After playing professional hockey the last five years and developing players the last two spring seasons while coaching AAA hockey in the Detroit area, McCrimmon decided that it was time to move on with his life and begin to coach.
“It was just time to move on from playing hockey professionally and the River Bandits provided that opportunity for me,” said McCrimmon. “This is the River Bandits’ inaugural season and we are looking to get our season off to a great start.”
"Jason is a person that we had great interest in,” added Holland general manager Deveri Del Core. “His reputation as a player development coach is well known in the Detroit area and his experience as both a player and coach will bring a wealth of knowledge to our players. We were very excited to get Jason in town to begin assembling our team.
"We are equally excited about Jason’s depth of knowledge in the game of hockey for such a young coach. With Jason having recently completed college and playing professional hockey, he has numerous connections throughout the hockey community. This network will give our players the opportunity to be seen, scouted and eventually move on to higher levels of hockey.”
Born and raised in Detroit, McCrimmon played youth hockey for the Detroit Rockies out of the Jack Adams Ice Arena. He then played Junior A hockey for Belle Tire Lightning of the Continental Elite Hockey League before going on to play NCAA Division III hockey at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. While there, McCrimmon was awarded ECAC East player of the week honors on one occasion, while majoring in business administration and minoring in sports marketing.
After college, McCrimmon played two years of professional hockey in Europe and was named captain of Hela–Kiekko in Finland. He also skated in the Central Hockey League and International Hockey League, ending his career last season after a stint with the Danbury Whalers of the Federal Hockey League.
McCrimmon began coaching and has found joy in knowing that this would be a great way to give back to a game that gave him so much, enabling him to pass on his knowledge to up-and-coming players. He owns his own hockey development school, Iceman Corporate Enterprises. This school focuses on giving underprivileged players in the inner city of Detroit the opportunity to play ice hockey.
Working with and training players from Mites on up to college-level in all aspects of proper skating techniques, off-ice training and nutrition, McCrimmon has also trained with players such as Ryan Kesler (Vancouver Canucks), James Wisniewski (Columbus Blue Jackets) and Fedor Fedorov (Kontinental Hockey League). McCrimmon knows that having worked with these players in the past will aid the River Bandits players with their development to achieve higher levels of hockey.
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