Building PWHL San Jose’s first coaching staff meant looking beyond familiar résumés for Troy Ryan. With Uffe Lundberg and Jessica Turi, Ryan found two coaches whose paths through hockey offer something different from his own.
Uffe Lundberg and Troy Ryan spent years on opposite benches.
Now, the two will be on the same one in San Jose.
Ryan spent much of his time with Hockey Canada coaching against Lundberg, who was behind Sweden’s bench. That made Lundberg a familiar choice when Ryan, who is also PWHL San Jose's general manager, began putting together the first coaching staff in PWHL San Jose history, but his international résumé wasn't the only thing that made him appealing.
“There are many different things on the checklist that you’re looking for,” Ryan said to The Hockey News when discussing his coaching bench.
For Lundberg, Ryan already had a sense of what he was getting.
The two had crossed paths repeatedly in international hockey, giving Ryan the chance to watch Lundberg coach rather than simply evaluate him through an interview.
“I got to build a bit of a relationship with [Uffe] during my time with Canada’s national program.” Ryan said about his history with Lundberg “The value for me is I know the type of coach he is from coaching against him, I know what he values, very player driven and player oriented.”
Lundberg spent the 2020-26 Olympic cycle as head coach of Sweden’s women’s national team and has coached both men’s and women’s hockey. But Ryan said his familiarity with Lundberg as a coach was more important than the résumé.
That was part of what Ryan wanted in San Jose. He also liked that Lundberg came from a different hockey system.
Ryan has spent much of his career in Canadian hockey, including his work with Hockey Canada and the Canadian national program. Lundberg's coaching background was shaped in Sweden, giving him a different perspective on player development and the game itself.
“There’s another component for me as a coach where I like the fact of bringing in someone who has come up through a different development system than what I came up through in Canada,” Ryan said.
Ryan wasn't looking for Lundberg to simply fit into the way he already does things. He wanted another voice in the room.
That was especially true given Lundberg’s own ambitions. Lundberg has aspirations of becoming a PWHL head coach. Ryan sees helping him get there as part of the job.
“He aspires to be a head coach in the league, so I would love to help him with that,” Ryan said.
Ryan is already thinking about what could happen beyond Lundberg’s time in San Jose.
“I think as much as a lot of people look at development opportunities as for players, I think there’s some value in providing development opportunities for your staff as well,” Ryan said. “If in a year, two, three years he becomes a head coach in the PWHL, I would be very happy with that because hopefully it’s partially due to his time he spent in San Jose.”
The second assistant Ryan hired, Jessica Turi, took a very different route into coaching.
That was part of the appeal, too.
“Jess Turi,” Ryan said. “It might sound funny but she reminds me of my journey into coaching.”
Ryan's own career wasn't built around a traditional path to the highest levels of the sport. Instead of a career in hockey followed by a transition to coaching, he came up through coaching opportunities in the MJAHL before switching to women’s hockey coaching at the collegiate level and with Hockey Canada on the international stage.
Turi has followed a similarly unconventional non-player route, with experience in U SPORTS, Hockey Canada development programs and international hockey. After starting her coaching career with the Etobicoke Dolphins, she spent time as an assistant coach for York University and the University of Toronto, with a year coaching for the Toronto Six in 2022-23 in between.
Ryan's first conversations with Turi weren't necessarily about where she had been. They were about where she wanted to go.
“Some of my first conversations with her were her just wanting an opportunity,” Ryan said.
Ryan wanted to know what other coaches thought of Turi before making the decision. He spoke with people who had worked with her, including Vicky Sunohara, who had also worked with Ryan in Toronto.
One quality kept coming up.
“The one thing that kept surfacing for me about my conversations regarding her was her ability to communicate with staff and athletes,” Ryan said.
That was important to Ryan as San Jose prepares to build a team from scratch.
“We have a new team, new group of staff, new group of players, and her ability to make connections, build relationships, and kind of communicate is going to be vital,” Ryan said.
Turi will bring a different set of experiences into the coaching room than Lundberg.
Lundberg has spent years coaching internationally and working within the Swedish hockey system. Turi's career has included university hockey and development programs. Ryan brings his own background in Canadian hockey and international competition.
That's a combination Ryan wanted.
He could have built a staff of coaches whose careers looked more like his own. Instead, he went in the other direction.
Ryan has talked about development often throughout his career, but he doesn't see it as something reserved for players.
That applies to Turi, too.
“She just needs an opportunity and I love that we were able to provide her with that opportunity,” Ryan said.
Now, all three coaches have to figure out what San Jose hockey is going to look like.
There is no previous season to draw from. No established coaching culture. No history between the organization and its players. They will have to build it themselves.
Ryan has chosen two assistants who can help him do that without simply repeating what he already knows.
Lundberg has been on the other side of the international rivalry. Turi has taken a less traditional path through the coaching ranks.
For Ryan, that appears to be exactly the point.
He didn't need two coaches who looked like him. He needed two who could bring something he didn't have.
