Gary Agnew has the distinction of being the only coach in Kingston franchise history to lead a team to a Division Championship, as he coached the 1994-95 Kingston Frontenacs to an impressive 40-19-7 record to capture the Leyden Division Regular Season Championship. Agnew helped David Ling win the Canadian Hockey Player of the Year Award that season and had other Kingston greats and future NHLers in the line-up such as Keli Corpse, Chad Kilger, Brett Lindros, Marc Moro and Tyler Moss to name a few. Agnew engineered a 94-85-19 record over three seasons as coach of the Frontenacs and both prior to arriving in Kingston and upon leaving Kingston he was coach of the London Knights. Four years prior to coming and three years after leaving, twice winning OHL Coach of the Year honors. In total, Agnew coached 664 regular season games in the OHL, with a combined 329-276-53-6 record .

Today Gary Agnew is still coaching and has done quite well for himself in that department. He is currently the Assistant Coach to Ken Hitchcock with the NHL’s Columbus Blue Jackets. Prior to joining the Blue Jackets, Agnew was the Head Coach of the Syracuse Crunch of the American Hockey League, compiling a record of 220-177-43-40 in 480 career AHL Coaching games.

Gary and his wife Barb live in Dublin, Ohio and have two kids, 15 year-old Lindsay and 19 year-old Brett. Brett is currently playing Junior “A” hockey in Kingston, for the Tier Two Kingston Voyageurs and having a productive season to date with 16 goals and 34 points on the season.

“I have a lot of great memories from my three years in Kingston. First and foremost being the fact that my daughter Lindsay was born there. As Don Cherry would say, she’s a Kingston gal through and through,” said Agnew. “We also had a tremendous staff while I was there. We had Chris Macdonald and Shawn Babcock as Assistant Coaches and Bobby Clarke as the trainer plus Lenny Coyle and the billet coordinator Arlene Adams. They were all wonderful people to work with and put a lot of hard work into the organization and we couldn’t have done  what we did without them,” said Agnew.

“I have lots of great memories from my time in Kingston and beating Oshawa on the final night of the regular season to clinch the division championship is right at the top of the list. I still watch the video highlights from that every once in awhile,” said Agnew. “Some of the other highlights I have, were David Ling’s 61 goal season that saw him named the CHL Player of the Year, Tyler Moss winning the goalie of the year award, Brett Lindros scoring 24 goals and 23 assists for 47 points in just 24 games and the fact that we made the playoffs all three years we were there,” said Agnew.

“I also had a great working relationship with our owner at the time, Mr. Wren Blair. I really enjoyed working with him. He was a very passionate man for the game of hockey,” said Agnew.

“Last season in Columbus was very special for me as well, as it was the first time in franchise history that we were able to make the playoffs,” said Agnew. “The other great memory I have, isn’t necessarily a Kingston memory, but coaching London in the OHL final series in 1998-99 that went 7 games against Belleville. It was just a very intense and hard fought series,” said Agnew.

“We just really had a great time in Kingston, especially our neighbors on Apple Down Dr. They were fantastic,” finished up the former Head Coach of the Kingston Frontenacs 1994-95 Leyden Division Regular Season Champions, Gary Agnew