Iowa Heartlanders hire a new head coach, one who has been many places

CEDAR RAPIDS - The guy is a hockey lifer, and his hockey life has been spent all over the place.

Chuck Weber played the sport at the Division III college level in Albany, N.Y. His post-playing career included a stint selling tickets and being video coach for the International Hockey League version of the Orlando Solar Bears.

Orlando is in the ECHL now but back then was the top minor league affiliate of the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers. They’re not around any more, either.

Weber has been an assistant coach at various levels in Trenton, N.J., Augusta, Ga., Milwaukee, Salt Lake City, Troy, N.Y., and Rochester, N.Y. He has been a head coach at different levels in Rochester, Duluth, Ga., San Antonio, Cincinnati, Zagreb, Croatia, and Coventry, England.

Now you can add Coralville, Iowa, to the list, as the 52-year-old New York state native has been announced as the new head coach of the Iowa Heartlanders. He replaces Derek Damon, who announced earlier this summer he was leaving to become Coach/General Manager of the Des Moines Buccaneers in the junior United States Hockey League.

“Derek did a great job, as far as last year making the playoffs, building an unbelievable culture,” Weber said Tuesday. “I’m excited to come in and build upon what he and the rest of his staff did last season.”

The Heartlanders made the ECHL playoffs for the first time in their four-year history, falling to Fort Wayne in a deciding Game 7 of their first-round series. Weber knows a little something about the ECHL, as he led the Cincinnati Cyclones to the Kelly Cup championship in 2006 and 2010.

He also has experience as a head coach in the higher-level AHL, in the Florida Panthers system at Rochester and San Antonio. Weber was an assistant from 2018 through this season for Division I college hockey program RPI.

“I think the biggest thing is just taking the group from last year and expanding on it,” Weber said. “Like I said, it was a great locker room. There are a few little upgrades, I think we have to have the ability to score a few more goals along the way. I think there was a great structure played away from the puck.

“But Derek and I are two different coaches that way, so we’ve had different experiences, think we have a lot of the same beliefs, in the times we’ve gotten to chat about where he’s been and where I’m going.”

Weber said he has had conversations with “10 to 12” players from last season’s Heartlanders team, including captain and fan favorite Yuki Miura. He stressed, though, that no one has a guaranteed spot on the 2025-26 team.

He said his goal is make Coralville a popular destination for players to sign. Obviously, winning a Kelly Cup (another, in his case) is another goal.

“I think there are a lot of things from a culture standpoint that the players are going to be able to embrace,” Weber said. “Similiarites, expectations, from work ethic to our day to day. The process that goes about with this. The end goal is always to win Kelly Cups, but you have to embrace the day by day. We’re going to stay in those moments and be where our feet are, which is a term I use it a lot, especially in the ECHL.

“You’ve got a number of guys who are ‘I want to be in the American Hockey League, I want to be in the National Hockey League.’ We’re really going to expand on our players being where their feet are, in this Eastern Iowa community building a championship culture.”

It’s an important season overall for the Heartlanders. They finished last again in ECHL attendance in 2024-25 with an average of 1,603 per game, which was about 1,000 less than the next-lowest team, which coincidentally Kelly Cup winner Trois-Rivieres in Quebec, Canada.

“Throughout our process, Chuck separated himself not only as an excellent coach but someone who will be instrumental to the continued growth of the Heartlanders in our community,” Heartlanders owner Michael Devlin said in a statement. “His resume is impeccable, he’s a proven winner at all levels, and as the face of our organization his ability to lead and develop will chart the right path to deliver a Kelly Cup to Eastern Iowa.”

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