practice that early will mean that college students won't be able to take a mid or late afternoon class or they will and just miss practice, that will work. You see in a NCAA D1 program they tend to practice whenever they want to and sometimes two and three a days. Oh yea, one other thing, real hockey teams report an entire schedule of game results not just the games that help them to look good. Report the other 14 losses on top of the 7 you only report. SLU was a .500 team when playing D2 teams. That's OK, just build on it through some hard work and commitment and see what happens. It may be good. All the other hoo-hah in your articles doesn't matter and it sure doesn't make anyone want to rush to the games.


The Billikens are now owners of a beautiful wood locker room during the college season at Webster. In the past, players carried the burden of storing their hockey bag in the limited space of college dorm rooms and apartments. The move will cut travel in half for the players who are used to driving 20-25 minutes each way to Affton. General Manager Darren Helmkamp thinks the move will give the program a boost. "Less travel and our own locker room will give SLU hockey an advantage over most programs when attracting prospective players. Programs like Missouri State who have these luxuries are able to use them to their advantage when convincing players to commit. We now have a place to take pride in and call our true home."

The team practice schedule has changed to look more like an NCAA Varsity program. Past teams were practicing at six in the morning and 10:00pm at night. Next season SLU will practice in the early afternoon at 1:45pm and 2:15pm.

SLU game times are now prime to attract more fans. Friday night home games wills start at 8pm. Saturday games will typically start at 1:45pm. "We've had trouble getting the community excited about our team because no one ever gets to see us play. Friday night games have traditionally started at 10pm, and later. Now we're able to invite youth/high school teams and alumni to the games at reasonable times." said Helmkamp.