Never before has a Swiss-born coach made the leap to the NHL. The German Marco Sturm is now only the fourth non-North American ever to work as an NHL head coach.
18.10.2025, 05:00
18.10.2025, 07:15
SDA
Whenever German ice hockey history has been written in the past 30 years, the name Marco Sturm has not been far away. Sturm made his NHL debut in 1997 at the age of 19 and is still the German with the most games in the best league in the world with 1006 games. In 2018, he sensationally led the German national team to a historic silver medal at the Olympic Games as coach. Since this season, the now 47-year-old has also been the first German-born NHL head coach.
"Of course I have butterflies in my stomach, I have to be honest," said Sturm, who has been head coach of the Boston Bruins since the summer. The team, which missed the playoffs last season for the first time since 2016, has made a successful start to the season with three wins from five games. "I'm not really surprised. They've worked very hard right from the start. Fortunately, they are now getting the reward they deserve," said Sturm, expressing his satisfaction with his players.
Boston is not just any team. Not in the NHL, but not for Sturm either. He had his best time as a professional in Boston between 2005 and 2010. The people in the city love the Bavarian, who scored the decisive goal against the Philadelphia Flyers in an outdoor game at Fenway Park baseball stadium in 2010. "People haven't forgotten that to this day," Sturm recalls, beaming. "That's why I have a little more credit."
Sturm to shape the upheaval
The Bruins are considered the most traditional ice hockey team in the USA and are a founding member of the NHL. After a botched pre-season, the six-time Stanley Cup champions needed a shake-up. A new coach was needed - and the choice fell on Sturm, who had been preparing for this opportunity for years after winning an Olympic silver medal in 2018. "That was the turning point in my coaching career," says Sturm.
The unexpected success also brought the NHL veteran back into the focus of the best league in the world as a coach. First as co-coach of the Los Angeles Kings and later as coach of the Kings farm team Ontario Reign in the second-tier professional league AHL, he warmed up for the NHL. The fact that Sturm is the first native German to have made it to such a position is anything but a matter of course.
To understand the scale of it: The head coaching jobs of the 32 NHL teams are traditionally only given to Americans or Canadians. In the more than 100-year history of the league, there were exactly three head coaches before Sturm who were not from North America. "To be honest, I don't even think about it. But when I get questions about it or read about it, of course it makes me very, very proud," Sturm admitted to sportschau.de.
Sturm is now more or less half American. Apart from a brief interruption during his time as national coach between 2015 and 2018, he has now lived in the USA for 28 years. People know and appreciate him, and he has built up an important network over almost 30 years.
Sturm makes an immediate impact
And Sturm is well received. "It's been a long time since the camp has been so competitive and physical," praises Boston superstar David Pastrnak. "Marco did a good job of explaining how he envisages our style of play, which makes it quite easy for us." Sturm was already regarded as a "man-catcher" as national coach.
Whether Sturm can lead the Bruins into the playoffs again remains to be seen, despite the largely successful start to the season. In fact, Boston is once again only considered an outsider. Nevertheless, Sturm has already given the team a new face.
"We've recently moved away from what makes the Bruins special. The standard of commitment that we want to have every day has been lost. That was my main issue," Sturm said when analyzing the preseason. "We want to get back to that. I explained what I will demand from the players every day. That was my message."
