Right after the IIHF tournament, in which he got silver with Great Britain, Luca Del Vecchio flew to Italy, to his hometown of Milan for a week. The game of hockey not being popular enough in Italy coupled with the rise of half-italian players succeeding on the international stage has set it motion a revival for the winter sport in the nation. Invited to speak at his old club, the Milano Vipers, the turnout was so big, that teams from across northern Italy came to listen in. A translated extract of his speech roughly said:

“It’s not the most popular sport around here, and it’s doesn’t have any history in this country but we have managed to grow it and send more than a few players to big leagues around the world. The SHL is an incredibly tough league to succeed in. I know it. I was in your skates once. At the end of the day, it’s the ones with the passion to come to play every day, every training, every game that will succeed. The ones that eat, sleep, breath hockey. And we need more of these here.”

The speech made minor news in Italy’s most popular sports paper, La Gazzetta.
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