Kree eager to bring his experience to Medford’s hockey bench

The Medford Raiders are turning to one of their own to be the next leader of their boys hockey program.

Klayton Kree, a 2016 Medford graduate and a four-year varsity hockey player in his time as a student-athlete is taking over the program. His hiring became official at the July 24 school board meeting and follows the resignation of Galen Searles in late June.

Searles led the Raiders for four seasons, including a winning season in his first year of 2019-20 when Medford went 13-10-1 overall. Kree was a volunteer assistant coach under Searles this past season when the Raiders went 7-16 overall and had one win in 10 Great Northern Conference games.

Last season affirmed to Kree what he had believed all along which is that he was meant to coach hockey.

“I think very excited is an understatement,” Kree said Monday.

Now 25 years of age, Kree was a potent scorer for Medford during his playing days, earning honorable mention in the Great Northern Conference as a senior after scoring 16 goals and adding 15 assists that year. The Raiders went 5-19 that year, building momentum for an 8-11-2 year the following season that was, at the time, the program’s best in more than a decade.

Kree said back then, he was very close to attempting to play junior hockey with a goal of eventually playing college hockey, following his older brother Justus, who played a couple of years of junior hockey in Illinois before joining the US Marines.

“I had a couple of teams reaching out, but when I sat and just looked at it, for what it would cost, I wouldn’t be able to do it,” Kree said. “I kind of made the decision on my own that this wasn’t going to happen. There is no possible way I can afford this. It was actually the very last day for college applications that I came to realize this, so I applied to UW-Stevens Point and thankfully I was pretty academically sound, I had good grades and a good ACT score and I was able to get into college and things transpired the way it did.”

Kree graduated from UW-SP, returned to Medford in March of 2022 and is an engineering technician with Taylor County’s Land Conservation Department, is married to fellow MASH alum Maggie (Butkus) Kree, now a teacher in the Medford School District. And, it didn’t take long for athletic director Ryan Pilgrim to try to reunite Kree with Medford hockey.

“I first moved back last March and kinda throughout the summer, Mr. Pilgrim reached out to see if I wanted to be an assistant coach,” Kree said. “At that time, I couldn’t commit because I just started my job with the county with Land Conservation and I just didn’t know how flexible my scheduling could be, so I couldn’t say yes I’m going to be able to do it 100%.”

Kree eventually did receive the work flexibility necessary to take on the job and worked with his good friend and former Raider teammate Tyler Kadlecek on Medford’s staff.

“I came in as the volunteer, so I was kinda the third guy in line,” Kree said. “I had a lot of stuff that I saw. I didn’t want to overstep toes or anything but if I saw something I thought I needed to say it. I’ve always been told I have a really good eye for the game. When I was playing I could see the whole rink rather than just the puck or just one person.

“When I was watching in practices or things like that I could notice different things, whether it was skating techniques or passing or just how the game flow should work with drills,” he said. “Eventually I got the confidence where I started saying more. I feel like I’m now to the point where I can hold my own. The kids kind of push back a little bit, but they’re a lot of times trying to be funny and stuff. You have to have fun with it because if you take that away from the game, they just don’t enjoy it. That’s what the ultimate thing is to make sure that they’re having fun but we’re competing at the same time. That’s something I want this program to do is to compete, which is something we haven’t had in years.”

Kree said players would occasionally ask if he and Kadlecek might be taking over the program, as they knew Searles’ son, Miles, was set to graduate in May. But Kree said he had no inkling Searles was considering leaving until this summer.

“One morning, Galen came walking into my office and I thought maybe he wanted to talk work or something, and he goes ‘you got a second to talk about some hockey stuff?’” Kree recalled. “We went into the meeting room and started talking small talk stuff and then he said I want to let you know I’m going to be resigning and I was just letting you know and if you’re interested or if this is something you’re going to want to pursue. I was like, ‘oh yeah, 100%.’ I wasn’t trying to jump the gun on him or anything like that, but it’s been something ever since my playing career was over, I wanted to coach. Ever since I was younger I said I’m going to coach if I can. So when he told me that, I was very excited.”

Kree takes over a program that, as he said, has historically had its troubles competing with its Great Northern Conference rivals. The Raiders have found several non-conference foes in recent years they’ve had good games with. The team is projected to be a bit thin on numbers again this coming season, but Kree is driven by a belief there is talent and enough numbers in the youth ranks to eventually take the program up a notch.

“I want to have these guys get more confidence in their team and their teammates and a little bit of pride for it,” he said. “I think that’s a little something that’s missing is that pride of playing for Medford and Medford hockey and showing what you can do as a team. Because we have the talent coming up. It’s just a matter of harnessing it and making sure that the guys are giving all of the effort that they can.”

Being competitive, Kree said, will start with all-out effort, especially until the participation numbers rise. It’s also unknown at this point who may be brought on to assist Kree.

“I just want to make sure that every shift they’re making every effort count and they’re not taking plays off, because it all matters,” he said. “The little plays make big plays. Obviously the big plays help, scoring goals and things like that. But in order to score a goal, something small has to happen in order to get that change of possession with the puck in the corner and an outlet pass to maybe a fastbreak play. It’s teaching that little things turn into big things. That starts from effort. With having a small team, effort is going to have to be there.”

Last year, Kree said there were those rewarding moments where players could see what he was teaching them was working, and he’s looking forward to having many more of those.

“This is my way of giving back to my upbringing,” Kree said. “I spent a lot of time at the Simek Center and open skates. I was pretty much there every weekend. Last year I really enjoyed coaching. I had so much fun with the kids. Practices, games, the lock-in that we do for Christmas. It was just a lot of fun. I think the kids enjoyed it and they had a little bit more energy with a young coach. They feed off that energy.”