It's no surprise that individual awards were coming for the Swift Current Broncos in a year that has seen the second-best regular season record in the WHL, along with a run to the league finals.

Along with Aleksi Heponiemi's award for the Most Sportsmanlike Player in the WHL, Head Coach and Director of Player Personnel Manny Viveiros was awarded the WHL's Coach of the Year. 

"I'm blessed - I've got a chance to work with a great organization that gave me an opportunity two years ago to come to Swift Current here," Viveiros said. "They put trust and faith in me to be head coach of this hockey team."

Despite the individuality of the award, it's that sense of a collective effort that Viveiros is quick to attribute the recognition to.

"It's a team award - I'm blessed to have such great kids to work with over the last two years, and my associate coaches who don't ever get enough credit. They're the ones that do all the hard work behind the scenes - also the training staff."

The Broncos have thrived so far in Viveiros' second season as the bench boss.

Swift stormed to a 48-17-5-2 regular-season record, second only to the Moose Jaw Warriors in the WHL. A grueling and tense 2018 playoff stretch has produced a seven-game series win over the Regina Pats, a consecutive seven-game series win over those same Warriors, and more recently a six-game Eastern Conference Finals win over the Lethbridge Hurricanes.

"First of all, we've got a real good group of kids together here - we're a team. That makes a big difference as far as being able to come to work every single day and be able to just concentrate on hockey here," said Viveiros. "We don't consider this work - it's a lot of fun for us. It never, ever seems like work at all."

Through two seasons at the helm of the Broncos Viveiros carries a combined 84-40-9-8 record in his first WHL coaching job. Viveiros spent the previous seven seasons as head coach of Klagenfurt AC in the Austrian Erste Bank Hockey League (2007-14).

Being afforded the opportunity to coach a younger crop of hockey prospects 7,887 kilometres away in southwest Saskatchewan was one Viveiros certainly feels thankful for.

"Hockey is hockey... Obviously it's a different age group than working with professionals. Sure they're kids, but they're mature young men and they're here for a reason," Viveiros noted. "A lot of times they're so much easier to work with than professional hockey players because they're all in."

"We have kids here - not just my club, but throughout the league - these kids don't have egos. They want to get to that next level, and they trust you. If you treat them with respect and work with them, you're going to get everything out of them," he added.

Back to the campaign at hand that has helped Viveiros gain the prestigious league honour - the Broncos and Everett Silvertips, whose head coach Dennis Williams was the runner up to the award, are set to resume their WHL Championship series.

After a two-game homestand in Swift Current that saw a low scoring 2-1 Everett win, and 4-3 come-from-behind OT win for the Broncos, the series shifts to the Pacific North West.

Game 3 is slated for Tuesday at 8:05 p.m. Saskatchewan time and can be heard live on The Eagle 94.1 for Robertson Family Group Broncos Hockey starting half an hour before puck drop.