Christian Dubé (47 years old) was a professional hockey player in the NHL, in Lugano, Bern and Fribourg-Gottéron. Between 2015 and 2024, he served as sports director and head coach at Fribourg-Gottéron. He now comments on hockey news for lematin.ch.
As you will have noticed, Fribourg-Gottéron, Genève-Servette and Zurich all changed coaches between December 22 and 30. Added to this are the changes made to Ajoie and Rapperswil earlier in the season. Apart from the Zurich case, where Marc Crawford resigned for health reasons, these are only dismissals following poor results.
Firing a coach is difficult because he’s still a human who has a family at home. However, I believe that Swiss clubs have become much more cautious than at the time about the idea of firing a coach. Sports directors wait until things are really bad sportingly to do it.
In my opinion, it has to do with the three-point victory and the very tight National League standings. The leaders always have the hope of moving up the hierarchy with a positive series. The financial aspect also comes into play. Contracts are longer and longer and the dismissal of a coach hurts a club’s budget. Take the example of Fribourg-Gottéron: the organization pays the salaries of three men.
The current situation in Switzerland nevertheless offers one observation: Ajoie, Friborg and Rapperswil are doing much better since a new man joined the gang. The Dragons have returned to the gates of the top 6 and the Lakers have a string of successes.
This is due to players taking responsibility and awareness. They have pride and they also know that they have to get off their butts. If the defeats continue after such a decision, it is no longer possible to hide and say that it is the coach’s fault. It becomes the fault of the locker room.
Thus, the results improve. Ultimately, if a team buys into a message and believes in it, it will work, regardless of the coach’s name. Conversely, if the team can no longer hear the same speech, it cannot work. It’s all a question of weariness in this environment.
I am well placed to talk about it. I managed Fribourg-Gottéron between 2019 and 2024. I felt this weariness. This is why I brought in Pat Emond as an assistant for the 2023-2024 season. The guys needed to hear a new voice.
Besides, I hardly said anything during training, because I’m emotional and I used to talk a lot. And people were tired of hearing the same thing five times a day.
