With the first 10 of 2,094 CHL games in the books, it’s time to get back to my winter job, covering the CHL.

Schedule makers are working hard on our Friday Night Hockey schedule and, once it’s released, you’ll be able to find it right here in the midst of Coz for Thought. Look for an early November start to our season and don’t forget the ever popular Subway Super Series.

Because the QMJHL is the first of the three leagues to start, that’s where we’ll kick off the first edition of Coz for Thought. And we’ll begin in the coaching ranks.

The coaching carousel was sent into full swing when Patrick Roy left the Quebec Remparts for the Colorado Avalanche.

Here’s how the dust settled with a coaching capsule of each team in the Q:

Acadie-Bathurst Titan

Danny Dupont has the toughest job in the QMJHL. He and the Titan will never be able to completely overcome the loss of 16-year-old Jordan Boyd, who passed away suddenly during training camp. Dupont will have the challenge of using Boyd’s passing as a motivation, while showing the utmost respect to the Boyd family.

Dupont and the Titan would be best served to seek the guidance of the Windsor Spitfires, who continue to do an amazing job remembering and respecting the life of Mickey Renaud.

Dupont should be helped with new ownership and stronger, more supportive input from general manager Sylvain Couturier. It helps that Dupont got a few months on the job last year, he should be much more comfortable in his surroundings.

Baie-Comeau Drakkar

Eric Veilleux tried like crazy to get an AHL job during the off-season, and he was definitely in consideration, but it did not come to fruition. The diminutive bench boss two years removed from a MasterCard Memorial Cup title will once again use this season as a proving ground to why he deserves a shot in the pros.

Blainville-Bosibriand Armada

J.F. Houle returns with a program that has been built properly from the ground up. He set the tone with his handling of Stefan Matteau Jr. last season and, more importantly, got support from ownership and management in doing so.

Stephane Matteau Sr. will no longer be behind the bench as an assistant coach. I would expect the continuation of a hands-on approach from GM and part owner Joel Bouchard.

Houle deserves full marks for sticking to his principles in a situation that had a lot of moving parts.

Cape Breton Screaming Eagles

The fan base is screaming for a winner again and it will be up to Marc-Andre Dumont to provide one. Dumont was dismissed from his job in Val d’Or early last season only to be out of work for about two months before assuming his duties in Cape Breton.

Dumont has already made his mark, having dealt first overall pick Nicolas Roy to Chicoutimi, leaving no excuses with a young team and a bevy of future picks. Dumont must learn to take his foot off the pedal so as not to lose this young group that will be prone to mistakes due to inexperience.

Charlottetown Islanders

New ownership, a new GM and a contract extension for head coach Gordie Dwyer should help revitalize a franchise that has been on the brink of relocation for as long as anyone can remember.

Dwyer is an up-and-coming coach in the Q, he’s bilingual, tough but fair and has the makings to be a pro coach in the not so distant future. Dwyer has left an indelible mark on Hockey Canada with his participation in various events.

Hometown boy Connor Cameron is a nice addition to the staff as the franchise tries to remake its reputation with a local flavour.

Chicoutimi Sagueneens

Patrice Bosch takes over from Marc-Etienne Hubert, whose tumultuous tenure comes to an end in Chicoutimi. The intense Hubert was steadfast in how he wanted things run, and that did not always sit well with his players (see Jeremy Gregoire).

Bosch worked as an assistant to Eric Veilleux last season in Baie-Comeau and that experience will be valuable in his first year running a bench in the Q.

Drummondville Voltigeurs

General manager Dominic Ricard went back to the future when he hired Martin Raymond as the Volts new head coach.

Raymond, a long-time friend of former Tampa Bay bench boss Guy Boucher, replaces Mario Duhamel, who in-turn replaced Boucher when he bolted for the NHL.

Duhamel was one of two QMJHL coaches to leave for the Colorado Avalanche to work under Patrick Roy. Duhamel was a task master whose teams often played right on the edge, occasionally crossing it.

Raymond should favour a more up-tempo style of game with some coaching wrinkles learned along the way with his stints in the NHL and AHL. The former McGill head coach is a perfect fit for Drummondville.

Gatineau Olympiques

Benoit Groulx is the godfather of the Q. He resisted temptation to work for Patrick Roy and for good reason. Groulx has full control in Gatineau, which is the most comfortable place for one of the game’s best coaches.

After a try in the AHL, Groulx is bound and determined to get his team back into the President’s Cup. He fully deserves to be in the NHL as a head man, at the very least as an assistant.

For now, however, he will have to bide his time guiding a talented, on-the-rise Olympiques squad with another taste as Brent Sutter’s assistant at the World Juniors.

Halifax Moosheads

This year will provide a formidable proving ground for Dominique Ducharme. He brilliantly guided his team to a MasterCard Memorial Cup last year. The Moosheads will return a good portion of the 2013 Championship team but they will likely be without the services of Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin.

A solid defensive corps and likely the most talented goaltender in all the CHL may force Ducharme to change the way his team plays. That challenge will prove whether or not Ducharme is ready to make his next coaching step.

Moncton Wildcats

Darren Rumble returns to the Maritimes and he’s as involved a coach as there is in the game. He’s trimmed his staff to just Fabian Joseph and if things go sideways for the Cats, owner Robert Irving will have only one finger to point, and that will be in the direction of Rumble.

Rumble sat patiently as an assistant to Steve Konowalchuk in Seattle and is well-versed in guiding a young team. Rumble is a no BS kind of guy whose mark was felt immediately. There are few coaches more prepared than the one Rumble replaced (Danny Flynn), but a change of scenery from the player perspective may turn out to be a positive as Flynn moves into a player personnel role.

Quebec Remparts

One of the big shockers wasn’t Patrick Roy leaving for Colorado, but Philippe Boucher hired as his replacement. Boucher was brilliant putting together arch rival Rimouski that should contend for a title this season, but the lure of being behind the bench was one Boucher could not turn down.

There are two schools of thought about the Remparts job: 1) Does anyone have big enough shoes to fill those left behind by Patrick Roy? or 2) Is there a better market in the CHL to be a head coach?

Boucher should relish the role and there’s a lot to like about what Patrick left behind, especially assistant coach Martin Laperriere.

Rimouski Oceanic

Serge Beausoleil is as polarizing a figure as you will find in the game, but he was schooled last year by the wily old vet Benoit Groulx.

Groulx and the Olympiques upset the Oceanic in round one last year (4 vs. 13 matchup) after Beausoleil started a war of words in the media. As well-versed in sports psychology as Beausoleil is, he surely learned a lesson or two from that upset playoff exit.

Expectations can do interesting things to a hockey club, and the Oceanic’s expectations are sky-high.

Rouyn-Noranda Huskies

Last May I sat with former Huskies head coach Andre Tourigny and he claimed he had the best job with the best owners in the CHL. Well paid and with full control of player personnel, it was hard to argue with him.

However, just like the players in the CHL, coaches are looking to make the jump to the NHL, and when good friend Patrick Roy came calling, Tourigny couldn’t turn down the offer.

For the last 11 years, all the community has ever known is Tourigny. His replacement, Gilles Bouchard, burst onto the CIS scene returning the UQTR program to prominence at last year’s CIS University Cup in just his first year.

He exudes a quiet confidence, and if the Huskies buy in the same way the university-aged players did, the Huskies will come out of this just fine. He brings with him the energetic Simon Nadeau which will allow for a smoother transition.

I am concerned about Bouchard undertaking the GM role in addition to his head coaching duties for a coach who will participate in his third league in three years.

Saint John Sea Dogs

Mike Kelly was left to pick up the pieces after back-to-back Memorial Cup appearances in 2011 and 2012. There wasn’t much left in the cupboard after 2012, and slowly, Kelly is building a winner at Harbour Station.

He’s well tenured as a bench boss, is masterful at recruiting and generally players like playing for him. Ross Yates is more than capable as an assistant with playing and coaching experience in the NHL.

Shawinigan Cataractes

The MasterCard Memorial Cup hangover from 2012 lasted longer than GM Martin Mondou expected. He and then coach Eric Veilleux had a strained relationship to say the least, but hey, you can’t argue against winning hockey’s toughest trophy.

Mondou wanted to put his own stamp on the club and hired Denis Chalifoux, but that relationship also deteriorated to the point where Chalifoux stepped down. Mondou’s second crack at replacing Veilleux comes in the form of Martin Bernard.

Bernard held the head job in Victoriaville prior to Yanick Jean and most recently comes from a sold Midget AAA program in Magog.

Sherbrooke Phoenix

Judes Vallee is in year two after making the jump from Midget AAA. Expansion franchises are never easy, and oftentimes the first coach of an expansion team can set the tone (good or bad) for the longevity of an organization. Being a playoff team in year one was a good start, but now the real work begins.

Val D’Or Foreurs

Mario Durocher is the most traveled coach in the league. When does well-traveled cross over into can’t hold a job?

Right now, it’s somewhere in between.

Victoriaville Tigres

There seems to be great synergy between GM Jerome Mesonero and head coach Yanick Jean. Jean returns for a seventh season in Victoriaville.

While the regular season hasn’t been an issue for him, the post-season has not been kind to Jean. The good news is he’s made the playoffs in each of those seven seasons, but has advanced to the third round just once.

Jean was propped up by Patrick Roy two years ago during the Subway Super Series and is still learning to manage the gas pedal. He’s extremely dedicated and has a great work ethic.