Kevin Constantine, welcome to Vienna! What are your thoughts on your move to Vienna Capitals?
I am happy to work for an organization like the Vienna Capitals. I’ve been in the league before and I respect it. My two years in Fehérvár were very nice. I coached here against the Capitals several times. So I know the city and the league. It’s exciting to be coaching in such a good league again.
As you mentioned, you and Fehérvár have already been guests at the STEFFL Arena a few times as opponents. What are some memories you have of it?
It is known that the Vienna Capitals have the most loyal fans in the league, as the viewer numbers show. Vienna is also a great city. In Fehérvár, the Vienna Capitals were always something of a rival. That was our geographically closest opponent at the time. That’s what always made the games special. I’m looking forward to working as a Caps coach at the STEFFL Arena this time.
You are known to meticulously prepare for every situation. So I assume you’ve already learned a lot about the team. What did you notice?
It felt like I was watching everything at three times the speed; the team looked really fast. (laughs) I look at the team as a whole and try to figure out what is already working and where I might be able to help. There are definitely elements that the team does well, like the special teams for example. The power play and penalty kill are in the top half in a league comparison. You don’t have to focus on these areas in the first place if you can, for example, improve the five-on-five game. I’ve already watched all of the team’s games. The situation can perhaps be compared to a car. When you get a car repaired, you take care of the things that don’t work.
What do the coming days look like? The next league game is on Wednesday.
A third of the season is already over. There is still enough time, but the playoffs are already in a few months, so we can’t waste any time. From my experience, I can say that it will take between five and eight weeks for the program to be implemented. There are no shortcuts. It makes no difference whether you start in August or now during the season, there are certain steps you have to complete. Yes, we’re only starting together now, but we’re already laying a foundation for the playoffs. Everything we do now should benefit us in the post-season. We will start this process as quickly as possible.
Every coach has their own ideas when it comes to playing style or philosophy. What would you like to see from your team on the ice?
Three things: I believe that you can achieve maximum success by playing the game extremely hard. We have a really specific idea of what that means. Playing hard can mean different things to different people, but we know what it means to us. We can monitor this, measure it and quickly detect if this is not done. The second thing is to get to work in detail. It doesn’t matter whether you call it a system or a structure, but I think it’s helpful if all the players act as a team. Thirdly, you can call it speed, but for me it’s about speed of mind. Ice hockey is a fast sport. Within one shift you may have to switch from offense to defense and vice versa five or six times. In these situations you have to quickly decide what to do next. Hopefully by the end we can play hard, detail-oriented and fast-minded.
If you look at your career so far, you’ll notice that you’ve taken over teams that weren’t doing so well and then been successful. You’re still the record holder in the NHL, where you secured the largest point increase from one year to the next with the San Jose Sharks. What are some of the actions one needs to take to initiate a turnaround?
The team decided to make a change because they have goals for the season. In this case it concerns the coach, but sometimes it also concerns players. If you can improve one or two elements for each of the 20-plus players on the ice, that’s over 40 improvements if you want to look at it that way. The devil is in the details. If you do the little things well, you can achieve great things. I try to do the little things right and then the big picture will fall into place.
Even though you’re with a different team now, I guess it helps that you already know the league through Fehérvár, right?
I think it’s a small advantage. However, I think that 90 percent of success depends on doing the things you need to do during a game correctly. No matter where I am, the focus is on making sure we design the game the way we see fit and the details are right. My experience in the league gives me a small advantage, but the individual teams have also changed in recent years. So it will take some time until I’m up to date, but that won’t matter for next month. Because that’s how long it will take until our own game is solidified. Once that’s done, we’ll make adjustments based on the opponent.
On the other hand, isn’t it exciting that the first test with the new team is taking place in just a few days and the games are coming up in quick succession?
I have noticed that players want to complete a maximum of four training sessions during the season before playing again. We have five days before the first game in Budapest. It would be good if we had more time or a proper camp to prepare everything, but on the other hand, after a few days of training, everyone just wants to play. So I think it’s not such a bad thing if we play a lot of games in a short space of time.
