George Richards, FHN Publisher
The Florida Panthers have gotten tougher on the ice — and off it as well as they announced Shane Churla as the team’s new director of amateur scouting on Monday.
Churla, 55, has spent the past seven seasons with the Montreal Canadiens. He has been the Canadiens’ director of amateur scouting the past four years. He was also an amateur scout with Dallas and the Coyotes.
He replaces Jason Bukala who was not retained by new general manager Bill Zito.
Churla joins Gregory Campbell and P.J. Fenton as recent additions to Florida’s amateur scouting and development department.
“Shane is an experienced and talented addition for our organization in the scouting department,” Zito said in a statement.
“We couldn’t be more excited about the continued growth of our hockey operations department and our investment in the future of our franchise.”
Churla spent parts of 13 seasons playing in the NHL after being a sixth-round pick by the Hartford Whalers in 1985.
He played in 488 NHL games during that time, scoring 26 goals with 71 points.
Churla was best known as an enforcer, amassing 2,301 penalty minutes over the course of his career.
According to HockeyFights.com, Churla was in 157 regular season bouts — including against the likes of former Panthers coaches Bob Boughner and Gerard Gallant as well as heavyweights Tie Domi, Clark Gillies, Tiger Williams and Bob Probert.
He has also fought current Florida broadcasters Ed Jovanovski and Jeff Chychrun.
In case you’re wondering if there is any bad blood over all these years, don’t worry about it. Churla worked closely with former Florida captain Scott Mellanby in Montreal — and the two threw down in 1992-93.
Churla spent parts of two seasons with the Whalers before going to Calgary — where he was a teammate of Florida coach Joel Quenneville and new assistant coach Ulf Samuelsson.