The 2017-18 campaign will be Sommer’s fourth with UBC. In his time with the program, the team has captured two Canada West championship titles and have made two U SPORTS nationals appearances finishing with a silver and bronze medal respectively.
His experience at the high performance level includes being a member of the Team BC Female U18 coaching staff in 2015 where he held the position of video coach. The team achieved a fourth-place finish at the National Women’s Under-18 Championships in Huntsville, Ont. Sommer has also worked individually with members of Hockey Canada’s Senior Women’s National Team as a player development consultant along with both the U16 and U18 Female High Performance programs within BC Hockey.
Within the Lower Mainland hockey community Sommer has been a skill development coach with Leslie Global Sports since April 2013. Here he works with male and female athletes at both the grassroots and high performance level out of the Richmond Olympic Oval and the West Coast Hockey Prep Camp.
He returned to the Lower Mainland in March 2013 after spending two years helping build the sport in New Zealand.
Sommer served as an assistant coach with New Zealand’s Under-20 men’s national team from September 2012 to February 2013. In that time, the team claimed back-to-back bronze medals at the IIHF U-20 World Championship Div. III.
As a player, Sommer, a White Rock native, suited up as a defenceman for the Delta Ice Hawks and Grandview Steelers of the Pacific Junior Hockey League, before moving overseas, where he played for the Southern Stampede of the New Zealand Ice Hockey League from 2011 to 2013.
