Enio Sacilotto: world champion, at last.
The Burnaby hockey coach won his first international gold medal last weekend after leading Croatia's national team to the 2024 IIHF Men's Division 2A World Championship.
The 65-year-old bench boss guided the red, blue and white to a perfect 5-0 record at the six-team tournament in Belgrade, Serbia.
Croatia shut out the host nation by a score of 3-0 last Saturday, April 27, to take the trophy and earn its first divisional promotion in six years.
As a result of Sacilotto's strategies, Croatia will play in Division 1B next year — three steps below the top tier of international hockey, which includes Canada and the United States.
Croatia's game-by-game results were as follows:
- 3-0 win over Serbia (gold medal game)
- 5-1 win over Israel
- 4-1 win over United Arab Emirates
- 3-2 win over Australia
- 11-2 win over Iceland
For Sacilotto, this was his fifth world hockey medal across his tenure as a coach for a Croatian national team.
He has silver medals from three events: the 2019 2A world championship, the 2018 2B world junior championship and the 2014 world under-17 hockey championship with Canada Pacific.
Sacilotto recently led Burnaby Hockey Academy to the Canadian Sport School Hockey League (CSSHL) championship in the under-17 prep tier 3 division.
He helped the Grandview Steelers, as an associate coach, to a record of 24-22-0-2 and a berth in the 2024 Pacific Junior Hockey League (PJHL) playoffs.
The Steelers lost in three games, 2-1, in the opening round to the White Rock Whalers.
