Minnesota Swarm officially announce Mike Lines as new head coach

August 6th, 2009 by Paul Tutka

New Minnesota Swarm head coach, Mike Lines.

As implied a couple weeks back, not only was Mike Lines the front runner for the Minnesota Swarm’s head coaching spot earlier this off-season, the franchise officially announced Lines’ promotion as their bench boss yesterday.

“Mike’s a familiar face in our organization, so he was a real popular choice with our players and myself. The Arlotta’s really felt that Mike was a big part of the good things that were going on last year, and we all felt that Mike was ready for this challenge,” said Swarm GM Marty O’Neill via the team’s press release.

Lines had previously served as an assistant coach with the Swarm the previous three season, an immediate favourite for the head coaching role in Minnesota right after Dewey Jacobs stepped down from his position with the club.

“It’s exciting. I’m really looking forward to getting the season started. It’s going to be good,” said Lines. “We don’t have a lot to change actually. We’re just going to try to bring in a little more size and a little more speed defensively and work to be more consistent on offense. We’ll be better next year.”

The Swarm had earlier made some pretty substantial off-season moves, dealing away long time Minny forward, Ryan Ward, along with Justin Norbraten and dispersal draft pickups, Scott Stewart and Richard Morgan, to the Edmonton Rush, in exchange for Ryan Benesch, Scott Self and the Rush’s first round pick in the upcoming entry draft.

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