Good first impression sees Pete Russell get his just rewards with EHC Freiburg

Around 30 players would have arrived for training camp on Wednesday aiming to prove they were good enough to be part of a final squad that would play warm-up games against the likes of Poland, Hungary, Kazakhstan and Canada before the main event got underway in Lausanne on May 8.

But, like every other major sporting event the world over, the tournament was among those scrapped due to the relentless spread of Covid-19.

It wasn’t the only thing 45-year-old head coach Russell saw cancelled, with his first season in charge at Germanys’s DEL 2 outfit EHC Freiburg having already been brought to a premature end.

As Russell quickly acknowledges, such disappointments are trivial when compared to the widespread suffering and heartache currently enveloping the world due to coronavirus.

But there is plenty of comfort to be taken from his first experience working overseas as a head coach being such an unqualified success.

Unlike leagues in the UK, Germany was at least able to finish its regular season, Russell steering a team tipped for relegation to a third-placed finish, an achievement which earned him the division’s coach of the year award.

Now, with the chance to rub shoulders with the likes of world-leading nations such as Canada and Sweden once again being taken away, Russell finds himself back home in Swindon preparing for a second campaign in south-west Germany, although it is not clear when that campaign will actually begin.

Earlier this week, the UK’s Elite League announced it would be starting its regular season a month later than usual due to the uncertainty surrounding the longer-term impact of coronavirus and it is likely that other leagues around the UK and Europe will also be put back.

Signings have already been made by Russell for 2020-21 and, back in Wiltshire for the summer, he will continue preparing for when he can get on the ice and behind the bench once again in a meaningful capacity.

“We had a really good season,” said Russell, “It was a young team and we were one of the favourites to be in the relegation playoffs but we just kept getting better.

“We had good consistency, a great dressing room and that helped massively. Guys started really believing in themselves.

“Right now we could have been in the second or maybe even the third round of the playoffs if we’d have managed to get that deep into it.

“It would have been interesting to see how we would have done because we were pretty good defensively and in the playoffs that is a big thing, to be good defensively in those tight games.”

One aspect of working in DEL 2 Russell thrived on was developing young German players, the rules allowing teams to only have four imports and that in order to have a full bench of 20 players during games, seven of them have to be aged 24 and under, with two of them Under-21s.

“Yes, there’s pressure because you still have to win hockey games but I quickly learned that how strong our team would be would depend on how much better our younger players got as the season went on,” said Russell.

“So to stick by them and watch them improve was great, I really enjoyed that side of it. Germany has a very good development model and that is why their national team is what it is now.

“They are a secondary power in Pool A, they are not with Canada and other countries like that yet, but they are good, there’s no doubting that.”

There’s no doubt the coaching award that came his way in March will have been immensely satisfying for Russell, although he is quick to point out the help he had from those around him.

“It was great because it is picked by the GM’s and coaches of the other teams,” he added. “I never realised, but it was probably one of the best seasons that Freiburg had ever had.

“You just want your team to do well and, personally to win that in Germany, yes it was fantastic. But it was all down to the club and the players – they made that happen. There was a real togetherness and we had some great listeners and learners and that always helps.

“When you have that in a team, that team improves. You can change things if people listen and learn – I was lucky in that way.”

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