Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Italian Hockey

This week is hockey week on Here We Go Again and we went straight to the source to answer your most-asked questions about Italian ice hockey:

First of all, what made you decide to leave the American leagues and head for Europe?
I had played four years in North America and didn't love it - I didn't have the greatest professional experience there. Then, in 2011, I was presented with an opportunity that would allow the two of us to live in Italy for seven months, play half as many games [American leagues play 80 game seasons and the Italian league plays 42 game seasons] and always be home. When I spoke with the coach on the phone before I signed, he told me that I would be able to sleep in my own bed every night. In the AHL and ECHL we would often be on road trips for two or three weeks at a time which is exhausting. It seemed like a good opportunity and I was ready for a change, so we took it. Then we got here and once I started playing and feeling out the league, I realized what a great situation it was for me professionally so we stayed. When I said yes to Italy originally, I didn't realize that the situation would turn out as well as it did.

How is the Italian league different from leagues back home? What's the biggest difference?
In Italy all the teams play on Olympic-sized ice which makes for a different type of game. It means the game is more spread out [Olympic rinks are larger] and it allows for different types of play. There's not as much body contact, for example.
In North America, and in a few other European leagues, they play a four line system [meaning that there are four lines of play with three forwards and two defensemen]. In Italy, we play three lines. That means that players play more. So by the end of the game, the play is often slower since everyone is so tired; it's physically impossible to keep your speed up when you're playing that much.
Technically, fighting is not allowed in the league. But it falls into the same gray area as every other rule in Italy. Fighting is supposed to result in a game suspension but I've witnessed several fights and those involved got roughing penalties every time, never a game suspension.

The biggest difference though, is that North America works on a feeder system. The NHL is the top league and below that there is the AHL and ECHL. Each NHL team is associated with minor league teams and gets players sent up to them from these teams. It's difficult because you can get lost in the system. There are a lot of players and a lot of different agendas. There's the agenda of the NHL team and they often tell the minor league coaches who to play and where; there's the agenda of whatever minor league team you're playing on - sometimes that agenda is winning and doing well within that league, but sometimes their hands are tied by what's coming down to them from the NHL - what players they have to play, what lines they have to be on - then there's the agenda of the coach and then there's the agenda of the individual players. If you aren't a constant NHL player in North America, you're always competing with your teammates for open spots in a better league or on a better line. Each player has to look out for himself and that can often be detrimental to a team - when the players aren't working together, but are working individually to showcase their own skills.
The Italian league is different because for an import, there are no tiers. The tiers here are within the youth hockey program [under 8, under 10, under 12, etc. up to under 20]. So the players here come up through the tier in their own town and once they're old enough to play in the league, if they're good enough, they do.
In any case, it makes the team feel more like a unit. You don't have to look out for yourself, you have to look out for your team.

Does living abroad, in a foreign country, affect your job or your play?
No, almost the opposite. When I stepped away from North American pro hockey, I realized that the Italian league felt more comfortable to me. It could be because of my style of play - I'm not 6'4, 220 pounds - the open space [on the larger rink] helps my game. I almost immediately felt more comfortable in this setting.

How do you talk to the refs?!
It depends if they've made the correct call or not. If they have, I actually try to compliment them in Italian; if they haven't, I swear at them in English. [The Italian refs are famous for making odd calls while missing actual penalties and are completely used to being screamed at by angry Italians.]

Is the level of play comparable to what you find in North America?
In Italy the top lines are made up of players who didn't make it to [or in] the NHL but wanted to continue their careers, see the world, have a different experience or try something new. But the other part of the team is made up of mostly local players who have never played juniors, college, etc. because they've grown up in their own feeder system which isn't comparable to the USHL junior league in the US or the OHL and BCHL junior leagues in Canada.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about hockey in Italy?
That it's not good. I remember right after I signed with Cortina; that summer before we left I didn't train as hard as I normally do. My training and workout program wasn't as rigorous as it had been in the past when I was preparing to play in the AHL because I had my own impressions about the Italian league and what I'd find there. But when I got to Cortina, it was completely different than I had anticipated: a) It turned out that I hadn't trained enough! And b) the level of play throughout the league was higher than I had expected. There are some players in the league who have played over 200 NHL games.
And yes, there is hockey in Italy.

What's the most frustrating part of your job?
When you play hockey, a lot of what you do is up to the coach. He decides where to play you, how you should play, what he needs you to do. This is especially difficult with new coaches [in four years in Italy, Ryan has had three different coaches] because if they don't see what you can do right away, it can be difficult to shake that first impression or get back on track. You really have to be opportunistic though. In hockey, most players are at least given an opportunity - you just have to act on it.

And the most rewarding?
It gives us a chance to see the world while playing the game that I love most.

And speaking of, what do you love most about hockey?
I love that hockey is a combination of so many different things: athleticism, stamina, thought - you have to have knowledge of the other team; what players are effective - or not - and who is going to make the next move and what that move will be. Yes, it's a game but there's so much more to hockey than going out on the ice and scoring goals or fighting.

And there you have it! If anyone has other questions, please feel free to leave a comment! We also did a frequently asked hockey questions post on Wednesday. And also on Wednesday, my column in the Steamboat Today talked about what hockey means to me.

Frequently Asked Hockey Questions

In honor of hockey week we're doing another frequently asked questions post solely related to all the hockey questions we get.

First up: is there really hockey in Italy?!
Yes.

Do you live in the same apartment every year?
No. The team provides us with an apartment every year, and so far they have always been different (this is our apartment this year and this was the one we had last year). Someone from the team's management finds the apartment for us before we arrive in September and we don't have to do anything. If we don't like the apartment we're given, for some reason or other, we can switch, although this has never happened to us.

Do you own a car there?
The team also provides us with a car that we use for the time we're in Italy. This year we have a snappy little Saab.

How many teams are in the league?
Twelve. 

Are there teams all over Italy?
All the teams are in Northern Italy, but they are spread out from east to west. The farthest teams are Val Pellice which is about 8 hours away from Cortina, and Milan which is about 5. Most of the teams are between 2 and 3 hours away. The team never spends the night after away games, they always come home (although usually it's at about 3 am).

Do you go to all of Ryan's games?!
I go to all of his home games - usually there is at least one per week. If I go to an away game, it's one that's close to Cortina - my limit is two hours away. Usually I only go to away games if we have a visitor in town who wants to go.

What's an import?
An import is a player who is not from Italy and does not have an Italian passport. Every year, the league decides how many imports each team in the league is allowed to have. This year it's 4, last year it was 5 and the first year we were here, it was about 8. Players who have Italian passports (because they were born in Italy or have family members who were born in Italy) don't count as imports. Aside from the 4 imports, the rest of the team is made up of local Italian players. The majority of them are from Cortina, but some are from nearby towns.

Is the team coached in English?
Yes. For the past three years, the coach has been from North America. The first year we were here, the coach was a German-speaking Italian, and the team was still coached in English.

What's the rink like?
As I mentioned on Monday, all home games are played at the Stadio Olimpico del Ghiaccio. The rink was built in the early 1950s and holds a few thousand spectators. All teams in the Italian league play on Olympic-sized rinks which are bigger than typical NHL rinks.

Can we watch the games online?
Unfortunately no, but you can follow along on a live ticker via Pointstreak. The Italian league plays games every Thursday and Saturday nights and some Tuesdays.

How's the team doing?!
Obviously this answer changes week to week, but right now they are in 8th place.

Can you send me the schedule?
Again, unfortunately no. The Italian league LOVES to change the schedule every year and add in all kinds of different rounds. We only know the schedule up to December 13 this year and then the league will split into two halves (top and bottom) and those halves will play each other for a few weeks and determine rankings for playoffs. It's very confusing and no one TRULY understands it, not even the people who thought it up. Plus, each year is different. So, no, there is no schedule. This is Italy, after all.

I'm happy to answer any other questions that anyone has and next up, on Friday, Ryan will be answering a few of his own!

PS - More frequently asked questions: on driving, how we like living in Italy, if we speak Italian fluently and what we do all day.

It's Hockey Week!

This week is hockey week on Here We Go Again! We talk a lot about food and pasta and traveling and why we love Italy, but the whole reason that we're in Italy is....hockey! So this week we're going to talk about that.

For those of you who don't know the back story, Ryan played hockey (and won the 2005 National Championship) at the University of Denver (and many places before that - he's been on skates since he was five!) which is where we met.

After three years at DU he signed a contract with the Anaheim Ducks, beginning his pro career. From 2007-2011 he played in the AHL and ECHL in North America. He lived in Portland, Maine; Augusta, Georgia; Des Moines, Iowa; Saratoga, New York and Victoria, British Columbia.

Then, in 2011, he signed his first contract with Cortina. We came here in September that year and fell in love with the town, made new friends and had tons of adventures - and we got engaged here! We both wanted to come back for another season, so we did, and that turned into a few more seasons and now we're in our fourth year in Cortina.

One thing that's interesting about European hockey is that no one really knows about it in North America. But hockey is not just for Canada (and Boston!). Cortina's team was founded in 1924 and is celebrating 90 years of hockey this season - longer than most NHL teams have been around!

 Cortina plays in the top Italian league, called Serie A. This year there are 12 teams in the league and each team is allowed 4 imports (players from a country other than Italy). Cortina has two Americans, one Canadian and one Slovakian. Players who are from North America but have their Italian passports don't count as imports, which is one way to get around the import rule. (Cortina has one player like this, and another team in the league has about eight). All home games are played at the Stadio Olimpico del Ghiaccio,which was used during the 1956 winter Olympics. It's a small rink by Norther American standards, but the fans are loud and spirited.

There are many leagues and teams all over Europe; Austria, Germany, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Croatia, Slovenia and France all have teams. The top Russian league, the KHL, is making a push to rival the NHL in talent. There is hockey in England, in New Zealand and even in Japan. But for now, we only know about Italian hockey - and so, next up on Thursday, is everything you always wanted to know about Italian ice hockey!