Hired by HC Lugano on December 21 to replace Finnish Sami Kapanen, Serge Pelletier fulfilled his mission by putting the Bianconeri back on track in a few weeks.
Since the 54-year-old Quebec coach took over the team, Lugano has moved from 11th to 7th place with nine wins in 14 games under his command. It will be necessary to be wary of the Ticino club, about to win a place in the play-off.
With seven wins in regular time for three losses in the last ten games, Lugano is fueled at full speed …
We had a great run and the team’s current performance is very nice to see. We have won some big games recently, including the derby against Ambri on Tuesday (5-1). The group is doing well, for sure, and they have found a good balance. In 2020, our cruising speed was very high with an average of more than two points per match (note: 2.25).
When Lugano started looking for a new coach at the end of December, your name never made it to the list of potential candidates. Why did the sporting director Hnat Domenichelli choose you?
He was looking for someone who could quickly get the team back on track. Just under 20 games from the end of the regular season, HC Lugano was going nowhere and there was little time to act. As I know perfectly Swiss hockey and especially the Luganese place, I became a very interesting and quite logical candidate.
You stayed several months without training a team. Was this “receding” period beneficial to you in any way?
Yes, because it allowed me to step back and take a fresh and different look at hockey. When you train a team on a daily basis, you are most of the time “head in the handlebars”. The fact of being without a club allowed me to breathe and dwell on details. It was good for me, I’m sure.
The HC Lugano includes a large core of “routiners”, players like Julien Vauclair, Alessandro Chiesa or Raffaele Sannitz. How did the nucleus of the team welcome you?
I think they were happy to see me again, and I was also happy to work with this group of players again. Above all, they found the pleasure of playing hockey after a complicated start to the season.
What were your priorities when you took over the team?
The first was to restore confidence in this group of players. I’ve made a lot of alignment and tactical changes. It was almost like a new championship was starting for us. The advantage was that I had already trained many players, whether in Lugano or even Friborg in the past, like Romain Loeffel. I knew each other’s qualities and needs, which allowed me to waste no time and make the right decisions. I knew where to place such and such a player according to his style and his aptitudes.
Lugano has not yet become “Il grande Lugano” again, but it has at least regained its grinta and its emotions …
The best remedy is victories. With success, emotions, whether in the locker room or on the ice, also returned.
Your team is in good shape at the right time, just over two weeks before the start of the play-off. Can Serge Pelletier and HC Lugano create a surprise and make a big move?
When I took over the team, it was 11th in the standings, so you can imagine that no one in Ticino is talking about a title yet. We’re now above the bar, but there is still work to do before qualifying for the playoffs. Once this is done, anything can happen, as a new competition will start and the counters will be reset. A team starting the play-off in good shape, especially in a season like this where no favorite has knocked out the championship, can create great surprise.
You will face GE Servette on Saturday in Ticino…
This team has completed a magnificent journey so far. I’m really happy for Patrick Emond, who was my center player at the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivière at the time, then my assistant in Lugano with the junior elites. This will be the second time this season, after our 2-0 victory in Geneva on January 14, that we will coach one against the other.
Created: 13.02.2020, 19h02
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