It’s a time to celebrate and reflect on what coaches do for players, teams, and communities: teaching, motivating, uniting, making people better both on and off the field of play.
The International Council for Coaching Excellence (ICCE), which founded Global Coaches Day, estimates there are about 50 million coaches worldwide in different sports and disciplines.
Today, the IIHF salutes all coaches in men’s and women’s ice hockey who generously give their time, passion, and energy, right from the grassroots level to the Olympics and IIHF World Championships and the elite pro ranks. We are proud to offer the IIHF Coach Development Framework – along with various courses and symposiums – to help aspiring and established coaches hone their craft.
To mark Global Coaches Day, let’s take a quick look at six coaches who epitomized excellence in the 2025-26 season. Each led their national team to the gold medal at a top-division IIHF tournament.
Men’s World Championship
Antti Pennanen (FIN)
In February, Pennanen couldn’t quite push Finland over the proverbial finish line at the 2026 Olympics. In Milan, the defending champs from Beijing 2022 settled for the bronze medal with a 6-1 win over Slovakia. However, this 47-year-old Hyvinkaa native got glorious redemption in May. With Finnish captain Aleksander Barkov back from injury, Pennanen’s troops powered to gold with superb two-way play. They blanked host Switzerland 1-0 in the final in Zurich.
Cool Fact: Pennanen, who doubles as a therapist, understands the power of music. At the 2021 World Juniors, he used the metal song “Are You Dead Yet?” (Children of Bodom) to fire up his team before prevailing in the bronze medal game in Edmonton
World Junior Championship
Magnus Havelid (SWE)
Sweden has endured lengthy gold-medal droughts at the World Juniors, including a 31-year gap between titles in 1981 and 2012. Humble and honest, Havelid brought smiles to the faces of hockey fans from Stockholm to Skelleftea in 2026 when he put the Juniorkronorna back on top for the third time. He got the best out of soon-to-be NHL first-rounders like team scoring leader Ivar Stenberg (San Jose) and Anton Frondell (Chicago), who was named Best Forward. Sweden beat the Czechs 4-2 for gold in St. Paul.
Cool Fact: Havelid is the only coach ever to lead Sweden to gold twice at the IIHF Men’s U18 World Championship. In 2019, the host Swedes triumphed for the first time ever as Lucas Raymond scored a hat trick, including the overtime winner, in a 4-3 win over the Russians in Ornskoldsvik. In 2024, Havelid’s blue-and-yellow team rode a 47-save performance by his nephew – goalie Hugo Havelid – to stun the U.S 6-4 for gold in Landshut.
Courtney Kennedy (USA)
The best things are worth waiting for. Kennedy – who won Olympic silver in 2002 and bronze in 2006 as a defender – spent most of her coaching career as an assistant or associate coach with Boston College. When she earned the chance to make her head coaching debut with the U18 women’s national team, she capitalized. Confident and relentless, the Americans smashed their competition with a perfect record and 56-2 goal difference. Kennedy’s girls topped host Canada 2-0 in the gold medal game in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Cool Fact: While Kennedy was born in Woburn, Massachussetts, she had a special family connection to Cape Breton Island, the site of the 2026 U18 Women’s Worlds. Her late grandmother Eileen Larkin (Caldwell) grew up about 20 minutes away from the arena in Sydney.
Men’s U18 World Championship
Johan Rosen (SWE)
Guiding the U18 men’s national team in 2025-26, Rosen emphasized playing a complete game with a warrior mentality. Disheartening losses to the Czechs (2-1) and U.S. (9-1) tested the young Swedes’ character in the group stage. Fortunately, their coach – a former Elitserien champ with Lulea (1996) and DEL champ with Munich (2000) – helped them excel in the playoffs. After hard-fought wins over Canada (4-2) in the quarter-finals and Czechia (4-3 in overtime) in the semi-finals, Rosen’s boys defeated the host Slovaks in the gold medal game (4-2).
Cool Fact: If the name “Rosen” makes you prick up your ears as a Winnipeg Jets fan, your instincts serve you well. Forward Isak Rosen, who joined the Jets in a March trade, is the nephew of Johan Rosen. The 23-year-old hopes to establish himself as an NHL regular this season after previously shining with Buffalo’s AHL affiliate, the Rochester Americans.
Olympic Winter Games – Men
Mike Sullivan (USA)
It was the greatest USA Hockey moment since the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” in Lake Placid. Mike Sullivan – who coached Sidney Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins to Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017 – stood behind the bench as Jack Hughes scored the golden goal to shock archrival Canada 2-1 in the 2026 Olympic final. The Americans, who showed they could grind it out or dazzle with skill under Sullivan’s tutelage, were the only undefeated squad in Milan.
Cool Fact: As a journeyman NHL forward, Sullivan played 709 regular season games and was far better-known for his defensive abilities – like shadowing Vancouver’s Pavel Bure – than his offensive touch. His four career playoff goals included a surprising hat trick in Calgary’s 9-2 romp over San Jose in a 1995 first-round matchup. Afterwards, Sullivan said: “I haven’t had a hat trick since bantam.”
Olympic Winter Games – Women
John Wroblewski (USA)
With a 33-2 goal difference in Milan, Team USA hammered home their current status as the world’s best women’s hockey team. Wroblewski orchestrated this incredible onslaught with a blend of elite PWHL pros and NCAA all-star talent. Critically, he put the right skaters on the ice with just over two minutes left in the final when the Americans trailed Canada 1-0. After an offensive-zone faceoff, Laila Edwards took a centre-point shot, enabling the legendary Hilary Knight to tip in the equalizer. That set the stage for Megan Keller’s 2-1 sudden-death winner.
Cool Fact: In 2023, “Wrobo” made a hiring decision that underscored the family feeling within USA Hockey. He brought in Ellen Hughes – a 1992 Women’s Worlds all-star defender and the mother of NHL stars Quinn Hughes, Jack Hughes, and Luke Hughes – to serve as a player development consultant. She helped the U.S. win gold in February.
The IIHF thanks all coaches around the world, across all countries, levels and age categories of hockey, for their dedication and for creating the best possible environment for athletes.