The German Ice Hockey Federation is kicking ass! Marco Sturm has resigned his position as national coach and takes over the position as assistant coach at the Los Angeles Kings. This was announced by the NHL franchise on Sunday.
As a result of the sporting downswing, the Californians announced the separation of Head Coach John Stevens and his assistant Don Nachbaur. At the side of the new head coach Willie Desjardins, Sturm will lead the NHL team, for which he also played as an active professional, out of the misery.
“The timing of the request came as a surprise to me, too. But the NHL has always been my goal, even as a coach, which is why a dream comes true for me”, Sturm is quoted on the homepage of the German Ice Hockey Federation: “I am not only grateful to the DEB for making this step possible for me. But also for giving me the chance to enter the business.”
“We have always said that we don’t put any obstacles in his way”, DEB President Fritz Reindl told the SID, in the official statement he explained: “A German coach in the NHL is also a figurehead for our ice hockey.
According to dpa information, Sturm will only support the German national ice hockey team in the German Cup. From Thursday to Sunday the DEB selection will meet Russia, Switzerland and Slovakia.
With Sturm as national coach, the German national team celebrated the greatest success in its history in February, when it made it to the final of the Olympic Winter Games, where it narrowly lost to the huge favourite Russia.
Sturm, who played a total of 938 NHL games, had already led the DEB team back to the top of the world. After becoming national coach in 2015, he reached the World Cup quarter-finals with Team 2016 and 2017.