We had already talked to the 62 year old Swed when he was in Hungary as an observer. Brithén has a strong coaching and management background and was responsible for the Danish youth system, which has become a stable A-Pool country since then.
Jim Brithén spent almost his entire playing career with Rögle as an offensive minded defenseman. As a coach he was in charge of Helsingborgs, Östraker, and Linköping before being named the head coach for Denmark during the 1996-97 season. Brithén would end up being the skipper for Denmark for the next five World Championships, he also had a strong influence on Denmark being a stable A-Pool nation as in his last season Denmark won promotion in 2002. Since his years with Denmark he has been a real hockey nomad, he was the head coach in Sweden, England and Austria, but also being in charge of youth systems in Sweden, Ukraine and Russia.
Brithén spent the first part of 2018 in Hungary as he helped the federation with what he observed and gave advice on what he thought was working and what could be changed. He had a similar position in Denmark to what he will have here in Hungary. Brithén will also be incharge of the mentor coaching program.
He will play a large part in developing and managing the players in the youth system and the coaches. He will be responsible for putting together a curriculum and starting the academy system in Hungary. He will also be developing the and directing the strategic development programs and will be responsible for the U14 through U18 national teams.
We asked Jim Brithén what his former players would say about him. “They would say I am very demanding, that I am detail oriented and they feel that I want each individual player to fulfill their potential. I want them to be the best possibly player they can be. I am very amitius, sometimes to much :)”
An interesting fact that before Jim arrived in Denmark the Danes had produced 4 players who were drafted by NHL teams, since then there have 19 players.
