Jones will join the coaching staff of new Ottawa head coach D.J. Smith

Former Soo Greyhounds defenceman and assistant coach Bob Jones will be behind the bench of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators this season.

Jones, who also lived in the Sault prior to playing for the Greyhounds, has been hired by the Senators as an assistant coach.

In Ottawa, the 49-year-old will be joining forces with a familiar face in new Senators coach D.J. Smith.

Jones and Smith worked together with the Ontario Hockey League’s Windsor Spitfires between 2007 and 2012. Smith left the Spitfires to become the head coach of the Oshawa Generals in 2012.

Jones remained with the Spitfires until the end of the 2014-15 season when he left the team to take over as coach of the Generals, a position left vacant when Smith joined the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Jones spent the 2018-19 season as an assistant coach with the American Hockey League’s Texas Stars before joining the Senators this summer.

Jones’ coaching resume includes stops as an assistant coach with the Greyhounds from 1995 to 1999, one season as an assistant coach with the Brampton Battalion (1999-2000), four seasons as an associate coach with the Toronto St. Michael’s Majors from 2000 to 2004, and three seasons as an assistant coach with the Sudbury Wolves (2004 to 2007).

As a member of the Greyhounds blueline, Jones played 223 games with the team between 1985 and 1990.