AUDIO: Mike Van Ryn talks about his decision to step down as Rangers Head Coach

Mike Van Ryn is reiterating what we were told last week, it was a family decision.

But – there’s always a “but” – he doesn’t want to leave the game that gave him so much. When he stepped down last week, immediately people were wondering if he was going to make the jump to the NHL.

“Yes I have [had contact with NHL teams]. It wasn’t until more recently,” says Van Ryn. “I think I’ll be able to figure something out here in the next few days hopefully. It will be something probably more in the player development role, so I’ll be doing the traveling, not my family.”

– FULL INTERVIEW:

It’s tough to get Van Ryn to say anything without the word “family” coming up. When talking with our Chris Pope, he was picking his daughter up from school, which is something he wasn’t able to do when living in Kitchener.

His daughter would go to school in Florida for two months, and then be home schooled in Kitchener by his wife Amber.

“But it started getting a little tough. My daughter was going back being the new girl in school and stuff and it was hard for my wife, she did fall behind quite a bit this year,” says Van Ryn.

He knew that had to change, which meant, so did his job.

“My wife loves it here in Florida, my kids, this is home to them, this is where the majority of their family is and I didn’t want to be apart from them being up in Kitchener, so it just came down to deciding I wasn’t going to be apart from them.”

“It was definitely tough to leave it. I would have liked to finish it out and won something there.”