ST. PAUL, Minn. – Bob Motzko isn’t in the habit of turning down coaching opportunities with USA Hockey. And when one of those opportunities just happens to be in his home state of Minnesota?
“Of course, you have to say yes,” he said.
The 2026 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championship comes to the Twin Cities at the end of the year, and USA Hockey tapped Motzko on Tuesday to coach the two-time defending champions.
Motzko, the University of Minnesota men’s head coach, will lead the U.S. National Junior Team for the third time, having also guided the Americans to gold in 2017 and bronze the following year. Now, he’ll do it in the marquee Under-20 tournament’s first visit to the “State of Hockey” in more than four decades.
“It is truly the greatest tournament outside of the Olympics, in all of hockey,” Motzko said Tuesday at the Xcel Energy Center, where the U.S. will play its Group A preliminary round games and also which will host the semifinals and bronze and gold-medal games. 3M Arena at Mariucci in Minneapolis will host Group B preliminary round competition in the 10-nation event.
Minnesota is home for Motzko. The 64-year-old was born and raised in Austin, which is located in the southern part of the state. He played his college hockey farther north at St. Cloud State. Since coming to Minneapolis in 2018, he’s reestablished the Golden Gophers as perennial national championship contenders.
The local connections are only a bonus, said John Vanbiesbrouck, the Team USA general manager and assistant executive director for hockey operations at USA Hockey.
“He has experience, and we need his experience,” Vanbiesbrouck said. “It's going to take a lot. We've been on a lot of foreign soil for this tournament the past few years, and we haven't hosted. So we needed somebody with his experience, his leadership, and obviously it was just a perfect fit.”
Motzko first made his name as a head coach at his alma mater, leading St. Cloud State to eight NCAA Tournaments and the 2013 Frozen Four over 13 seasons. In seven years and counting at Minnesota, his Gophers teams have reached two more Frozen Fours and are coming off a fifth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament.
Much has changed since Motzko first manned the bench for the U.S. National Junior Team.
The U.S. won the World Juniors in 2004, 2010 and 2013, but in any given tournament, Motzko said, “It was just a hope and a prayer for USA Hockey to win a medal.”
Then Motzko’s 2017 team swept through its seven games in Montreal and Toronto, clinching the championship when Troy Terry scored the lone goal in a title-game shootout against Canada. Since then, the Americans have won three more championships and six total medals, including the bronze that Motzko’s team earned in 2018 in Buffalo, New York.
“That’s how far USA Hockey has come,” Motzko said. “We’re in a position where our players know what to do, our players have played on the international stage, and they are driven to be in this tournament. It's just in the blood now. There comes expectations on USA Hockey.”
Motzko inherits a U.S. team that won back-to-back championships for the first time. Eight players from last year’s team remain eligible for this year’s tournament, including Cole Hutson of Boston University, Team USA’s leading scorer last tourney, and Brodie Ziemer, who Motzko coaches at Minnesota.
The U.S. staff will have an early opportunity to evaluate players at the World Junior Summer Showcase, a four-team tournament including Canada, Finland and Sweden that runs July 25-Aug. 2 in Minneapolis.
“It’s been one of the major pillars to how we build a team, but also how we have to get prepared to play,” Vanbiesbrouck said.
By the time the 25-man U.S. squad is named in December, Motzko is confident they’ll have a group that can contend for the tournament’s first three-peat since Canada won five in a row from 2005 to 2009.
“USA Hockey is probably in the best spot it’s ever been from a talent pool,” he said. “You’re going to see it on display out here tonight [at the Wild-Ducks game]. You’ll see it all over the National Hockey League, and we’ll just go through the process to build this team.”
That leads back to the tournament itself. The last time World Juniors came to Minnesota was in 1982, when the competition was a much smaller affair. Or, as Motzko puts it, “No one even knew what the tournament was.”
When the puck drops at this year’s tournament — the 50th edition — on Dec. 26, more than 200,000 fans are expected to attend games at the Xcel Energy Center and across the river at 3M Arena at Mariucci in Minneapolis.
In a state that’s long embraced hockey at every level, Motzko said, World Juniors will be a special opportunity for his fellow Minnesotans.
“They’re going to be shocked at how big-time it is,” Motzko said. “We have to do a great job educating, but when they see the talent and the type of play, they’re going to be shocked. And they’re going to be shocked by how many people from all around the world come to our state. It’s an international event.”
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.
Source: usahockey.com