Ivan Hlinka - Coaching Career

Coaching Career

After his return to Czechoslovakia, Hlinka began to coach in “his” Litvínov; later he coached temporarily in Freiburg, Germany.

He also became very famous for his trick in the 1986–87 season. Litvínov was in the last place in the table of the Czechoslovak league. Hlinka, already 37 years old, began to play again. Litvínov immediately improved its game and during Hlinka's first games did not lose (6 wins, 2 ties). Altogether, he played in 19 games and got 23 points (5+18).

In the 1990s, he was a coach of Czechoslovak and later Czech national teams. His teams won bronze medals at the Albertville Olympics and the World Championships in 1992 and 1993. He left the national team after unsuccessful World Championship in 1994.

He came back in 1997 and his team won bronze medals at the World Championship again. Hlinka became a national hero when his team won gold medals at the Nagano Olympics; the first time that the NHL agreed to release its players for the Games. The triumph was celebrated by a whole nation which did not forget him. The dominance of the Czech ice-hockey in the world was confirmed one year later when Hlinka's team won the World Championship.

In 2000–01, Hlinka returned to the NHL as head coach of the Pittsburgh Penguins He was the second European ever to coach in the NHL (following Alpo Suhonen). His first season also coincided with Mario Lemieux's return to the NHL, and together they made a surprising run to the Eastern Conference Finals, knocking off the higher seeded Washington Capitals and Buffalo Sabres along the way before falling to the New Jersey Devils. The next season was not successful, as the struggling small-market Penguins had traded their superstar, Jaromir Jagr. Hlinka himself was criticized by Lemieux for not taking classes in the summer to improve his English and that contributed to the frosty relationship between them. He was fired four games into the 2001–02 season and returned to Europe.

In 2001–02, he worked as a general manager of Czech national team and in 2002, he became a coach of Russian team Avangard Omsk for one season.