What a hockey operations coordinator does

A hockey operations coordinator handles a team’s logistics. At NHL clubs that means booking travel for the whole season, handling visas and immigration paperwork for players and staff, running camps, and answering requests from players’ families. In college hockey the job can also include the budget and the video, as it does at North Dakota. Most of the people we traced got in as student managers, video staff, equipment staff or interns.

What the job covers at an NHL club

NHL clubs rarely use the word coordinator for this job. The Avalanche call it director of team services and immigration, the Wild and Golden Knights call it hockey administration. All three people below handle immigration paperwork for their club.

Erin DeGraff holds the Colorado job. According to a 2022 NHL.com profile, she handles immigration for the whole organization, including visas, and plans team travel for the full season. She also runs development camp and training camp, supports day-to-day hockey operations, and deals with the vendors for team events.

Taylor Cashman, the Wild’s manager of hockey administration, described her job to NHL.com in 2023 as part event planner, part travel agent and part immigration specialist. She handles the logistics for tournaments and camps, and the requests come from everywhere: management, scouts, players, players’ families and coaches.

In Vegas, director of hockey administration Katy Boettinger handles immigration for international players and staff and works for general manager Kelly McCrimmon and George McPhee, the club said in 2025. She is also the contact for players’ families and helps new players settle in Las Vegas.

The same job in college hockey

College programs call it director of hockey operations, and it covers more. North Dakota’s Patrick Swanson oversees the program’s budget and spending, books travel, and runs video analysis and scouting breakdowns on top of daily operations.

Chris Demczuk, now director of hockey operations at Colorado College, did the same mix earlier in his career. As Penn State women’s hockey’s director of operations he coordinated travel and meals, ran video, and helped the coaches before and after games. With the AHL’s Stockton Heat he ran video, oversaw the team’s operating budget, coordinated travel, and helped visiting teams with their video and practice needs.

If video already interests you, our video and analytics jobs are the closest live roles to this work, since several people below came in that way.

When the title means league and association work

At a provincial governing body the title covers different work. Hockey PEI advertised a permanent hockey operations coordinator job in September 2026, reporting to the executive director. The duties were league setup and scheduling, member communications, committee meetings, formal complaints, and support for the Hockey Canada Registry, coach and official certification, and safe sport rules.

That posting asked for post-secondary study in sport management, business or a related field, comfort with software and social media, a criminal record check, and evening and weekend availability. Read the duties on any posting with this title before you apply, because the same words cover a team travel job and an association admin job.

How people got the job

The clearest coordinator story is Michael Chan’s. The Oilers said he was the Edmonton Oil Kings’ video coach and hockey operations coordinator from 2017 to 2020, then spent five seasons as the club’s director of scouting. In May 2026 the Oilers named him the Oil Kings’ president and general manager. Any Oil Kings openings we list are on the Oil Kings page.

Dara Festinger did internships with the Vancouver Giants and the CFL and worked in analytics and video for the UBC Thunderbirds while at university. She volunteered with the Victoria Royals during the WHL’s hub season, joined full time in 2021-22 as manager of hockey operations and analysis, and was promoted to director of hockey operations in 2024. The WHL page lists jobs across the league.

Others started as student managers or in equipment rooms. Swanson was a North Dakota student manager while he earned a business management degree, then ran equipment rooms in Rockford and Cincinnati and at North Dakota before moving to hockey operations in 2010-11. Demczuk started as a student assistant manager at Penn State. R.J. Harris worked at Pure Hockey, spent two seasons with the USHL’s Tri-City Storm, then took his first pro job in 2025 as the ECHL Iowa Heartlanders’ equipment manager and assistant director of hockey operations. Northern Michigan hired him as director of hockey operations in August 2026. Our guide to becoming an NHL equipment manager covers that first step.

USA Hockey runs a formal entry point, the Brendan Burke Internship. It lasts 10 months, is aimed at recent graduates who want hockey operations careers, and covers the National Team Development Program, the US national teams, and international events and camps. The 15th intern, Emilie Pelletier, had been UMass Boston’s men’s hockey team manager, where she handled recruiting and alumni messages, game day work, video editing and travel.

Degrees vary. DeGraff studied sports entertainment and event management, Cashman kinesiology, Boettinger English, and Demczuk journalism. Swanson, Demczuk, Festinger and Pelletier all worked for a university team while they studied.

Where the job leads

Several assistant general managers came up through hockey operations. Bill Scott, now the Oilers’ assistant general manager for hockey operations, has three seasons as the ECHL’s manager of hockey operations and four as the AHL’s director of hockey operations on his club bio, and he was general manager of the AHL’s Oklahoma City Barons from 2010 to 2014. He also worked for Michigan State’s team while earning his degree there. His Oilers duties include contracts, scheduling, salary arbitration, the salary cap, and talking to the NHL about the collective bargaining agreement.

Michael Murray joined the Wild in 2020-21 as assistant to the general manager, then ran the AHL Iowa Wild as director of hockey operations and general manager for three seasons. Minnesota promoted him to assistant general manager in 2024, handling scheduling, NHL transactions and contract research. Charlie Townsend, the Sharks’ director of hockey operations, was also named assistant general manager of the AHL San Jose Barracuda in October 2026, working on contracts, recalls and reassignments.

League offices hire from clubs too. In 2025 the AHL hired Jeff Jordan, who had been manager of hockey operations for the Springfield Thunderbirds, as its director of hockey operations and central registry. Current openings with AHL clubs are on our AHL page.

What it pays

We found one posted pay range we could open on the employer’s own site. Hockey PEI listed $44,000 to $55,000 for its coordinator job, based on a 37.5 hour week and depending on education and experience.

We found no NHL, AHL or junior club that publishes pay for its hockey operations staff. Several university postings for director of hockey operations listed pay ranges, but every one had been taken down by the time we checked, so we have left their figures out. If a posting shows a range, use it. If it does not, ask before you accept.

Where to look now

In most of the careers above, the first job was a student, intern, video or equipment role, and the hockey operations title came later. Those entry jobs are the ones to watch: college team manager roles, junior club video and equipment work, and internships like USA Hockey’s.

Live roles appear in our operations jobs list and on the NHL page. If you run a team and need help in hockey operations, you can post the job free.