Canadians work in the game of hockey throughout the world, lending passion and expertise to professional and amateur organizations across continents. This is the case for both full-fledged hockey powers as well as nations where hockey is rarely top-of-mind except among a small group of dedicated athletes, such as Australia.

Highly regarded as a sporting nation but with only approximately 4,500 ice hockey players in a nation of 22.8 million people, the Australian Ice Hockey Federation reached out to Nova Scotia native and current University of Ottawa Masters of Business Administration student Pier Martin to take the reigns as Head Coach of their Under 18 national team back in 2008.

Now twenty six and an assistant coach with the uOttawa Gee-Gees men’s hockey team, Martin had been living in Australia since 2003 after his father retired from the Royal Canadian Air Force and signed on to fly for the Royal Australian Air Force. “He didn’t want to be a teacher, he wanted to keep flying,” says Martin, explaining the move. The family had also lived down under for a time during the nineties, participating in an exchange of pilots between the two forces. So when 2003 rolled around and he found himself in Adelaide, Martin already felt at home. He began playing and coaching hockey in local leagues.

He quickly distinguished himself as a coach, guiding the Under 15 South Australia state team to three national championships. “I was coaching in the local league and they needed someone to coach the State team. I think there was one other guy and they threw our name in a hat,” he laughs, remembering how he got on the national team’s radar. He attended national coaching clinics and was asked to join the national junior program as an assistant coach in 2007. He also became the National Player Development Director for Ice Hockey Australia.

This year he led a team of twenty to the IIHF U18 World Championship for Division 2, Group B. Held in Novi Sad, Serbia at the end of March, the tournament pitted teams from Australia, China, Spain, Estonia, and Iceland against the host Serbians for a chance to move up into the IIHF’s Group A.

Preparing for this year’s tournament posed a new challenge for Martin. Although he had been tracking his players’ development through the sport system for years and had taken teams to four previous world championships, this was the first time he guided the team while not living in Australia. The savvy coach turned to social media as his key team communication tool, which he acknowledges is becoming even more essential as a coaching aid even within the wide geography of Australia’s borders, not to mention Canada’s.

The team was required to register for Skype for regular individual update sessions with Martin, as well as group video gatherings on fitness testing and on-ice tactics. And the players bought in.  “We’d go through the systems and demonstrate how to do the fitness testing properly. They could ask questions and it made for a classroom environment instead of me just sending them a book to read. They seemed to know it better than in the past when we got together for the tournament.”

The team also set up two Facebook pages – one for fans to follow their progress and one which was internal, just for players and coaching staff to keep each other up to date on their training and to post videos, photos, and jokes which brought the team together. “I found it effective; being able to see each other created more of a sense of team so by the time we went away [to the tournament] there was already a bond in place.”  

“I know [the tournament this year] was a great experience for him, and it’s good for him to go and get that experience and share it with our team,” said Gee-Gees Head Coach Réal Paiement, who has done his fair share of international coaching. The pair worked closely together this year, guiding the Gee-Gees to the second round of the OUA Playoffs. Martin also leant his knowledge of the power of social media to the Garnet and Grey, creating an active and engaging Facebook page for the team.

The Aussies went 1-3-1 at the tournament, pulling out a 2-0 victory over China and narrowly losing to Spain 2-1 in overtime.  The four points the team collected in Serbia ties the highest point total ever for the Aussies at a Division 2 championship. Australia was promoted to Division 2 after they won the 2011 Division 3 World Championships last April with Martin behind the bench. “We’ve been bumping up and down between the divisions the last couple of years,” says Martin, but he sees the growth of his team.

 “The thing that I’m really proud of is that the program is much more professional now, and the experience of playing for their country deserves that professionalism. They’re in the community volunteering on the side, being role models. They still pay to play on the team, but they are taking it seriously as a program.” One of the factors pushing that professionalism is that Martin sees the growth in born and bred Australians excelling at the sport.

“The talent pool is growing, absolutely. Where we used to have difficulty bringing in enough elite kids to make a team, we now have the depth to have a hard look at about thirty guys for the twenty spots.”

Although he believes his trans-Pacific coaching style was effective, Martin is stepping away from the program, handing the reigns over to an assistant coach who resides down under. “The guy before me was Canadian, and before that it was a Czech,” notes Martin of the previous U18 head coaches. “It’s time for an Australian to have it back again.”