Graham Thomas is in his fifth season as the head coach of the UBC Thunderbirds women's hockey team. In his time at UBC, Thomas has built the Thunderbirds into one of the premiere programs in Canadian Internuniversity Sport.
Thomas was named the CIS and Canada West Coach of the Year in 2012-13, his first season at UBC, He led the Thunderbirds on an improbable run from a one-win team in 2011-12 to Canada West champions in 2012-13. It was the greatest turnaround in CIS history across all sports.
UBC won the school's second Canada West title in 2016 and won the national silver medal at the 2016 CIS Women's Hockey Championship in Calgary.
A native of Calgary, Thomas came to UBC after working at Syracuse University, where he was with the women's hockey team since it began play in the 2008-09 season, helping build the program from the ground up.
Thomas served as associate coach at Syracuse, working with all aspects of team operations and was  the team's recruiting coordinator. He helped build and develop the Syracuse NCAA Division 1 hockey team from the inaugural start-up year in 2008. Thomas signed and committed 40 players to Syracuse during his time, including two NCAA player of the year nominees. Some of his duties included on-ice instruction during practice and games, strength and conditioning training, game and individual video analysis, scouting opponents and promoting the Orange hockey program.
Before Syracuse, Thomas served as head coach of the women's team at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) in 2007-08. His squad finished in a first-place tie in the regular season standings of the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference, with a record of 26-8-2.
Thomas also spent time as a coach and instructor at the National Sport Academy in Calgary before heading east to Syracuse. He has 'High Performance 1' and 'Coaching Theory Level 1, 2 and 3' qualifications and is certified by the National Strength and Conditioning Association to develop players through off-ice training.
Through the Academy, Thomas has imparted his insight to male and female players that have competed at the NHL level, Junior A tier I and II, NCAA and National Team levels.
In his playing days, Thomas suited up for the Drayton Valley Thunder of the Alberta Junior Hockey League. In 1998-99, Thomas also skated for Mannheim Jung Adler in Germany.
