KEARNEY, Neb. – On Tuesday afternoon the Tri-City Storm began a new era, announcing Jim Hulton as the sixth head coach in the franchise’s history at a press conference in front of local media and fellow staff members at the Viaero Event Center.

Hulton has a wealth of coaching experience at many levels, including his most recent position as an Assistant Coach with the Florida Panthers in the National Hockey League from 2008-2011.

In addition to his coaching duties, Hulton will also serve as general manager of the club and has signed an agreement that has him in place through the end of the 2013-14 season.

“I’m honored and excited to join the Tri-City Storm as the head coach,” Hulton said. “I’m excited to work with the group we have here and I’m really looking forward to creating a team that the people in the Tri-City area can be proud of. We want to be competitive, we want to be a hard team to play against and first and foremost we want to set our sights on a playoff spot.”

Before his stint with Florida, Hulton served as a coach in the OHL for 10 seasons. He got his first OHL head coaching experience midway through the 1998-99 season, taking over the Mississauga IceDogs program, and continued there until the conclusion of the 1999-00 year.

He then became the Head Coach of the Belleville Bulls for three seasons from 2000-03, and from there he led his hometown Kingston Frontenacs for three seasons from 2003-06. He spent the 2007-08 season as the Co-Coach/Assistant General Manager for the Mississauga St. Michael’s Majors, also in the OHL.

Hulton, 44-years-old, has coached many OHL players who have went on to NHL careers such as Jason Spezza, David Clarkson, Chris Stewart and Zac Rinaldo.

While with the Panthers, Hulton coached former Storm forward Bill Thomas along with countless other stars like Stephan Weiss, Radek Dvorak, Nathan Horton and Thomas Vokoun.

“We found Jim by talking to some very high level contacts throughout the industry and found that everyone had glowing endorsements about him,” said Tri-City Storm owner Kirk Brooks. “In Coach Hulton we’re getting a deeply experienced guy that has time on the bench in both the highest level of junior hockey in Canada and in the NHL with the Florida Panthers. Hulton will use his vast experience to further develop the talent we have on this team, but more importantly, he will drive and engineer better performance.”

 The announcement comes on the heels of Monday’s decision to relieve Josh Hauge of the head coaching duties after 15 games and a 4-9-2 record this season.

As a player, Hulton appeared in 128 games in the OHL for the Kitchener Rangers and Kingston Raiders during parts of three seasons from 1986-89.

In addition to his time coaching at both the major junior and professional levels, Hulton has international experience with Hockey Canada. He was the Assistant Coach for the 2002 Canadian National U-18 team and the Head Coach for the National U-18 team in 2003, before helping to coach the Canadian National Junior team in 2004 and 2005. The ’05 team was victorious, winning a Gold Medal.

Since his time with the Panthers, Hulton has resided in Kingston, Ontario with his wife and two hockey playing sons.

The Storm will hit the road once again this weekend for three games away from Kearney. Tri-City will face the Chicago Steel on Friday night at 7:30 p.m., and then continue on to Ann Arbor, Mich. to take on the USA 17-and-under team on both Saturday night at 7:00 and Sunday afternoon at 3:30 p.m.