Manny Viveiros set to return to the whl to fill vancouver's head coaching spot

(Vancouver Giants / Twitter)

The Vancouver Giants hit the ice on September 9 for some pre-season action, and now the club has a head coach ready to stand behind the bench. The Giants announced on social media earlier today that Manny Viveiros, ex-AHL Henderson Silver Knights bench boss, will be the new head coach for the Giants.

Manny Viveiros may be Vancouver’s new bench boss, but it's not the first time that he is in the Western Hockey League. The native of St. Albert, Alberta, played for the Prince Albert Raiders in the early 80s. He was a member of the 1985 Memorial Cup-winning Raiders. Viveiros would end up coaching one of the Saskatchewan-based WHL clubs years later, the Swift Current Broncos, before landing an assistant coaching position with the Edmonton Oilers. 

After one season with the Oilers, he was the head coach of the Spokane Chiefs during the 2019-20 season, which was cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the Spokane Chiefs, Viveiros and Giants assistant coach Adam Maglio, 37, got to work alongside each other. Maglio, set to help guide the Giants for a second season, worked with Viveiros to lead the Spokane Chiefs to a 41-18-4 record, placing the Chiefs in third place in the WHL. The pandemic cut that season short, and Viveiros would eventually be brought on as the head coach of the Henderson Silver Knights.

Manny Viveiros is coming to Vancouver after a three-year stint as Henderson’s bench boss. The Silver Knights are the farm team of the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights and agreed to mutually part ways with Viveiros with his contract having expired this June. Henderson finished the season with a 29-38-0–5 record, keeping them out of the playoffs.

Viveiros's WHL experiences and connections with past and present Giants coaches made him an ideal candidate for the head coaching position with Vancouver. He guided Swift Current to a WHL title during the 2017-18 campaign when he was also named the WHL coach of the year. His assistant coaches with the Broncos included Jamie Heward. Heward worked with Dyck with the Giants before working as an assistant under Viveiros with the Silver Knights.
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The Giants lost their most recent coach to the Toronto Marlies earlier this summer. The Michael Dyck coaching era officially ended with the Vancouver Giants on July 13. Dyck, hired by the Giants organization in 2018, accepted an assistant coaching position with the Toronto Marlies, the American Hockey League farm team of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
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As the head coach of the Giants, the team benefitted the most. From 2018-23, Dyck compiled a regular season record of 144-120-17-7 and a playoff record of 21-17 for Vancouver. On top of making it to the WHL Finals in 2019, Dyck also helped the Giants become the first number eight seed to defeat the number one seed in the opening round of the WHL playoffs when Vancouver eliminated the Everett Silvertips in six games in the 2022 post-season.
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Viveiros, Vancouver’s new bench boss, spent 16 years as a player and nine years as a coach in Europe before guiding the Swift Current Broncos. He played 29 games in the National Hockey League with the Minnesota North Stars. He should do a great job leading the NHL-drafted players on the Giants, including Sam Honzek and Jaden Lipinski, both selected by the Calgary Flames in this year’s NHL draft.

Vancouver hopes to turn the page on last season’s record of 28-32-5-3, which left them seventh in the 10-team West—their season concluded when the team was swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Kamloops Blazers.