Why there are no foreign coaches in NHL?

[User9992]

Why there are no foreign coaches in NHL?

 

[Pierre from Orleans]

DJ Smith is foreign. None of his players understand his system.

 

[Buck Naked]

Typical racist NHL. Gah.

 

[Jacob]

I think Euro coaches don’t wanna uproot their lives to be an AHL head or NHL assistant and NHL teams don’t wanna take the risk of throwing a guy with no NA coaching experience right into a head NHL job.

 

[DownIsTheNewUp]

26 of them are Canadian, so the large majority already are foreign

 

[johan f]

NHL missed out a golden era of great Swedish coaches in 80-90s. Coaches with superb strategies, pedagogics and calmness. Curt Lindstrom, Tommy Sandlin, Conny Evensson to name a few. Knowing their hockey minds and personalities it is like night and day compared with most NHL coaches thru the decades who yells/yelled and just play mind games.

 

[Zenos]

I think Euro coaches don’t wanna uproot their lives to be an AHL head or NHL assistant and NHL teams don’t wanna take the risk of throwing a guy with no NA coaching experience right into a head NHL job.

Pretty much this I'd say.
Ralph Krueger* was the last one - and he had to work as an associate in Edmonton before getting his first head coaching job in the NHL.

*Of course, he's also Canadian, so I'm sure that helped somewhat with the language and (more importantly) culture of North American hockey - but make no mistake, he was very much a European player and coach. His entire pro career was spent in Germany and then he toiled another two decades as a coach in Austria and Switzerland.

 

[slikki]

Olds man club.

 

[BrindamoursNose]

What's considered foreign

 

[MarkusKetterer]

What's considered foreign

People with double vowels in their last name that aren’t French names.

 

[ItWasJustified]

NHL missed out a golden era of great Swedish coaches in 80-90s. Coaches with superb strategies, pedagogics and calmness. Curt Lindstrom, Tommy Sandlin, Conny Evensson to name a few. Knowing their hockey minds and personalities it is like night and day compared with most NHL coaches thru the decades who yells/yelled and just play mind games.

Their generation could barely speak English.

 

[Eisen]

Why there are no foreign coaches in NHL?

Old boys club/networking.

 

[Esko6]

Alpo Suhonen coached the Blackhawks for a while, it was a big deal in Finland but he could not make that team perform well enough

 

[Eisen]

Their generation could barely speak English.

Really? I find that hard to believe. I was in Sweden in the 90s and even the supermarket cashier, the bus driver and the pizza guys spoke nearly flawless English. Might be different for coaches.

 

[EmeticDonut]

The same reason the same old coaches keep getting hired after being sacked for being bad. Old boys club.

 

[wankstifier]

GMs are f***ing lazy

 

[Mickey Marner]

Samuelsson is probably on the cusp of becoming a head coach.

 

[Just A Bit Outside]

It’s a foreign concept to most.

 

[tny760]

marco sturm is an assistant coach, he's objectively horrible at his job

 

[Shakey Rustie]

The style of hockey in Europe isn't exactly the same as North America.

 

[Kamaya Painters]

NHL missed out a golden era of great Swedish coaches in 80-90s. Coaches with superb strategies, pedagogics and calmness. Curt Lindstrom, Tommy Sandlin, Conny Evensson to name a few. Knowing their hockey minds and personalities it is like night and day compared with most NHL coaches thru the decades who yells/yelled and just play mind games.

Lots of players have always said Sandlin was a truly great coach when it came to the hockey but that he didn't have anything else on his mind (interests etc) other than..hockey. But when I say great, then I really mean great.

 

[Hockeyfan2390]

All Canadian-born coaches of US teams are foreign, and vice versa.

 

[ItWasJustified]

Really? I find that hard to believe. I was in Sweden in the 90s and even the supermarket cashier, the bus driver and the pizza guys spoke nearly flawless English. Might be different for coaches.

The amount of English you have to be able to speak to be in the media, talk tactics, talk with players 1 on 1 etc etc is higher and more advanced than guys born in the 40's could cope with.

 

[ThinIzzy]

Because the owners and GM:s just watch NHL. And they are p***yes, they do not take risks. Its about relations. The only europeans ever coached were actually really bad coaches. Some of them even one of the worst in their country.

 

[Kamaya Painters]

I think Euro coaches don’t wanna uproot their lives to be an AHL head or NHL assistant and NHL teams don’t wanna take the risk of throwing a guy with no NA coaching experience right into a head NHL job.

This argument is nonsense in 90% of the cases. Lots of coaches are prepared to make the jump to North America but they've never been given an opportunity.

The NHL is a place where people who're already "in" recommend and make sure teams hire "their" people. These people look out for each other for decades before they're eventually being considered as washed up or the networks of people who've looked out for each other have retired. It's a matter of helping each other find jobs - be it as a GM, coach, assistant coach, player development, scout or any other role. There's a lot of nepotism as well - something that does occur quite a lot in Europe as well but not to the same degree as in the NHL.

People in this league are afraid of changes (just like the 70 and 80's when European players were "stealing jobs") and many just guard their positions for as long as they're able to. A similar thing was going on in English football up until Arsenal signed Arséne Wenger. Football is much, much deeper in terms of coaches though but it was a signing that changed the culture of English football in a few years and 25 years later that league only has seven English coaches (out of 20 in the top division) - there were five of them just a few weeks ago.

Lots of North American coaches are really good though. Not everything is a matter of nepotism and Old Boys Clubs..