Mike Pelino will assist Mike Keenan on Italy men’s hockey coaching staff
Mike Davies
Former Peterborough Petes head coaches Mike Keenan and Mike Pelino are teaming up again, this time to coach Italy’s national men’s hockey team through to when they host the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Pelino, a Welland native and Welland Sports Wall of Fame inductee, Class of 2013, played for Keenan with the Oshawa Legionnaires and the University of Toronto Blues.
Keenan brought Pelino onto his 1991 Canada Cup coaching staff and hired him as an assistant coach with the National Hockey League’s Florida Panthers. They worked together on the reality TV series “Making the Cut” and teamed together for three seasons in Russia where they led Metallurg Magnitogorsk to the Gagarin Cup as Kontinental Hockey League champions.
Keenan will serve as head coach and Pelino as associate coach in guiding Italy through international competition leading up to the Olympics taking place in the Italian cities of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo. That includes two international tournaments this year and the 2023 International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) Division 1A World Championships in Nottingham, England, next spring.
Italy is trying to work its way back up to the IIHF’s top level after being relegated following its 11th-place finish at the 2022 World Championships.
Pelino didn’t return to the KHL this season after nine years coaching in Russia and also turned down an offer to coach China’s national team. He was looking for an opportunity that would allow him to keep Millbrook as his home.
This job will only require him to travel for international events, national team training camps and to scout prospects for Team Italy.
“First of all, I’d be going to the Olympics. The idea that it’s a national team was enticing,” said Pelino, who was a video coach for Canada’s gold medal winning team at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.
“The fact my father (Lou Pelino) was born in Italy and that’s a part of my heritage made it that much more special.
“I did not want to relocate and move away from Ontario.”
And there was the opportunity work with Keenan again.
“That’s pretty special, too,” Pelino, who turns 63 next month, said. “In my opinion Mike Keenan deserves to be in the Hockey Hall of Fame.
“He’s an outstanding person and we’ve had a great relationship for a long time. I like our synergy.”
Keenan was already in Italy and Pelino joined him for an introductory news conference and to begin preparing for a tournament in Hungary next month.
Keenan ranks 15th all-time in NHL coaching wins. After guiding the Petes to the 1980 Ontario Hockey League championship and Memorial Cup final, University of Toronto to a Canadian championship and the Hershey Bears to the American Hockey League’s Calder Cup, Keenan coached in the NHL from 1984 to 2009 winning the Stanley Cup with the New York Rangers in 1994 and Canada Cup titles in 1987 and 1991. He returned to coaching in 2013 in Russia.
“I have had many wonderful international experiences, but this is both a challenge and a unique opportunity for me,” Keenan said in a news release. “I find it exciting to be able to follow a process of building and developing a team in view of an Olympics, plus as a host country: this experience will also give me the opportunity to learn about new and different facets of the game.
“I’ve coached Team Canada in the past and I’m used to setting up competitive teams while not being able to coach them day by day. I want my players to excel, to want results, to be instilled with the idea of success and to be able to compete under pressure.”
From 1987 until 1997, Pelino was head coach of the Brock University men’s hockey team and served as head coach of the Peterborough Petes for parts of three seasons beginning in 2010-11.
