Bengt-Ã…ke Gustafsson
Bengt -Åke Gustafsson ( born March 23, 1958 in Karlskoga ) is a retired Swedish professional ice hockey player and current coach.
Playing career
He was pulled from the Washington Capitals in the NHL Amateur Draft 1978 in the fourth round as 55ster. His career in North America began at the time playing in the WHA Edmonton Oilers. When the Oilers entered in the following season in the NHL, the Capitals made their rights to claim him. For this, he played nine seasons long. In 1989 he moved back to his native Sweden, where he was held for four years for Färjestad BK Karlstad. He then played at the end of his career for five years in Austria in VEU Feldkirch, where he in 1998 achieved a remarkable success, as the team's first of the German-speaking European Hockey League - with players like Reinhard Divis, Rick Nasheim, Simon Wheeldon Dominic Lavoie and his longtime colleague Thomas Rundqvist under coach Ralph Krueger and the assistant coach Konrad Dorn - could win.
Coaching career
- Assistant coach of the Swiss national team 1997-2001
- Head coach of the VEU Feldkirch 1998/99
- Head coach of SC Langnau 1999-2001
- Head coach of Färjestad BK 2001-2005
- Head coach of the SCL Tigers 2013 - current
On 14 February 2005 Gustafsson was introduced as the new head coach of the Swedish national team. 2006 succeeded under his leadership the double - that is Tre Kronor won first in Turin, the Olympic Hockey Tournament and the same year the Ice Hockey World Championship 2006 in Riga, what a novelty represented. After the World Cup 2010, he resigned from his position as national coach.
In October 2010, he got a job at the ZSC Lions and signed there a contract until the end of the season, which in March 2011 after leaving the ZSC Lions in the quarterfinals of the playoffs against the Kloten Flyers not been extended. He was then to November 2011 Trainer of Atlant Mytischtschi. December 9, 2012 to March 21, 2013, he was coach of the Nuremberg Ice Tigers.