News on Friday that Italy had named former NHL coach Mike Keenan to helm its men’s national team may have surprised some people, but those who were surprised likely haven’t spent much time around coaches.
Keenan is about to turn 72 years old, but he hopes to remain behind the bench for Italy when it hosts the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.
Even if the opportunity comes with a longshot gold medal-winning group of players, it’s a gig that very few people get in their careers. That’s why you see interest from someone like Keenan who won a Stanley Cup with the New York Rangers in 1994 and has nothing to prove to anyone.
All you need to do to see why most coaches are lifers in the profession, and will almost always take on a new challenge wherever they can find one, is to look at the example set by Keenan and other prominent coaches.
Keenan last coached the KHL’s China-based Kunlun Red Star franchise in 2017. Three years prior to that, he’d won that league’s Gagarin Cup championship with Russian team Magnitogorsk. And prior to that, he’d experienced the full spectrum of NHL success and failure, coaching eight different franchises over the course of two decades.
That longevity itself is one of the things that sets him apart from his colleagues, but Keenan is hardly alone in being hired by a slew of teams in an attempt to find the ideal fit.
To wit: did anyone believe Paul Maurice would sit by idly on the sidelines after stepping down as the Winnipeg Jets’ coach last December? Not anyone we know.
Maurice lasted only a few months on the unemployment line before the Florida Panthers came calling and hired him in June. The 55-year-old is now on his fourth NHL franchise, but he’s entering his 25th (!) NHL regular season, and he’s also had stints coaching in the AHL, OHL and with Magnitogorsk for one season. He talked a good game about waiting for the right opportunity post-Winnipeg, and while Florida certainly qualifies as such, Maurice also has coaching in his blood and couldn’t stop unless someone didn’t want him anymore.
There’s also the case of Barry Trotz, who’s experiencing his first NHL season without being a head coach since the 1997-98 campaign.
Trotz had a remarkable-enough 15-season run in Nashville before moving on to Washington for four years and winning a Cup with the Caps. For the past four seasons, the 60-year-old was behind the New York Islanders bench before GM Lou Lamoriello dismissed him at the end of last season.
And while there were many suitors for his services – he could’ve had the job with Winnipeg if he’d wanted it – Trotz ultimately chose to take the season off for family reasons. Nobody could begrudge him that rationale, but does anyone really believe Trotz won’t be a head coach one year from now, if not, sooner? You never know when an opportunity will arise that sees you leading a stacked Cup contender, so Trotz can’t be too choosy, but like Maurice, he’s a lifer in the coaching business.
The reason teams continue to go back to the drawing board with veteran coaches like Trotz and Maurice (as well as Philadelphia’s John Tortorella, New Jersey’s Lindy Ruff and Winnipeg’s Rick Bowness) is that they see them as known quantities of certain elements: overall team confidence, a cool, calm and collected attitude come hell or high water and a reinforced structure that can be understood by rookies and veteran players alike.
Sometimes young coaches prove they’re capable, but sometimes things go sideways in a hurry, and you want that experience and pedigree to carry your coaching staff through the tumult and be a port in a storm whenever the team needs it. Now, certain coaches try and be that port in different ways, but the days of tyrannical, perennial malcontent coaching are at an end, and teaching and patience are must-have attributes for any coach.
That said, as it goes with players, experience in high-pressure situations forces coaches to adapt or be drummed out of hockey’s top league. If you’re a veteran coach who can point to your evolution as a player motivator and manager of team contentedness, you’re going to get the nod on the hiring front before some fresh-faced coaching cherub who’s still learning what they have to offer from a guidance and strategy perspective.
It will be fascinating to see what Keenan does with the Italian national team. You can’t teach high-end offense, so they’ll be tasked with playing a tight, defense-first style.
The Italians will be under the microscope as the host country for the 2026 Games, and having Keenan there to both generate self-worth amongst his players and be a force for positivity in the program will almost assuredly help them evolve to a better tier of international hockey.
Keenan will be closer to 80 years old than 70 by the time he gets this chance – probably his last chance – on the radar of hockey fans. But you can’t fault him for believing he can do it. That self-confidence is what made him as successful as he’s been in the sport, and Italy is hoping some of it rubs off on their players in the next four years.
