Rebuilding Rome: An Interview with Team Italy Coach Pat Cortina

Originally published in Rinkside in 2003

By Lucas Aykroyd

In the third century AD, the Roman Empire dominated Europe from the shores of Britain to the eastern fringes of the Mediterranean Sea. Twenty-first-century Italian hockey, unfortunately, isn’t quite in the same league.

Internationally, Italy must battle to regain its honor after a 4-0 loss to Slovenia at the 2002 IIHF World Championships resulted in relegation from the elite division. And the domestic growth of the sport has been slow, partly because the 2.7 million citizens of Rome show little interest in hockey.

Northern Italy has always been a hockey stronghold. But Rome is the geographic, political, economic and cultural heart of this country. Without Roman support, it’s unreasonable to expect Italy to become a second-tier hockey power as nearby Germany and Switzerland have done in recent years.

No teams from Rome have ever participated in the first or second divisions of the Italian domestic league, and no players from Rome have ever cracked the national team.

The nation as a whole has struggled. Italy has never performed better than its sixth-place finish at the 1994 Worlds held in Bolzano and Canazei. And no, none of your favorite NHL players were born and trained in Italy.

Pat Cortina, the head coach of the Italian national team, spoke with Rinkside from his Fassa home in early March to discuss the past, present and future of the Azzuri. The 38-year-old Montreal native began coaching in Serie A, the top Italian league, in the late 1980’s, but gave that up to focus on his present assignment starting in 2000-01. He has no regrets about his decision to rejuvenate the national team by relying on Italian-born players. Cortina faces a rebuilding project that would daunt most coaches, but his passion for the sport should help Italy advance toward the title of the Roman Hockey Empire.

RINKSIDE: Let’s start with an overview of the situation in Serie A.

PAT CORTINA: The six clubs in Serie A this season are Milan, Asiago, Bolzano, Alleghe, Fassa, and Merano. The teams play each other eight times apiece for a total of 40 games. For this league, that’s way too much. It has reduced fan interest, which was already very low. Anyway, to give you a sense right now, Milan and Asiago have dominated and are currently battling for first spot overall in the regular season with two games left. Bolzano is a distant third and Fassa has recently locked up the fourth and final playoff spot.

RINKSIDE: What about the off-ice turmoil the league has experienced in the last year?

CORTINA: Well, first the Renon and Vipiteno organizations decided they wouldn’t take part in Serie A in 2002-03. Then Milan threatened to leave the league for a place in the Swiss B League. Milan cited the low level of play and limited exposure hockey gets in Italy as their main reasons. But their request to leave wasn’t authorized by the FISG (Italian Ice Sports Federation). So they stayed, but they decided not to abide by the gentlemen’s agreement among team owners that considers the “oriundi” (Canadian or American-born Italian passport holders) to be foreigners and limits the number of foreigners to four per team. Milan signed several oriundi and some Europeans, making for a very competitive team.

RINKSIDE: Is there anything the Federation can do about this?

CORTINA: The only thing the Federation can do is oblige the teams to have a certain number of Italian players on the game rosters.

RINKSIDE: You’ve had some great experiences coaching in Serie A. What was it like to win 40 straight games with Asiago in 1999-2000?

CORTINA: The win streak was obviously very enjoyable, not just as far winning goes, but even more so because it’s very gratifying as a coach to see your players work hard and be rewarded for it. We really didn’t pay too much attention to the streak until we got to about 25 games. We focused on the good habits we needed to have to be successful day after day. By striving for consistent good performances, before we knew it we had won 40 in a row.

RINKSIDE: With your focus now on the national team, what have you been trying to accomplish?

CORTINA: We have been trying to give more responsibility to the Italian-born players who have been to several World Championships. We also need to give some promising young players who have a shot at the Olympics an opportunity to play at a higher level. I believe that if hockey is to flourish in Italy, the people here must be able to identify with the team and youngsters must believe they can someday be part of the national team. That can only happen if the roots of the team are Italian, so to speak.

RINKSIDE: Describe your coaching staff.

CORTINA: My assistant Ron Ivany brings many years of experience, a great knowledge of the European game, and excellent teaching abilities. Stefano Dapra is our goaltending and video coach. As for me, I know these Italian players and how they like to play the game. I bring a lot of passion to what I do. I guess that’s not surprising, after growing up in Montreal where hockey is a religion, along with the fact that I am of Italian heritage. Passion is very evident in many aspects of Italian daily life, whether it’s food, architecture or traffic arguments! I am involved emotionally, mentally and physically in what I am trying to do here.

RINKSIDE: So who are some of the Italian-born and trained players we should look out for?

CORTINA: The top guy right now is defenseman Armin Helfer of the Milano Vipers. Manuel DeToni from Alleghe has had a great year too. He captained our university team to an unprecedented fourth-place finish at the last World University Games, and he’s becoming a complete player. Goalies Andrea Carpano (Fassa) and Gunther Hell (Bolzano) are becoming impact players for us and can win games for us in the B Pool. Also, youngsters like Luca Ansoldi and Cristiano Borgatello from Merano, Fabrizio Senoner from Selva and Paolo Bustreo from Agordo are all good players for us to build around.

RINKSIDE: Which elite international teams does Italy stack up against best?

CORTINA: Over the last couple of years, we’ve done fairly well against teams that play the North American style of hockey, like Canada, the USA, and Germany. We can keep it respectable against the Scandinavians. But we just get demolished by the Czechs, Slovaks and Russians. I think their combination of skill, size and speed is way too much for us to handle right now. Also, as opposed to letting up a little bit like the Canadians and Americans do when they get ahead, the Czechs seem to want to run up the score. The weaker we get, the easier it gets for them, and the more they seem to want to score. Hopefully someday we’ll be capable of changing that!

RINKSIDE: Who are some of the coaches you admire?

CORTINA: On this side of the Atlantic, I think of Vladimir Yurzinov in Kloten, Switzerland, who is a great teacher of technical skills. As I grew up in Montreal during the 70’s and 80’s, I was fortunate enough to watch Scotty Bowman’s teams play. Among current NHL coaches, I admire Jacques Lemaire’s passion for teaching the game. I watched him work in Longueuil in the Quebec League. More recently, I had a chance to sit down with him during a visit to St. Paul, Minnesota with our national junior team, and what a lesson in hockey that was! Jacques Martin gets the most out of his players year after year. I’ve heard him speak at various clinics and have chatted with him briefly at the Worlds. As well, I have lots of respect for Mike Johnston, whom I know from his days at Hockey Canada. He always represented Canadian hockey in a very simple and classy way, and now he’s doing a great job along with Marc Crawford in Vancouver. All these gentlemen get their teams to develop a great team spirit. I get the impression that their coaching philosophy prioritizes human beings over X’s and O’s. I admire that greatly.

RINKSIDE: Have you had contact with any NHLers of Italian heritage?

CORTINA: I spoke to Dominic Pittis briefly last year while visiting Edmonton. Also, I met Roberto Luongo and Mike Peca while they were playing for Team Canada at the 2001 Worlds in Germany, plus Todd Bertuzzi during the 2000 tournament in St Petersburg. Those guys wanted to exchange a few words with us in Italian and ended the conversation with “Forza Azzurri!” (“Go Blue!”), which made our guys feel pretty good. It was nice they wanted us to know they are of Italian heritage. Among coaches, I should also mention I try to stay in touch with Jon Christiano of the Rochester Americans and Gates Orlando of the Albany River Rats. And I enjoyed working under Gene Ubriaco when he was the coach of the Italian national team.

RINKSIDE: What kind of coverage does the NHL receive in Italy?

CORTINA: In the north, scores are reported daily in German and Italian dailies as well as in Italy’s sporting bible, La Gazzetta dello Sport. We get one game per week on cable TV.

RINKSIDE: How knowledgeable are Italian fans?

CORTINA: I think they’re knowledgeable from a technical standpoint. After all, we’ve seen some pretty good players perform on Italian ice. Names like Jari Kurri, Ron Flockhart, Mark Napier, and Kent Nilsson. In international play, people got to see the likes of Jaromir Jagr, Joe Sakic and the Soviets with their KLM Line. So that all helps.

RINKSIDE: When Kurri came over to play the 1990-91 season with Milan, you were an assistant coach there. What was he like?

CORTINA: It was just after he’d won his fifth Cup with Edmonton. What a classy individual, a true professional, a great teacher of good habits. Jari was very humble and wanted to be treated just like everyone else. I remember what happened when we arrived at our training camp site in Chamonix, France. He was one of the last guys to get off the bus, and by the time he got to the locker room, all the stalls had been taken. When he came in, some of the veterans asked the younger guys to give up a spot for Jari. He would have none of it. He asked for a chair and put on his gear in the hall outside the room. What a great way to tell his teammates, “I’m just one of the boys.” Later, during the 1993 Finals between the Canadiens and Kings, he made a point of phoning me when he was in Montreal. I couldn’t believe he made time for that when he was looking to win the Cup again!

RINKSIDE: Looking ahead again with the national team, you’re gearing up for the IIHF’s Division I, Group B World Championships in Zagreb, Croatia. What challenges will you face there?

CORTINA: Oh, many! With our league championships ending possibly as late as April 5 and the tournament starting on the 14th, we won’t have much time together as a team. Lack of funding will prevent us from playing any exhibition games beforehand. We’ll have to see how our younger players handle their responsibilities. And we need to develop a different mindset than we had in the A Pool. There, Italy basically played to survive, winning one game to avoid relegation, and to keep things respectable. I’ve been trying to change that mentality because I don’t think it’s the way to progress. Now, we must aspire to win every game if we want a shot at being promoted to the top group again. It’ll be tough. Five games in seven days, and our first two are scheduled for 12:30 p.m. starts. When will we have our pre-game pasta?

RINKSIDE: What do you expect from your opponents?

CORTINA: I think the Norwegians and the French are the favorites. They know what to expect in this kind of tournament. The British are outsiders and can spoil things for any other team. The Croatians are playing at home and have the advantage of starting all their games at 8:00 p.m. And I don’t know too much about the Estonians, but they can’t be all that bad, seeing that they are geographically positioned between Finland and Russia!

RINKSIDE: With Torino 2006 coming up, the Olympics are a hot topic in Italy. How devastating was it for Italy to miss out on the Salt Lake Games after that 2-1 loss to Germany in qualifying play?

CORTINA: Very devastating, especially since the winning goal came with only seven seconds remaining on the clock. That was after a controversial missed call by the official on a breakaway by our Maurizio Mansi towards an empty net. A trip in that situation is supposed to be an automatic goal. The referee later admitted he didn’t want to make the call so as not to influence the outcome of the game in such a drastic way! You see, the Germans had pulled their goalie in a 1-1 game because they were in a must-win situation. A tie would have been good enough for Italy. It was sad for some of the not-so-young players who had invested so much in the program over the preceding six or seven years. Missing the Olympics was very costly in terms of both funding and exposure. Those are both resources we desperately need.

RINKSIDE: What must you do to help your chances of qualifying for Torino?

CORTINA: We need to improve from both the athletic and the technical standpoint. We feel these two areas are where we are furthest behind. On average, our guys are not very big, and therefore we must be great athletes in order to try to compete at that level. We need to get faster and stronger. I know we are smart enough to play at a higher level but we can’t always do what we would like to do. So we’re having a fitness coach track our players. And we want to see these guys play at a high level as often as possible so they can bring their game up and develop consistency.

RINKSIDE: If you get to the Olympics, what kind of goal would you set for your team?

CORTINA: A sixth-place finish. Pulling something like that off would most definitely have a catalytic effect on the growth of hockey in this country.

RINKSIDE: What are your hopes regarding NHL participation in 2006?

CORTINA: I think it was great for all involved and it was especially good for the game of hockey that the NHL took part in 2002. My only concerns about 2006 are whether or not the facilities will meet the standards of the NHL and when they will be ready. Things seem to take a while to get done in this country, and I think the NHL and NHLPA need to know well in advance the who, what and where of it all. Will we be ready in time to make a good impression on the decision-makers?

RINKSIDE: What do you like to do when you get away from the rink?

CORTINA: There’s lots of office work to be done. I try to coordinate the programs for my team and all other national teams, as well as the coaching certification program. I visit schools to give them a taste of what hockey is all about. The list goes on and on. The actual coaching seems to be the last thing I can attend to! To relax, I enjoy eating, as the food is just great over here, and I like to spend time with my two-year-old daughter. In the summer time I get the odd golf game in, and I like to return home to Montreal to visit friends and family. Overall, I just don’t have too much free time!

RINKSIDE: How about your personal goals for the future?

CORTINA: I would like to continue in this wonderful world of hockey, if possible right where I am for the next while. Then I would like to move to more of a hockey country to live and learn about a different reality so I can progress as a coach. Afterwards, I’d like to return to Italy and bring back this new knowledge and hopefully help the program here keep growing.

Hockey Still Seeks a Home in Rome

Soccer, basketball, volleyball, auto racing. All these sports are much bigger in Rome than hockey. The ice gladiators simply haven’t captured Colosseum-sized audiences yet.

Only two modestly successful hockey teams have operated in and around Rome in recent years: HC Roma and HC Mezzaluna Flyers. Neither has come close to challenging northern powerhouses like Milan or Asiago. Currently, there are no leagues operating in the area. On the bright side, you will find a couple of rinks if you hunt carefully: Iceland and Marino’s Palace.

Most of the hockey action in the capital these days occurs when foreigners from “hockey countries” organize pick-up games. It’s hardly a surprise that no young Roman players look like national team prospects. However, a beginner’s level coaching seminar recently attracted four aspiring bench bosses from Rome.

Perhaps the popularity of inline hockey will help in the long run. Some of the kids gravitating toward summer ice hockey schools are inline graduates.

But don’t hold your breath waiting for the hockey legions of Rome.