Monday was a travel day for hockey coach Don Nachbaur, and it was going to be a long one.
His destination was Bern, Switzerland, where the 61-year-old has been hired as head coach of Schlittschuh Club (SC) Bern, considered the marquee franchise of the 12-team Swiss National League.
The pandemic has made flying difficult and Nachbaur wasn’t able to get a direct flight to Europe. He left his home in Richland, Wash., for a flight to Seattle, then was due to connect to New York before landing in Zurich.
“It hasn’t been easy because they’ve canceled a lot of flights and you’ve got to find flights that connect you over there and I was really fortunate,” said Nachbaur. “There’s not a lot of planes flying right now and there’s limited space on some of the flights going over.”
Nachbaur plans to be in Bern for the next two weeks then will come home for two weeks with his wife Kim before they fly to Switzerland for the start of training camp in early August.
“Believe it or not, Europe is way further ahead of the curve than North America,” he said. “I know, where I was last year in Slovakia, they’re down to a minimal amount of (COVID-19) cases and the same is going on in Austria and Switzerland, so they’re looking at starting their season sometime in September.
“I think it’s optimistic. The league is planning to go ahead but you take that week by week. But I’m gearing up like it’s going, so I’m prepared. I’m going over there to meet all the players and get settled a bit and then the players get a bit of time off before the camp begins at the beginning of August.”
The players have been training off-ice together in small groups and the next phase will allow the whole team to train together.
“We have a bit of an aging group but a lot of young players coming to the team this year and I’m excited about the mix of guys,” said Nachbaur. “There’s some great leadership there as far as guys wo have won in the past, guys who have been there 10 or 15 years, and they will be real good catalysts for the young guys.”
SC Bern has a long line of success in the Swiss National League with 16 league championships, three of which came in the last four seasons. But the team finished ninth out of 12 teams last season, prompting the mid-season firing of coach Kari Jolonen. Nachbaur, a native of Kitimat who grew up in Prince George, signed a two-year contract to replace him.
He takes over after coaching last season for HKM Zloven of the Slovakia Tipsort Liga. Prior to that he spent 1 ½ seasons an NHL assistant with the Los Angeles Kings. In 19 seasons as an WHL head coach with the Seattle Thunderbirds, Tri-City Americans and Spokane Chiefs he was behind the bench for 1,333 games and won 692 of them, which puts him third on the WHL list of career wins.
As an NHL centre, Nachbaur played 223 NHL over eight seasons with Hartford, Edmonton and Philadelphia and wrapped up his pro career playing four seasons in Austria for Graz EC. Nachbaur has family ties in Austria also he coached Canada’s under-18 national teams in European tournaments.
“I went over to Slovakia to reacquaint myself with the international game and it was a good experience,” he said. “My wife and I had both lived in Austria four years so she was comfortable with going back to Europe. I knew it was a good league and it was a good life experience living on the other side of the world.”
Nachbaur lost his job in L.A. in November 2018 when Kings head coach John Stevens was fired. He considers his Swiss opportunity one of the plum assignments in the hockey world.
“They’ve always been a really classy organization that produces winners, they probably have the most championships in the history of the Swiss league,” Nachbaur said. “So there’s a lot of nostalgia there and tradition and they might be looked at in Swiss hockey like the way we view the Toronto Maple Leafs of Montreal Canadiens.
“I viewed it when I was searching for jobs as one of the top leagues outside of the NHL. The Swiss league is right up there with the KHL and the Finnish League. It’s exciting. Just from a professional standpoint it’s a great league to coach in and as a head coach, it’s not being an assistant coach and I’m really looking forward to that.
“It’s a well-run league and everything about it is professional. The interview process I went through was as intense as maybe what I went through in the National Hockey League.”
SC Bern was the Swiss pro team Nico Hischier played for just before he was drafted first overall in the 2017 NHL draft by New Jersey and Nachbaur says NHL’ers like Hischier, Nino Niederreiter and Sven Bartschi are shining examples of the work Switzerland has put into developing its young players.
“Even when I did world juniors you knew it was going to be a tough game against the Swiss, simply because they don’t play just a traditional European game, they play a little bit like the Canadian game,” he said. “They work hard they compete and they can be physical at times and they’re still skilled.”
The team perennially leads the Swiss league in attendance and in 2006 set the European hockey record when it averaged 15,994 fans in 22 home games. Swiss health authorities announced last week a ban on crowd sizes over 1,000 people will likely be lifted by September.
“They’re the biggest drawing team in Europe. They probably outdraw some NHL teams,” Nachbaur said. “That’s still the uncertainty, whether the rinks will be open to full crowds or partial crowds.”
Preparation is key for any successful coach and he says his days around the rinks are often long, much longer than the time commitment needed for him to be a hockey player. The pandemic has kept Nachbaur grounded close to home and in that time he’s been a weekly participant in five different chat rooms that allow him to exchange ideas with other coaches.
“I’ve been doing that five days a week since March, when the coronavirus started,” he said. “You go to lot of coaching seminars and it’s pretty guarded and it’s generic information at times. But these are personal conversations with 30 or 40 guys and we pick topics that range from bench management to a forecheck or to a breakout. There have been some terrific topics that never get covered in coaching seminars, so it’s been really good.”
Switzerland is known for its natural beauty with mountains and lakes, a snowy climate and an ancient culture, which adds to the lure of the job for Nachbaur.
“I’m excited about that, it’s not that I can ski, I won’t have time, but I certainly grew up on skis and playing hockey,” he said. “It’s that wintery feel when you’re there and there’s lots to see. It will be nice to get away from the game on off-days and explore a bit.
“It’s one of those life experiences that don’t come around often. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and the timing has been right the last couple years.”
