Patrick Williams, TheAHL.com Features Writer
Not even two weeks removed from their confetti-soaked celebration, the work has barely stopped for Toronto Marlies general manager Ryan Hardy and the rest of the management group behind the 2026 Calder Cup champions.
Hardy, who joined the organization in 2021 following a successful stint with the United States Hockey League’s Chicago Steel, is joined by Mike Dixon, the director of minor league operations and assistant general manager of the Marlies since 2017.
The Maple Leafs have an extensive player development staff. Long-time NHL defenseman Mark Giordano is with the Marlies as a coaching advisor, taking on an even bigger role after Marlies assistant coach Steve Sullivan was added to the Leafs’ coaching staff in December. Goaltending coach Hannu Toivonen managed the impressive duo of Artur Akhtyamov and Dennis Hildeby. It was Akhtyamov who took over the team’s number-one job early in the postseason on his way to winning the Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as the most valuable player of the Calder Cup Playoffs.
Success means opportunities arise elsewhere. Every team wants winners, and the Marlies are winners. Assistant coach Michael Dyck was hired last week as head coach and general manager of the WHL’s Vancouver Giants. And more departures are likely when free agency opens on Wednesday. Decisions remain on the organization’s restricted and unrestricted free agents. Potential AHL contracts, something that the organization has long utilized heavily, must be sorted out.
But even the busiest of to-do lists doesn’t preclude slowing down for a bit to celebrate the win and, perhaps more importantly, to pay tribute to the many people who put these players in position to win the Calder Cup.
Hardy, Dixon, head coach John Gruden and the rest of the group that helped to guide the Marlies in one way or another are key figures in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. But MLSE is mammoth. Its holdings beyond the Leafs and Marlies include – but are not limited to – the NBA’s Toronto Raptors, MLS club Toronto FC, arenas, facilities, restaurants and real estate.
It could be easy for players, coaches, front-office and support staff and others to get lost in such a gigantic business structure. From building operations to marketing to ticketing and every other area of an AHL front office, it takes a well-run operation to back a team. The front office hustled to make sure that the Marlies packed in three standing-room crowds at Coca-Cola Coliseum in the middle of June – with FIFA effectively taking over the Exhibition Place grounds that house the Marlies’ rink as well as BMO Field next door. They have two bus drivers to handle the team’s travel needs. Play-by-play broadcaster Todd Crocker and media relations coordinator Kate Bascom accompany the Marlies each season around the AHL map.
On and on it goes when building out a championship operation, whether that’s something on the ice, selling tickets, working with community partners or driving a bus through the night.
Hardy wanted to make it known that this Calder Cup championship also came down to effort off the ice.
“When I came here five years ago, I’ve got some different ways of doing things,” Hardy said at the Marlies’ championship celebration last week. “But what was important to me is inside of this corporate behemoth, I wanted to run a mom-and-pop shop. And I wanted families to matter, and I wanted people to matter. The staff that I’ve had working with me for the last five years is incredible. [They] make the Marlies go every day.”
Hardy’s plaudits extended right to the players’ significant others and families as well. He recalled forward Brandon Baddock’s wife, Hannah, hosting a baby shower early in the season.
“When you win, every single person matters,” Hardy continued. “It’s important to make every single person matter.”
Building those types of personal connections at this level does not come easy. Players are competing for roster spots, ice time and NHL recalls. Roster turnover means that a collection of players – and the people who come with those players – show up in the fall, often as strangers. Baddock’s career has taken him to five AHL stops. He had opted to re-sign with the Marlies last summer even though playing time might be limited. As it was, he played 20 regular-season games and did not dress in the postseason. But a team-first approach from the Baddocks helped the Marlies to come together as a group.
“This journey has been a journey of the soul, to find a level of love and to find the greatness in a bunch of underdogs, a bunch of forgotten guys, a bunch of guys that are sometimes disrespected, and to see the great in them, and then to build an ecosystem with families where everyone mattered and where the hockey team was more important than any individual,” Hardy said.
“That’s what we sought to do, and that is what we did.”
