Suffice it to say that the last 72 hours have been a bit of a whirlwind for the former general manager of the Southern Tier Xpress.

“I just finalized my apartment a little bit ago,” Sanders said on Wednesday night while toggling between a flurry of calls from new players and potential billet families.

Despite all the plates currently spinning in the air, there is no doubt that the Brahmas and their extended hockey family at the NYTEX Sports Centre in Richland Hills, Texas left Sanders with an abundance of optimism about his new position.

“I heard a lot of great things (about the program) leading up to my trip to Texas just from my hockey friends in the junior hockey community,” Sanders said. “The expectations that were set were exceeded with what I got to see and do with this organization.”

While Texas, and warm weather areas in general, may not immediately spring to mind for some casual hockey fans, those who have followed the growth of the game over the past 20 years know that some of the best players in the country are now matriculating from programs just like the ones in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

“You have the Dallas Stars down there which (are) only a half-hour from our rink, there are a lot of people from the North who have moved down South,” Sanders said. “They have taken a grassroots effort to grow the sport and it’s starting to take hold. They have some of the best fans, the fans are very supportive in these markets.”

In the case of the NYTEX Centre, the arena ownership group has had the Tier III Brahmas in place since 2010, adding the NAHL Lone Star Brahmas in 2013. The two teams now form one of the more successful tandem junior programs in the North American Hockey League.

For Sanders, the opportunity to become a part of the success taking place in Texas came when news fell through the grapevine that Brahmas head coach Mike Hill would be taking a position with the Aberdeen Wings of the NAHL.

“When the Texas Brahmas announced that their head coach had been hired at the next level with the Aberdeen Wings, I knew that a coaching position had opened up in their organization so I reached out to apply for their head coaching job,” Sanders said. “It was a process. There was a couple-weeklong process where they were deliberating on how they wanted to proceed and then I received a call last Friday from their organization offering me the position. The next day I flew down, spent a few days in Fort Worth, meeting with all of their staff and getting a feel for their staff and the operations.”

In addition to the time Sanders has spent coaching with youth organizations in Jamestown as well as with the Southern Tier Xpress as an assistant coach, traits that Brahmas’ ownership knew they would be getting with their new hire were the organizational skills of a general manager.

With training camp looking to begin at the end of August, there is no better time to hire a new coach who already has the experience of organizing a team from the top down.

“I’ve been an assistant coach for two-and-a-half years now and with the general manager responsibilities, I’m pretty well rounded in junior hockey and in their eyes it put me in a position to be their head coach. I’m ready,” Sanders said. “The opportunities that were afforded to me by the ownership of the Xpress were greatly appreciated and it’s been a great experience, I’m looking forward to the next chapter of my coaching career and helping players move on.”