Outgoing Blazers GM Matt Bardsley posing with his now five-year-old daughter Brooke before the family came to Kamloops (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

MATT BARDSLEY

Being closer to family in Portland reason for Bardsley’s departure from Kamloops

May 25, 2021 | 5:24 PM

KAMLOOPS — When Matt Bardsley arrived in Kamloops in June 2018, the Blazers needed a refresh and felt he was their man.

In three years’ work, Bardsley has not disappointed as the GM, turning the team into a two-time division champion and closer to a Memorial Cup contender.

“He had made so many good trades last year,” said Blazers President and COO Don Moores. “Before COVID hit, we had a really good team. He picked up a couple guys, especially as far as defensemen go, that made us stronger. We were poised to take a real run at the division and possibly the Memorial Cup.”

Coming to Kamloops — and building a quality hockey team — was a dream come true for Bardsley.

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“It’s been phenomenal. To actually be able to be a general manager in the Western Hockey League is such a privilege,” Bardsley told CFJC Today. “I worked a lot of years in Portland. It wasn’t easy to leave Portland, but to come to Kamloops, I knew it was a great organization, real good ownership, great alumni — just everything I wanted to be part of.”

However, at the end of the day, the distance between his family, and his wife Stacy’s family, in Portland was simply too much, especially with tight cross-border travel restrictions around COVID-19.

“When we came here in 2018, we had planned to make this our home for many years,” Bardsley noted. “And then unfortunately with COVID, it’s now, for almost a year and a half, it’s changed a lot of things and changed some decisions for us — none more so than just having to make a decision to move back to the States for our kids.”

The Bardsleys have a five-year-old daughter Brooke and a two-year-old son Vince, who was born in Kamloops. They miss their grandparents back home.

While it’s strictly a family decision — and the Bardsleys won’t regret that — Matt feels torn about leaving a team that he’s helped put together.

“I’m going to miss it a lot. It’s going to be really hard. I’m really big into relationships. You get to know the players, the families, staff, media, everybody,” he said. “It’s become our home, and so that’s really hard. It’s really hard to leave because the team is in a really good place right now — on the ice, off the ice — and it’s trending in the right direction.”

Bardsley is officially finished with the Blazers at the end of June, at which time the family will move back to Portland. Even hundreds of kilometres away, he’ll be keeping a close eye on the team’s success — which he absolutely sees in the near and distant future.

Bardsley doesn’t have another job lined up at this point, but if a hockey job emerges within the U.S. at the right time when his family settles, he’ll jump on it.

“We know we can go back to Portland and spend time with family, but if there’s a job down in the States that requires us to live somewhere else, then we would certainly look at that, too,” he said. “You’re still fairly mobile. Because of where [COVID] is at in the U.S., you can travel more freely.”

There is a GM opening in Everett where the Silvertips parted ways with Garry Davidson last week. Bardsley simply says “not sure what is next for me at this time.”