Spencer Carbery of Victoria is certainly doing a good job of it for a guy who says he had “no plans” to follow his father into coaching as a career.

Carbery has been named the head coach of the Saginaw Spirit of the Ontario Hockey League. The move to major-junior comes after five seasons in the pro ranks as head coach and director of hockey operations for the South Carolina Stingrays of the ECHL.

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“It’s a new challenge to be developing younger kids,” said Carbery, by phone.

“But it’s a lot of the same stuff because the players in the ECHL are mostly 21-24 and out of major-junior or the NCAA.”

Carbery was 207-115-38 in the regular season in South Carolina and continues to show he is a rising bench star to be watched.

“I didn’t even think about doing this [coaching] until I was approached [late in his playing career],” said the graduate of Claremont Secondary.

Carbery was named head coach of the Stingrays at only 29 years of age, the youngest head coach in pro hockey, and went on to be named winner of the John Brophy Award as 2013-14 ECHL coach of the year. He guided the Stingrays to the 2015 league playoff final, losing the Kelly Cup in the seventh-and-deciding game to the Allen Americans. He took South Carolina to the conference final this spring. He made the playoffs in all five seasons with the Stingrays.

“The progression his team made over the last five years in South Carolina is remarkable,” said Spirit GM Dave Drinkill, in a statement.

Carbery learned from the best source. His dad, Bryan Carbery, is the retired head coach of the University of Victoria golf team and guided the Vikes to four RCGA Canadian university titles in his 13 years at the helm.

Spencer Carbery was a junior golf whiz himself at Uplands, winning the Greater Victoria age-group golf title at 14. But his first love was on the ice, where he played for Saanich Minor Hockey, the Racquet Club, Peninsula Panthers of the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League and Cowichan Valley Capitals of the BCHL.

It’s ironic that Carbery has been tabbed to coach major-junior since he went the NCAA collegiate route as a player at Alaska-Anchorage and later St. Norbert College before a pro playing career in the ECHL, culminating with a Kelly Cup title with South Carolina in 2009. Now he must convince prospects to not go NCAA but play in the OHL at Saginaw, which is a city in central Michigan.

There is some rebuilding to do there. The Spirit were 24-37-7 last season and swept 4-0 by the Erie Otters in the first round of the playoffs.

“I’m excited by the challenge,” said Carbery, 34, who becomes the third-youngest coach in the OHL.

“I’m going to be coaching younger players, some of whom will go on to the NHL, others on to the minors in the AHL and ECHL, some to the CIS, and some who will be done with hockey after junior. It’s a matter of blending that all together into a winning group. My philosophy is: Whatever your level, be as good as you can be in it.”

Even if he went into coaching unexpectedly, Carbery now knows firmly what he wants out of it: “My immediate goal is to bring a winning culture to Saginaw. My long-term goal is to one day coach in the NHL.”

This is the kind of guy who might just get there.

cdheensaw@timescolonist.com