The sun may be scorching and the national holiday around the corner on July 1, but that hasn’t stopped Hockey Canada from continuing a busy period in its off-season. It announced Toronto and Montreal as co-hosts for the 2015 and 2017 World Junior Championships, and a few days later, at a large conference in Toronto, it made several more announcements.

First and foremost, Brent Sutter, will be back behind the bench of the Canadian U20 national team. His assistants will be Benoît Groulx and Ryan McGill. Sutter also coached the men’s national team at the 2012 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship in Helsinki.

The 51-year-old won the CHL Coach of the Year award in 2000/2001 after guiding Red Deer to a Memorial Cup title. He returned to the Rebels bench last season after three seasons at the helm of the NHL’s Calgary Flames and two as head coach of the NHL’s New Jersey Devils.

Sutter also represented Canada as a player on four occasions, at the 1986 IIHF World Championship and 1984, 1987 and 1991 Canada Cups.

Additionally, Hockey Canada announced that Dale Hunter, head coach of the London Knights, will coach the Canadian U18 entry at the Ivan Hlinka tournament in the Czech Republic and Slovakia in August.

As well, Hockey Canada has re-structured its Program of Excellence. A new management group will oversee all operations. The group consists of Joel Bouchard, Sean Burke, Bruce Hamilton, and Mark Hunter.

Finally, Ryan Jankowski is replacing Kevin Prendergast as the head scout for the Program of Excellence.