It’s hard to believe, but we are just two months away from the return of NHL players to the Winter Olympics. Absent from Olympic play since 2014, it’ll be the Games debut for a whole lot of the world’s best players, and coaches as well.

Veteran NHL coach and former Toronto Maple Leafs draft pick Peter DeBoer is one certainly excited for his Olympics debut, set to serve as assistant coach for Team Canada in Milan. On Thursday, DeBoer joined Daily Faceoff’s Morning Cuppa Hockey, sharing what it means to get to be behind the bench at the marquee tournament.

“This is really the pinnacle of international coaching,” he said.

“Maybe the highlight of my coaching career, being able to coach in an Olympic Games. It’s a pinch-me type moment for me and I’m glad I’m gonna get to experience the whole thing. Because I’m not with a team, we get to get to the village a week early, we get to move in, we get to get things ready and see some other events. Once the event starts for us, as coaches there’s not a lot of time to enjoy that experience. So I’m gonna get to do a little bit of that, so it’s gonna be awesome, I can’t wait.”

DeBoer is returning behind the bench in the same role he served at last year’s 4 Nations Face-Off, helping coach Canada to Gold under head coach Jon Cooper and with assistants Bruce Cassidy and Rick Tocchet, all back with the team this year.

“We got a great staff,” he said. “The US did the same thing, the same staff that went to the 4 Nations is carried over into the Olympics. We’re basically carrying over the same roles that we had. I ran the defence and the penalty, (Cassidy) ran the power play, Tocchet was at the offensive end of the bench with Cooper, did a lot of specialty situations, O-zone stuff. That’s how we kind of divided it up.”

Given the success Canada had at that tournament, it was an easy decision to carry over the same coaching team. And DeBoer shared it’s given them the opportunity to really break down last year’s tournament and carry lessons learned to Milan

“The benefit of keeping the staff together from 4 Nations is I think we learned a ton at 4 Nations, about our group, about style of play, about what systems we felt worked, what didn’t work,” he said. “The consistency of the staff allowed us in the summer to really take a look back at the 4 Nations, keep the things we wanted to keep, throw out and fix the things we thought wouldn’t work at the Olympics. That’s been a great process.”

Check out the full episode with Pete DeBoer here, and tune into Morning Cuppa Hockey with Jonny Lazarus and Colby Cohen Mondays through Thursday at 9am on Daily Faceoff’s YouTube Channel.

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