Noel Thorpe under contract with Alouettes for 2017

Defensive coordinator and assistant head coach Noel Thorpe is under contract with the Alouettes for the 2017 CFL season, that’s the final year of a three-year pact, per sources.

For the last four campaigns, Thorpe has been the mastermind behind Montreal’s stingy defence.

Thorpe has been a coach for 20 years in Canadian football and 10 of them have been in La belle province. He began his coaching career at the University of British Columbia from 1996-200, part of a Vanier Cup-winning staff in 1997. Then one season at Simon Fraser University. After that year Thorpe made the jump to the pro ranks with the Alouettes. From 2002-2007 he was Montreal’s special teams coordinator, winning a Grey Cup in 2002. From 2008-2010 Thorpe was Edmonton’s special team coordinator and assistant head coach. Next he spent two years as the University of Montreal’s head coach while also guiding Team Canada to a gold medal victory over Team USA at the U19 IFAF World Championship in 2012. And he returned to the Alouettes in 2013.