Andrew Lord

Andrew Lord was named the fourth head coach in Ontario Reign AHL history on July 11, 2025.

A former ECHL Coach of the Year award winner with the Reign’s ECHL affiliate, the Greenville Swamp Rabbits, Lord joined Ontario after spending the 2024-25 season as the head coach of the Halifax Mooseheads in the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League (QMJHL). A native of West Vancouver, British Columbia, Lord oversaw a Halifax team that was the youngest playoff qualifier in the QMJHL a year ago and guided them to an upset of the Drummondville Voltigeurs, the league’s Western Conference regular season champion, in the first round.

The year prior, Lord completed his fourth season in Greenville with a 44-23-4-1 record. The team’s win total and point total (93) were both the highest during his time with the Swamp Rabbits, who finished first in the South Division. They also set a team franchise record by earning 30 wins in just 42 games, faster than any other club in team history. Lord was selected as a coach for the 2024 ECHL All-Star Classic, earning the honor by attaining the highest points percentage in the Eastern Conference prior to the Christmas break. At the conclusion of the season, he was honored with the league’s John Brophy Award which recognizes the ECHL Coach of the Year. Lord’s Greenville teams qualified for the postseason in all four of his campaigns, which included back-to-back 40-win seasons in 2022-23 and 2023-24. In total, Lord compiled a 155-94-39 record in 288 games, a 0.606 points percentage, and reached the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals.

Prior to joining the Swamp Rabbits, Lord led the Cardiff Devils of the Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) for six seasons from 2014-20. During that time, which included four years as a player/coach, Lord was the winningest coach in Devils history, leading them to an overall record of 221-75-22 while earning the league’s Coach of the Year award twice in 2017 and 2018. Cardiff won nine separate titles under Lord’s guidance, including three Conference championships, two Challenge Cup championships, two League titles and two Playoff championships. The Devils also qualified for the Champions Hockey League in four straight seasons (2017-20), a high-level tournament featuring the top teams across Europe. There Lord helped them earn impressive wins over HC Davos (Swiss A) in 2017 and Vaxjo (SHL) in 2018 before finishing 3-3 in the group stage in 2019-20 with wins over Mountfield HK (Czechia) and the Moser Medical Graz99ers (Austria).

Before entering the coaching ranks, Lord played professionally for 10 seasons in the AHL, ECHL EIHL and Germany’s Second Bundesliga, totaling 462 games. 216 of those contests were with Cardiff, where he scored 173 points. He also completed a four-year career at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) in the NCAA from 2004-08.